Black Tie White Noise is the eighteenth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 5 April 1993 through Savage Records in the United States and Arista Records in the United Kingdom. Conceived following Bowie's marriage to the model Iman and the disbandment of his rock band Tin Machine, it was recorded for most of 1992 between studios in Montreux, Los Angeles and New York City. Bowie co-produced with his Let's Dance (1983) collaborator Nile Rodgers, who voiced dissatisfaction with the project in later decades. The album features several guest appearances, including previous collaborators Mike Garson and Mick Ronson, and new arrivals Lester Bowie and Chico O'Farrill.
Inspired to write the title track after witnessing the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Black Tie White Noise is primarily separated into themes of racial harmony and David's marriage to Iman. It features prevalent saxophone work from Bowie and a wide variety of musical styles, from art rock, electronic and soul, to jazz, pop and hip-hop influences. It also contains multiple instrumentals and cover versions. The album's lead single "Jump They Say" alludes to Bowie's step-brother Terry, who died in 1985.
Released amidst the rise of Britpop in the UK, Black Tie White Noise initially received favourable reviews from music critics, who praised its experimentation but criticised its lack of cohesion. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, with each of its three singles reaching the UK top 40. Its promotion in the United States was stalled following the dissolution of Savage Records, resulting in the album's rarity until later reissues. Instead of touring, Bowie released an accompanying film of the same name to support it.
Despite mixed assessments from critics in subsequent decades, Black Tie White Noise marked the beginning of Bowie's commercial revival and improved critical standing following a string of poorly received projects. An interactive CD-ROM based on the album was released in 1994. It was reissued by EMI in 2003 and remastered in 2021 as part of the box set Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001).
Background David Bowie began recording material with his former Let's Dance (1983) collaborator Nile Rodgers months after disbanding the rock band Tin Machine. The pair, who had reconnected in New York City after a 1991 Tin Machine concert, first recorded "Real Cool World" for the animated film Cool World. Released as a single in August 1992, it appeared on the film's accompanying soundtrack album and featured a sound that foreshadowed Bowie's direction for his next solo record, his first since Never Let Me Down six years earlier.
In October 1990, Bowie met the Somali model Iman in Los Angeles as he resumed recording with Tin Machine following the Sound+Vision Tour. They married on 24 April 1992 in a private ceremony in Lausanne, Switzerland. Five days later, the two returned to Los Angeles on the day the 1992 Los Angeles riots began, forcing the newly-weds to stay in a hotel and witness the violence from inside. Bowie later reflected: "It was an extraordinary feeling. I think the one thing that sprang into our minds was that it felt more like a prison riot than anything else. It felt as if innocent inmates of some vast prison were trying to break out, break free from their bonds." According to the biographer Nicholas Pegg, both the wedding and racial divide influenced Bowie's next album.
Production Recording history
With Bowie and Rodgers co-producing, recording for Black Tie White Noise took place between April and November 1992, alternating between Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, and the Hit Factory in New York City, with additional recording done at 38 Fresh studio in Los Angeles. According to the biographer Chris O'Leary, Bowie composed beats and patterns at 38 Fresh, which he sent to Rodgers at the Hit Factory to transpose into songs. Rodgers described Bowie's attitude as calmer than Let's Dance, "a hell of a lot more philosophical and just in a state of mind where his music was really, really making him happy".
Both Bowie and Rodgers gave positive statements regarding the sessions in contemporary interviews. Speaking with Rolling Stone, both said they were not looking to do Let's Dance II, Bowie remarking they "would have done [that] years ago". Nevertheless, Rodgers made several unfavourable comparisons between the two records, including statements about Bowie's involvement and how Black Tie was more difficult to produce and took longer to record than Let's Dance. In the ensuing years, Rodgers expressed disappointment in Black Tie, brushing it off as "an exercise in futility" that was not as good as Let's Dance. The Tin Machine member Reeves Gabrels later said Bowie felt coerced into hiring Rodgers, who was intent on creating a Let's Dance follow-up, while Bowie wanted to pursue other musical directions. Decades later, Rodgers commented that he wanted a more commercial record, while Bowie was trying to "make this artistic statement about this period in his life".
During the sessions, Bowie signed a record contract with the American label Savage Records, affiliated with Arista Records and owned by BMG. Savage offered him the "artistic freedom" that he was craving: "[Studio head] David Nemran ... encouraged me to do exactly what I wanted to do, without any kind of indication that it would be manipulated, or that my ideas would be changed, or that other things would be required of me. That made me feel comfortable and that was the deciding factor." Nemran replied that Bowie would be the label's breakthrough: "He's everything that I would use to describe us."
Guest musicians
Black Tie White Noise features an array of guest musicians, some of whom had not collaborated with Bowie for decades. The guitarist Mick Ronson, a member of the Spiders from Mars backing band from 1971 to 1973, appears on a cover of Cream's "I Feel Free" (1966). Ronson, whose last appearance was on 1973's Pin Ups, reconnected with Bowie after the latter was impressed by the former's production work on Morrissey's Your Arsenal (1992). Bowie praised Ronson's contributions on Black Tie while the latter commented, "I hope David's album does well. He's put everything into it." Ronson died of cancer shortly after the album's release.
