Reality is the twenty-fourth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, originally released in Europe on 15September 2003, and the following day in America. His second release through his own ISO label, the album was recorded between January and May 2003 at Looking Glass Studios in New York City, with production by Bowie and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti. Most of the musicians consisted of his then-touring band. Bowie envisioned the album as a set of songs that could be played live.

A mostly straightforward rock album with a more direct sound compared to its predecessor Heathen (2002), Reality contains covers of the Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" and George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some". One of the tracks, "Bring Me the Disco King", dated back to 1992. A primary theme throughout Reality concerns reflections on ageing, while other songs focus on despaired and diminished characters. The cover artwork depicts Bowie as an anime-style character that exhibited the idea that reality had become an abstract concept.

Released under a variety of CD formats, Reality charted in numerous countries and reached number three in the United Kingdom. It failed to outperform Heathen in the United States, reaching number 29. The album was not supported through conventional single releases, although "New Killer Star" and "Never Get Old" appeared in some countries. Reality received largely positive reviews from music critics on release, with many highlighting the music, lyrics, vocal performances and the growing maturity in Bowie's songwriting.

Bowie supported the album on the worldwide A Reality Tour throughout 2003 and 2004, his biggest and final concert tour, which ended prematurely after Bowie was hospitalised for a blocked artery. Bowie thereafter largely retreated from public life and did not release another studio album until The Next Day in 2013, making Reality his last album of original material for ten years.

Recording and production Writing David Bowie began writing songs immediately after the Heathen Tour ended in October 2002. His new distribution deal with Columbia Records gave him the freedom to record at his own pace, so he was eager to return to the studio quickly. He elected to bring back Tony Visconti to co-produce the new album after the pair's successful renewed partnership with Heathen (2002). He stated:

Bowie and Visconti began initial ideas for the new album in November 2002. The success of the Heathen Tour rejuvenated Bowie's desire for touring, so the two fashioned the new album with the goal for the songs to be played live. One of the first songs tracked was "Reality", which became the title of the new album. The songwriting process itself was varied. Some tracks were written more conventionally, such as "She'll Drive the Big Car", while others were fashioned using a series of loops over a melody, such as "Looking for Water". The length of time to write the songs also varied. "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" was written in only 30 minutes, while "Bring Me the Disco King" was written in 1992 and originally intended to appear on Black Tie White Noise (1993) before being slated for Earthling (1997) and finally completed for Reality.

Sessions

Recording for Reality began in early January 2003 at Looking Glass Studios in New York City, where Earthling and Hours (1999) were recorded. Bowie opted to use Looking Glass's smaller Studio B, which Visconti was renting on a semi-permanent basis, rather than the more spacious Studio A in order to have, in Visconti's words, a "real tight New York sound". The studio was within close distance to Bowie's New York apartment, and his familiarity with the studio corresponded to relatively easy-going eight-hour working days, five days a week. The urban landscape served as an influence on the new material, similar to how the mountainous Allaire Studios had influenced the recording of Heathen.

The musicians mostly consisted of Bowie's then-touring band: Earl Slick and Gerry Leonard on guitar, Mark Plati on guitar and bass, Mike Garson on piano, and Sterling Campbell on drums; the live bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and the multi-instrumentalist Catherine Russell only contributed backing vocals. Heathen's guitarist David Torn provided "atmospheric" overdubs and lead guitar on "New Killer Star", while Matt Chamberlain played drums on "Bring Me the Disco King" and "Fly". Bowie's longtime guitarist Carlos Alomar also contributed overdubs to "Fly"; these overdubs were his final collaboration with Bowie.

Bowie arrived with four to five basic home demos he had prepared; he told Sound on Sound: "I don't want my home to be taken over by the recording process. I'm very wary of that. I really saved everything for working over at Looking Glass." He, Visconti and the assistant engineer Mario J. McNulty initially worked on demos before the entire band arrived, many of which ended up in the final mixes, including Visconti's bass playing on "New Killer Star", "The Loneliest Guy", "Days" and "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon". McNulty's percussion on "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" was also retained for the final mix.

Similar to Heathen, Bowie played many instruments himself, including guitar, saxophone, Stylophone and keyboards, although Garson played prominently on "The Loneliest Guy" and "Bring Me the Disco King". Like previous releases, bass, percussion and rhythm guitar parts were recorded live first from January and February, followed by vocals and overdubs from March to May 2003; Bowie, Plati and Campbell primarily played to click tracks from the demos. Visconti brought back an old-fashioned 16-track analogue method of recording previously used on Heathen. Eight tracks were yielded after the initial eight-day session. Bowie revealed on his website in April that he had written 16 tracks, eight of which he was "mad for".

