"Hallo Spaceboy" is a song by the English musician David Bowie from his 1995 album Outside. 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 number 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, "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 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,[1] "Hallo Spaceboy" developed from an ambient instrumental piece written by guitarist Reeves Gabrels called "Moondust".[2][3] 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.[4] 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.[1][4] Work halted on the track following the session, as Bowie believed "there wasn't anything special going on with that piece".[1]
The track resurfaced on 17 January 1995 during the Outside sessions in New York City at The Hit Factory.[4] 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."[3] The final track features Bowie, Eno, Gabrels, guitarist Carlos Alomar, bassist Yossi Fine, pianist Mike Garson and drummer Joey Baron.[1] 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 metalDoors.' It's an extraordinary sound."[5] Gabrels later expressed disappointment in not receiving a co-writing credit for the song.[1]
Composition
Characterised by commentators as industrial rock and electronica,[3][6][7] 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".[4] The song's influences range from the Pixies and Pornography-era Cure to Nine Inch Nails and the Smashing Pumpkins;[4][8] Bowie himself reportedly stated he was aiming for a Nine Inch Nails-type sound.[5] Featuring synthesisers, loops and distorted guitar lines,[1] a few reviewers compared the song's sound to Bowie's 1974 album Diamond Dogs and his work with the rock band Tin Machine.[4][3][7] Author Dave Thompson argued that the song would not have felt out of place as a bonus track on that album.[9] 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".[4][8][10] 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).[11]
Release and promotion
"Hallo Spaceboy" was released as the sixth track on Outside on 25 September 1995.[12] 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.[4][8] 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.[13] Both Birmingham performances were later released on the live album No Trendy Réchauffé (Live Birmingham 95) in 2020.[14]
Pet Shop Boys remix
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.[15] 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?"[1][15][16] 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".[1]
Bowie himself initially expressed reservation about the additions when Tennant told him during a telephone conversation, but later agreed that they worked well.[4][17] 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?'"[16] Compared to the original version, the remix features a disco edge.[18][19]
Released on 19 February 1996,[20] the single was released through several formats, including a 7" single through BMG/RCA, a CD single through Arista/RCA[21] and a 12" promo in the US through Virgin.[22] The CD single was packaged with a reissue of "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" and live renditions of "Under Pressure" and "Moonage Daydream",[4][22] recorded on the Outside Tour on 13 December 1995 in Birmingham.[23] The single was a success across Europe,[8] reaching number 12 in the UK, becoming Bowie's highest charting single since 1993's "Jump They Say".[4] On top of a number 1 placement in Latvia,[4] the remixed "Hallo Spaceboy" charted in Australia (36),[24] Austria (37),[25] Belgium Flanders (48) and Wallonia (30),[26][27] Finland (8),[28] Germany (59),[29] Ireland (21),[30] the Netherlands Top 40 and Single Top 100 (24 and 33, respectively),[31][32] Scotland (10) and Sweden (12).[33][34]
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.[4] Bowie performed the song with Pet Shop Boys at the 1996 Brit Awards on 19 February 1996,[35][36] and again on Top of the Pops on 1 March.[4] According to O'Leary, Bowie "thrashed around" during these performances while Tennant sang calmly.[1]
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",[42] and David Buckley said the track is "quite daring, with a hard, industrial menace and a great use of dynamics".[10] Some have recognised the original as a highlight of the Outside album.[8][21]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."[21]Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called the original "pummelling, chaotic and hypnotic".[43]
Reviewing the Pet Shop Boys remix, British magazine 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".[44]Mojo magazine writer Mark Paytress opined that adding Pet Shop Boys was a "masterstroke".[7] Huey called the remix a success, with "less uncompromising" drama and "less disturbing" results.[21]
"Hallo Spaceboy" has appeared on lists ranking Bowie's best songs by Far Out (number 21),[19]The Guardian (number 40) and Mojo (number 70).[7][43] 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.[45]
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.[4] A version recorded on 18 July 1996 at the Phoenix Festival in England appeared on the BBC compilation Phoenix: The Album in 1997.[4] A July 1997 recording from the Earthling Tour was also released on the live album Look at the Moon! in 2021,[46] 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).[47][48] Pet Shop Boys also performed their own version of "Hallo Spaceboy" during their residency at London's Savoy Theatre in 1997.[4]
At Bowie's fiftieth birthday concert in New York in January 1997, the song was performed together with Foo Fighters.[49][50] Three years later, he performed it at the Glastonbury Festival on 25 June 2000,[51] released in 2018 as Glastonbury 2000.[52] 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;[4][53] the full concert later appeared on Brilliant Adventure (1992–2001).[54] A November 2003 performance from the A Reality Tour is included on the 2004 A Reality Tour DVD,[55] and the 2010 A Reality Tour album.[56]
^ abPennanen, Timo (2006). Sisältää hitin – levyt ja esittäjät Suomen musiikkilistoilla vuodesta 1972 (in Finnish). Helsinki: Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava.
^Glastonbury 2000 (CD liner notes). David Bowie. US, Canada and Europe: Parlophone. 2018. 0190295568733.((cite AV media notes)): CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