The pianist Mike Garson, whose last appearance on a Bowie record was 1975's Young Americans, plays on "Looking for Lester". Bowie told Record Collector in 1993: "He really has a gift. He kind of plops those jewels on the track and they're quite extraordinary, eccentric pieces of piano playing." The Trinidadian guitarist Tony Springer (credited as "Wild T" Springer) appears on a cover of Morrissey's Your Arsenal track "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday". Bowie had met Springer in Canada during Tin Machine's It's My Life Tour and invited him to record. Bowie recalled that "he was an absolute delight", comparing his guitar style to Jimi Hendrix.
Gabrels plays lead guitar on "You've Been Around". The song was first attempted by Tin Machine during the sessions for their 1989 debut album, but Bowie was dissatisfied with the result so it was shelved, eventually rerecording it for Black Tie. The singer Al B. Sure! duets with Bowie on the title track, of which the two worked on the arrangement extensively, leading Bowie to quip "I've never worked longer with any artist than with Al B".
Black Tie also features trumpet playing by Lester Bowie, whom David Bowie had wanted to work with throughout the 1980s. Lester, who played to tracks before he heard them, appears on six tracks; Pegg considers his contributions the album's "essential musical identity". A foil to Lester's trumpet was David's saxophone, which appears more prominently on Black Tie than any other David Bowie album. Rodgers found his saxophone playing challenging, telling Rolling Stone: "I think David would be the first to admit that he's not a saxophonist in the traditional sense. [...] He uses his playing as an artistic tool. He's a painter. He hears an idea, and he goes with it. But he absolutely knows where he's going." The album's horn arrangements were composed by the Afro-Cuban jazz player Chico O'Farrill. Black Tie also features several backing vocalists from Let's Dance and Labyrinth (1986), while the pianist Philippe Saisse and the producer David Richards returned from Never Let Me Down.
Music and lyrics
Black Tie White Noise features a wide variety of musical influences and styles, including soul, hip-hop, disco, pop, avant-garde jazz and gospel. Author James E. Perone also found references to Bowie's plastic soul work of the 1970s. Rolling Stones Jason Newman described the music as "a blend of Euro-disco, techno-rock, freestyle jazz, Middle Eastern riffs and hip-hop", while AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine considered Black Tie an "urban soul record" that balances styles of the "commercial dance rock" of Let's Dance with the art rock of the late 1970s Berlin Trilogy. A writer for The Economist later categorised the record as art rock and electronic. In 1993, Bowie told Rolling Stone that his intent for Black Tie White Noise was making a new type of house record that brought back the "strong melodic content" of the 1960s, finding "the new R&B [of today]" a mixture of "hip-hop and house". He commented: "I think this album comes from a very different emotional place. That's the passing of time, which has brought maturity and a willingness to relinquish full control over my emotions."
Lyrically, Black Tie White Noise is primarily separated into two major themes: racial harmony and Bowie's marriage to Iman. Perone finds the "Black Tie" signifies "a wedding" while "White Noise" epitomises the "instrumentally focused, slightly experimental jazz pieces". For his wedding ceremony, he had composed an instrumental intended to fuse him and Iman's English and Somalian cultures. Writing the piece triggered Bowie to make the album:
Songs
Black Tie White Noise opens with the instrumental "The Wedding", a funk adaptation of the instrumental Bowie composed for his wedding. It's a piece that, in Pegg's words, "fuses dance beats, distant backing vocals and Eastern-influenced saxophone cadences" that set the stage for the remaining tracklist. The Black Tie version of "You've Been Around" blends contemporary dance music with elements of jazz. Although Bowie and Gabrels wrote it together, O'Leary says the new version "effectively erased...Reeves Gabrels". Pegg states the lyrics foreshadow the "fractal images" Bowie used for his next studio album, Outside (1995). Bowie's cover of "I Feel Free" is musically different from Cream's original, being described by Pegg as "techno-funk" and likened by Perone to "1990s dance music".
Bowie's recorded the title track with a rougher edge to avoid ending up like "an 'Ebony and Ivory' for the Nineties". To evoke the racial theme, the lyrics reference "We Are the World" by the supergroup USA for Africa (1985) and Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" (1971); Pegg says that the "black and white voices" of Al B Sure! assist in the theme's presentation. Musically, the track is funky, with prevalent saxophone and trumpet by David and Lester Bowie, respectively. "Jump They Say" discusses themes of mental illness, and is loosely based on David's step-brother Terry Burns, who died by suicide in 1985 after being hospitalised for schizophrenia. Bowie stated, "It's the first time I've felt capable of addressing it." Described by the biographer David Buckley as "an eerie psychodrama", the song features prevalent backwards saxophone work from Bowie.