Hallo Spaceboy

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"Hallo Spaceboy" is a song by the English musician David Bowie from his 20th studio album, Outside (1995). It originated as an instrumental by Reeves Gabrels called "Moondust", which Bowie and Brian Eno stripped down and used to form the final track. An industrial rock and electronica track influenced by the Pixies and Nine Inch Nails, the song contains a hypnotic sound, with synthesisers, loops and distorted guitar lines. Lyrically influenced by Brion Gysin, the song contains images of apocalypse and continues the androgynous conundrums of former Bowie songs such as "Rebel Rebel".

For its release as the third and final single from Outside in February 1996, "Hallo Spaceboy" was remixed by the duo Pet Shop Boys, who added a disco edge and lyrics referencing the Major Tom character from Bowie's "Space Oddity". The single reached number 12 in the UK and charted elsewhere across Europe. Its accompanying music video, directed by David Mallet, mixes shots of both Bowie and Pet Shop Boys with footage of science fiction clips, atomic bomb testing footage and television advertising clips. Both versions of "Hallo Spaceboy" have been positively received and have appeared on lists of Bowie's best songs. Bowie performed "Hallo Spaceboy" frequently on his concert tours, recordings from which have appeared on live albums.

Writing and recording

Written by David Bowie and Brian Eno,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". "Hallo Spaceboy" developed from an ambient instrumental piece written by guitarist Reeves Gabrels called "Moondust".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Initial work on the track began during a recording session at Mountain Studios in Montreux in 1994, shortly after the main sessions for the Leon project concluded.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Bowie biographers Nicholas Pegg and Chris O'Leary point to the influence of poet and artist Brion Gysin, who developed a cut-up technique with William S. Burroughs that Bowie had, on several occasions, utilised for song lyrics. During the recording, Bowie spoke the "If I fall, moondust will cover me", reportedly Gysin's final words before his death in 1986.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Work halted on the track following the session, as Bowie believed "there wasn't anything special going on with that piece".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

The track resurfaced on 17 January 1995 during the Outside sessions in New York City at The Hit Factory.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Eno wrote in his diary that it was "stripped down to almost nothing [before] I wrote some lightning chords and space and suddenly, miraculously, we had something."Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The final track features Bowie, Eno, Gabrels, guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist Yossi Fine, pianist Mike Garson and drummer Joey Baron.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". After finishing the track, Bowie said "I adore that track. In my mind, it was like Jim Morrison meets industrial. When I heard it back, I thought, 'Fuck me. It's like metal Doors.' It's an extraordinary sound."[1] Gabrels later expressed disappointment in not receiving a co-writing credit for the song.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Composition

Characterised by commentators as industrial rock and electronica,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[2][3] Pegg describes "Hallo Spaceboy" as "a hardcore maelstrom of sci-fi noise, hypnotic high-speed drumming and an insistent, speaker-hopping four-note guitar riff".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The song's influences range from the Pixies and Pornography-era Cure to Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins;Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[4] Bowie himself reportedly stated he was aiming for a Nine Inch Nails-type sound.[1] Featuring synthesisers, loops and distorted guitar lines,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". a few reviewers compared the song's sound to Bowie's 1974 album Diamond Dogs and his work with the rock band Tin Machine.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[3] Author Dave Thompson argued that the song would not have felt out of place as a bonus track on that album.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Lyrically, Pegg states that "Hallo Spaceboy" captures the "millennial angst" of the Outside album and continues the androgynous conundrums of songs such as 1974's "Rebel Rebel" and 1979's "Boys Keep Swinging" with the line "Do you like girls or boys? / It's confusing these days".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[4]Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Some of the words and ideals, such as "chaos", "dust" and "hallo", and visions of a science fiction apocalypse were recycled from Tin Machine's "Baby Universal" (1991).Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Release and promotion

"Hallo Spaceboy" was released as the sixth track on Outside on 25 September 1995.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Bowie featured the song prominently on the 1995 Outside Tour, often together with Nine Inch Nails on the US leg and after as the closing number.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[4] Bowie intended "Hallo Spaceboy" to be his next single after "Strangers When We Meet", performing the song twice in Birmingham and again on Jools Holland's Later... in late December the same year.[5] Both Birmingham performances were later released on the live album No Trendy Réchauffé (Live Birmingham 95) in 2020.[6]

Pet Shop Boys remix

Two older men, one bald and one wearing a silver hat and sunglasses
For its release as a single, "Hallo Spaceboy" was issued in remixed form featuring English duo Pet Shop Boys (pictured in 2013).

