Hallo Spaceboy

Fall of 1995.In what would become a fruitful friendship, Trent Reznor strikes it up with David Bowie and announces late-summer that they would tour together in the fall, primarily in support of Bowie's latest, strangest (even for Bowie) concept album: Outside.I was always a Bowie fan, but here he was striding confidently into the territory where my heart really chose to reside. Outside, musically, was brilliant but very different. From the brooding rhythms of my personal favorite "No Control" to the sheer momentum in some tracks ("Hallo Spaceboy", "We Prick You") to the almost haltingly slow or wavering bits ("Wishful Beginnings", "The Hearts Filthy Lesson") the album makes itself noticeable, but still not totally out of character. What does make it an odd one in the usual suspects of Bowie's catalogue is the sheer weight of the concept underneath.Outside was to be the first of three (but I've also heard five) albums that followed a non-linear story, a mystery even, for listeners and readers alike. It teased us with lyrics with no obvious meaning and threatened to provide just a taste of subtext for a much larger set of threads to come. (For more I recommend "the more thorough Wiki description":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outside_(album) .)I would love to hear what else would have followed here, and there was talk at the time of all sorts of multimedia tie-ins to come. Not long after Outside we would have Bowie's Earthling, which took off to such acclaim in yet another new niche that Outside was but a memory.Left behind are great tracks and some stunning remixes and singles. My personal favorite is a Hallo Spaceboy single with a tremendous live version of "Under Pressure" wiuth Gail Dorsey in rare form and a great "Spaceboy" Pet Shop Boys remix.But for my favorite brooding, I can't beat "No Control." I wrote three short stories listening to this song on repeat for days in '95.Back to the NIN connection and myself... I had tickets to see them together in Raleigh, NC (with another fave of mine at the time, Prick, opening) - but I began to deal with a horrible bout of pneumonia a week before the show. Not to be dissuaded, I loaded up on prescriptions and my friends mercifully dragged me on, half a man and barely alive. What I remember was great. :)