The late singer David Bowie’s 1999 album, Hours, may have begun as a video-game soundtrack for Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999), but it became a pioneering Internet-age LP (long play — an album with more than 10 songs). On September 21, 1999, before the internet became the encompassing giant it is today, Bowie's album became the first complete music album by a major artist which was available to download over the Internet before its physical release. It was available via the artiste’s website BowieNet. The physical album was released on a CD on October 4 of that year.
Hours is the 22nd studio album of the Space Oddity singer and was the final collaborative work between Bowie and guitarist Reeves Gabrels who had worked together since 1998.
Talking about this album, the singer, in an interview with Rolling Stone, said, “I wanted to capture a kind of universal angst felt by many people my age. You could say that I am attempting to write some songs for my generation.” The later artiste and Gabrels had travelled to Burmuda to find zen and write the lyrics for the background score for the game. However, they ended up with enough of songs to release their own album.
For the album cover, the singer, who is known to be a revolutionary thinker, can be seen cradling a younger version of his own self. The artwork is heavily inspired by Christianity, which is also reflected in the music. The cover itself is inspired by the Madonna della Pietà informally known as La Pietà, which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus at Mount Golgotha. Commonly called the Pietà, the marble statue was created by Michelangelo and can now be seen in Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
{{/usCountry}}For the album cover, the singer, who is known to be a revolutionary thinker, can be seen cradling a younger version of his own self. The artwork is heavily inspired by Christianity, which is also reflected in the music. The cover itself is inspired by the Madonna della Pietà informally known as La Pietà, which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus at Mount Golgotha. Commonly called the Pietà, the marble statue was created by Michelangelo and can now be seen in Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City.
{{/usCountry}}