Believing the drum tracks lacked the ambience and impact of Heathens due to the studio, Bowie and Visconti travelled to Allaire and played the tracks back through the speakers to capture the same sound. This drum ambience is found sporadically throughout Reality, particularly on the cover of the Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" and "Looking for Water". Bowie recorded three separate vocal tracks for each track – one after the rhythm tracks were completed, another midway through the sessions and the final during mixing. Most tracks featured a single vocal take while others were stitched together from different ones. His vocals had also improved greatly due to Bowie having recently quit smoking; Visconti remarked that it regained "at least five semitones".

Mixing Mixing for Reality took place at Looking Glass under the direction of Visconti; Bowie no longer found a desire to contribute. Visconti used Studio B instead of Studio A as both he and Bowie were satisfied with the former's mixing boards. Similar to Heathen, the producer created both a standard stereo and 5.1 mix for release on SACD formats, which was made at Studio A. Of the 5.1 mix, Visconti said:

Music and lyrics Compared to Heathen, the music on Reality is mostly straightforward rock and pop rock, with a more direct and aggressive sound. Consisting of mostly original compositions, the album includes two cover songs originally slated for Bowie's scrapped follow-up to his 1973 covers album Pin Ups: the Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso", written by Jonathan Richman released on their eponymous studio album in 1976, and George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some", originally recorded by Ronnie Spector in 1971 before Harrison recorded his own version in 1973. The author James E. Perone writes that the two tracks match the album's autobiographical tones compared to other covers Bowie made throughout his career, which were more often chosen for similar musical styles. Other covers recorded during the sessions included the Kinks' "Waterloo Sunset" and Sigue Sigue Sputnik's "Love Missile F1-11". The principle sub-theme of Reality concerns thoughts on ageing. Following an assortment of "extreme" characters from a "gluttonous rock star vampire" to various diminished figures, the biographer Chris O'Leary draws comparisons to The Man Who Sold the World (1970).

Songs

The opening track, "New Killer Star", recalls the "gentle beginnings" of Heathen before erupting into a groove. Pegg compares its guitar style to Bowie's own Diamond Dogs (1974) and Never Let Me Down (1987), as well as Blur's Think Tank (2003). Lyrically, the song depicts the emotional and physical scarring of New York City following the September 11 attacks, with lines such as "see the great white scar over Battery Park". Pegg states that the second verse's juxtaposition of the real versus fake establishes a common theme throughout the entire album. On covering "Pablo Picasso", Bowie explained that he enjoyed its "fantastically funny lyric". With updated lyrics and new chords, his rendition is more upbeat and rockier compared to the minimalist original, but remains tongue-in-cheek. Visconti's production utilises a wall of synthesisers against bursts of guitar and energetic percussion.

"Never Get Old" features a guitar hook and bassline over echoing percussion. Recalling the themes and styles of Heathen, Low and "Heroes" (both 1977), the song presents a reflection on ageing and an expression on both desperation and denial. Pegg notes that the thought of "never getting old" has been a mainstay in Bowie's songwriting, in tracks from "Changes" (1971) to "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell" (1999), and considers "I think about this and I think about personal history" a "key line" for the entire Reality album. "The Loneliest Guy" is the quietest and most reflective track on the album, which Pegg analyses as a "haunting meditation on memory, fortune and happiness". Its subject is a loner who realises he is lucky, as he has no one else to look out for but himself. Bowie revealed that the imagery was inspired by the modernist city of Brasília; in his words, "a city taken over by weeds".

"Looking for Water" combines Slick's "discordant guitar squeals" with a repetitive bassline and "metronomic" drums. Both Pegg and O'Leary found echoes of Never Let Me Down tracks, particularly "Glass Spider". Similar to "New Killer Star", the song concerns post-9/11 nihilism. Perone analyses it as symbolic of the basic necessities of life while the narrator is surrounded by the trappings of modern technology. Like several of the album's tracks, "She'll Drive the Big Car" eavesdrops onto a wretched and despairing life in which a woman dreams of wealth but is stuck being a mundane house wife. Musically, it is a funkier number reminiscent of Bowie's soul era, particularly tracks like "Golden Years" (1975).

"Days" is a love song that continues the album's sub-themes of "weary retrospection and aging regret". Bowie stated during a concert in Melbourne that "I sometimes feel I wrote this song for so many people". It is musically simple, boasting a "faux-naif arrangement of low-tech synthesisers and twanging guitars against a jogging beat", compared by Pegg to the 1980s works of Soft Cell and Depeche Mode. According to Bowie, the title of "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" came from a Kellogg Brown & Root article and was subtle commentary on the then-emerging Iraq War. He further described it as "an ugly song sung by an ugly man", whom he hinted as being then-US vice-president Dick Cheney. Musically, the song contains similar rhythms and melodies as "New Killer Star" and Heathen.