“Remember that everybody has to wait online...” *
Traditionally, we’ve marked 4th October as the release date for the 'hours...' album, which was the UK release date for the physical version, though there was no official vinyl back then.
However, strictly speaking today is the 25th anniversary of the release as explained by this item in Rolling Stone magazine published on 30th August 1999...
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David Bowie has pulled another cyber-coup by becoming the first major-label artist to sell a complete album online in download form. Starting Tuesday, Sept. 21, fans will be able to purchase the digital files for hours… at VirginRecords.com, BowieNet (www.davidbowie.com) and at participating record-store Web sites (unspecified at press time). More than fifty stores have signed on to offer the record for the two-week period preceding the album’s North American CD release on Oct. 5. Pricing will be left up to retailers.
“I couldn’t be more pleased to have the opportunity of moving the music industry closer to the process of making digital downloads available as the norm and not the exception,” said Bowie in a statement Monday. Bowie has long been a fan of the Internet and digital distribution. He was one of the first name-brand artists to release a single online in 1997 (the drum ‘n’ bass track “Telling Lies”), he pioneered the use of Webcasts and chats, and launched the world’s first artist-created Internet service provider in 1998 with the formation of BowieNet.
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Supported by a heavy TV and radio campaign of Bowie appearances, the David Bowie and Reeves Gabrels produced 'hours...' was another top five hit in the UK for Bowie...and downloads became quite popular too.
* As you may have noticed, today’s lyric quotation is tweaked from Blue Jean, which entered the UK Top 20 forty years ago this week. It’s a reference to the incredibly slow download speeds back in 1999, when dial-up meant that purchasing the album this way you would have been lucky to have been listening to it on the same day. Anybody out there still have their original download? Probably a collector’s item these days.
'hours...' is considerably easier to listen to these days:
#Bowie1999 #Hours25 #BowieHours