Believing that in its original state, "Hallo Spaceboy" was uncommercial as a potential hit single in 1996, Bowie commissioned Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys to remix the song for release as the third single from Outside.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Tennant, a lifelong Bowie fan, stripped the song's anger with electronics and added Pet Shop Boys' signature backing vocals to the mix. Combined with the original only containing a single verse, and a lyric including feelings of alienation, Tennant and bandmate Chris Lowe added lyrical fragments from Bowie's 1969 song "Space Oddity", using a Gysin-style cut-up technique, to create a second verse: "Ground to Major, bye bye Tom / dead the circuit, countdown's wrong / Planet Earth is control on?"Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[7] O'Leary states the additions turned the song's cry of "this chaos is killing me" into a plea from an astronaut "strung out in heaven".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Bowie himself initially expressed reservation about the additions when Tennant told him during a telephone conversation, but later agreed that they worked well.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[8] Tennant told NME in a 1997 interview that he and Lowe, working alongside Bowie, had completed what Tennant called the "Major Tom trilogy", in reference to the fictional astronaut who first appeared in "Space Oddity" and later appeared in 1980's "Ashes to Ashes". Tennant explained, "I said to [Bowie], 'It's like Major Tom is in one of those Russian spaceships they can't afford to bring down,' and he said, 'Oh wow, is that where he is?'"[7] Compared to the original version, the remix features a disco edge.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[9]

Released on 19 February 1996,[10] the single was released through several formats, including a 7" single through BMG/RCA, a CD single through Arista/RCA[11] and a 12" promo in the US through Virgin.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". The CD single was packaged with a reissue of "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" and live renditions of "Under Pressure" and "Moonage Daydream",Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". recorded on the Outside Tour on 13 December 1995 in Birmingham.[12] The single was a success across Europe,[4] reaching number 12 in the UK, becoming Bowie's highest charting single since 1993's "Jump They Say".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". On top of a number 1 placement in Latvia,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". the remixed "Hallo Spaceboy" charted in Australia (36),[13] Austria (37),[14] Belgium Flanders (48) and Wallonia (30),[15][16] Finland (8),[17] Germany (59),[18] Ireland (21),[19] the Netherlands Top 40 and Single Top 100 (24 and 33, respectively),[20][21] Scotland (10) and Sweden (12).[22][23]

The music video for "Hallo Spaceboy" was directed by longtime Bowie director David Mallet, mixing shots of both Bowie and Pet Shop Boys into a rapid-fire montage of Cold War era retro-footage of science fiction film clips, atomic bomb testing footage and television advertising clips.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Bowie performed the song with Pet Shop Boys at the 1996 Brit Awards on 19 February 1996,[24][25] and again on Top of the Pops on 1 March.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". According to O'Leary, Bowie "thrashed around" during these performances while Tennant sang calmly.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

The Pet Shop Boys remix replaced "Wishful Beginnings" on the Outside – Version 2 album,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and is included on some editions of the compilation albums Best of Bowie (2002),[26] Nothing Has Changed (2014) and Legacy (The Very Best of David Bowie) (2016).[27][28] The remix was later included on Re:Call 5, released as part of the Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001) box set in 2022.[29] Four additional remixes, excluding the single one, were compiled on the 2004 two-disc edition of Outside.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". An extended Pet Shop Boys remix is included on their 2007 remix album Disco 4.[30]

Critical reception

Both versions of "Hallo Spaceboy" have received positive reviews from music critics and biographers. Discussing the original, biographer Marc Spitz called it Bowie's "most convincing rocker" since "Rebel Rebel",Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and David Buckley said the track is "quite daring, with a hard, industrial menace and a great use of dynamics".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Some have recognised the original as a highlight of the Outside album.[4][11] AllMusic's Christian Huey said that the song was "the most successful spin since [1980's] Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) on his recurring 'urban nightmare' motif."[11] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called the original "pummelling, chaotic and hypnotic".[31] Paul Lester from Melody Maker said, "'Hallo Spaceboy', drenched in the theatrical mockneyisms that begat Damon Albarn and Brett Anderson, is trip hoppy (dub it up, Portishead!)"[32] Roger Morton from NME declared it as "a viscerally thrilling glassed-guitar'n'driller rhythm rocker".[33] Gareth Grundy from Select wrote, "'Hello Spaceboy'Template:'s sci-fi pop is a new, quasi-industrial 'Space Oddity'".[34]

Reviewing the Pet Shop Boys remix, Simon Price from Melody Maker said that "this sounds like the Pet Shop Boys without anything you could call a chorus. The bit where Bowie's gin-and-lemon voice mixes with Neil Tennant's Amaretto Disaronno on the line Do you like girls or boys? It's confusing these days... is one to hoist aloft around the room on a red velvet cushion, though."[35] A reviewer from Music Week rated the song four out of five, writing that the song "has been transformed into a hi-NRG anthem with chart appeal to the max".[36] Mojo magazine writer Mark Paytress opined that adding Pet Shop Boys was a "masterstroke".[3] Huey called the remix a success, with "less uncompromising" drama and "less disturbing" results.[11]

"Hallo Spaceboy" has appeared on lists ranking Bowie's best songs by Far Out (number 21),[9] The Guardian (number 40) and Mojo (number 70).[3][31] In 2016, Ultimate Classic Rock placed the single at number 79 (out of 119) in a list ranking every Bowie single from worst to best.[37]

Live performances

"Hallo Spaceboy" featured regularly on Bowie's setlists throughout 1996 and 1997, and made return appearances during his 2000 summer shows, 2002 Heathen and 2003–2004 A Reality tours.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". A version recorded on 18 July 1996 at the Phoenix Festival in England appeared on the BBC compilation Phoenix: The Album in 1997.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". A July 1997 recording from the Earthling Tour was also released on the live album Look at the Moon! in 2021,[38] and 2 November recording in Rio de Janeiro from the same tour appeared on the live album LiveAndWell.com in 2000 (re-released in 2021).Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[39] Pet Shop Boys also performed their own version of "Hallo Spaceboy" during their residency at London's Savoy Theatre in 1997.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

At Bowie's fiftieth birthday concert in New York in January 1997, the song was performed together with Foo Fighters.Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". Three years later, he performed it at the Glastonbury Festival on 25 June 2000,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". released in 2018 as Glastonbury 2000.[40] Bowie performed the song live at BBC Radio Theatre, London, on 27 June 2000, and a recording of this performance was included on the bonus disc of Bowie at the Beeb in 2000;Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".[41] the full concert later appeared on Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001).[42] A November 2003 performance from the A Reality Tour is included on the 2004 A Reality Tour DVD,Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". and the 2010 A Reality Tour album.[43]

Personnel

According to Chris O'Leary:Script error: No such module "Footnotes".Script error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".

Technical

  • David Bowie – producer
  • Brian Eno – producer
  • David Richards – engineer

Charts

Template:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:SinglechartTemplate:Single chart
Chart performance for "Hallo Spaceboy"
Chart (1996) Peak
position
Finland (Suomen virallinen lista)[17] 8
UK Singles (OCC)[44] 12

References

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  1. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
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  3. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ a b c d Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  13. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  14. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  15. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  16. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  17. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  19. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  20. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  21. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  22. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  23. ↑ Cite error: Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".Script error: No such module "Namespace detect".
  24. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  36. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  37. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  38. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  39. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  40. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  41. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  42. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  43. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  44. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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Sources

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Template:David Bowie singles Template:Major Tom Template:Pet Shop Boys singles

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