Reality is the twenty-fourth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, originally released in Europe on 15September 2003, and the following day in America. His second release through his own ISO label, the album was recorded between January and May 2003 at Looking Glass Studios in New York City, with production by Bowie and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti. Most of the musicians consisted of his then-touring band. Bowie envisioned the album as a set of songs that could be played live.

A mostly straightforward rock album with a more direct sound compared to its predecessor Heathen (2002), Reality contains covers of the Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso" and George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some". One of the tracks, "Bring Me the Disco King", dated back to 1992. A primary theme throughout Reality concerns reflections on ageing, while other songs focus on despaired and diminished characters. The cover artwork depicts Bowie as an anime-style character that exhibited the idea that reality had become an abstract concept.

Released under a variety of CD formats, Reality charted in numerous countries and reached number three in the United Kingdom. It failed to outperform Heathen in the United States, reaching number 29. The album was not supported through conventional single releases, although "New Killer Star" and "Never Get Old" appeared in some countries. Reality received largely positive reviews from music critics on release, with many highlighting the music, lyrics, vocal performances and the growing maturity in Bowie's songwriting.

Bowie supported the album on the worldwide A Reality Tour throughout 2003 and 2004, his biggest and final concert tour, which ended prematurely after Bowie was hospitalised for a blocked artery. Bowie thereafter largely retreated from public life and did not release another studio album until The Next Day in 2013, making Reality his last album of original material for ten years.

Recording and production

Writing

David Bowie began writing songs immediately after the Heathen Tour ended in October 2002. His new distribution deal with Columbia Records gave him the freedom to record at his own pace, so he was eager to return to the studio quickly. He elected to bring back Tony Visconti to co-produce the new album after the pair's successful renewed partnership with Heathen (2002). He stated:

Bowie and Visconti began initial ideas for the new album in November 2002. The success of the Heathen Tour rejuvenated Bowie's desire for touring, so the two fashioned the new album with the goal for the songs to be played live. One of the first songs tracked was "Reality", which became the title of the new album. The songwriting process itself was varied. Some tracks were written more conventionally, such as "She'll Drive the Big Car", while others were fashioned using a series of loops over a melody, such as "Looking for Water". The length of time to write the songs also varied. "Fall Dog Bombs the Moon" was written in only 30 minutes, Consisting of mostly original compositions, the album includes two cover songs originally slated for Bowie's scrapped follow-up to his 1973 covers album Pin Ups: the Modern Lovers' "Pablo Picasso", written by Jonathan Richman released on their eponymous studio album in 1976, and George Harrison's "Try Some, Buy Some", originally recorded by Ronnie Spector in 1971 before Harrison recorded his own version in 1973. Pegg and Perone contend that the "retrospective, older-and-wiser lyric" is appropriate for both Reality and Bowie himself. The hard rock title track is the album's loudest and rockiest moment, recalling "Hallo Spaceboy" (1995) and Bowie's works with the rock band Tin Machine. The song adopts the artificial narrative that real life has no narrative, and its message, concerning how the quest for meaning in life is always doomed to fail, lies at the centre of the album's loose theme. Perone opines that it sees Bowie acknowledge that he hid behind personas and drugs throughout the early 1970s and is now facing reality.

Pegg calls "Bring Me the Disco King" "one of the most idiosyncratic and strikingly dramatic numbers in the entire Bowie songbook". Following its earlier incarnations, Bowie and Garson stripped the song down to a four-bar drum loop, vocal and piano, which the former felt worked best. Almost eight minutes in length, the song embraces a New York jazz sound that sees Garson playing an improvised piano solo similar to his one on "Aladdin Sane" (1973). Representing a culmination of the album's lyrical themes, it offers fragmented images of, in Pegg's words, "creeping age, squandered opportunities, thwarted lives and impending dissolution". The outtake "Fly" utilises a funky guitar riff for a tale about a middle-class family man who has anxiety and depression, lyrically forestalling the "domestic American angst" of "New Killer Star" and "She'll Drive the Big Car".

Title and artwork

Bowie announced the album title in June 2002. Reflecting the ideal that reality has become an abstract concept,

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Reality received largely positive reviews from music critics on release. Like many of the artist's most recent releases, several reviewers considered it his best since Scary Monsters, although many made positive comparisons to Heathen. Pitchfork Eric Carr further contested that "what last year's Heathen implied, and what Reality seems to prove, is that... Bowie has finally joined us all in the present, mind-young as ever but old enough not to make a show of it". Several also considered Reality a return to form for the artist. In The Mail on Sunday, Tim De Lisle wrote that "this record pulsates with creative vigour", offering "a gleaming showcase for his voice, or rather voices." Rolling Stone Anthony DeCurtis believed Bowie succeeded in searching for "reality", to the artist's "mixed dismay and amusement".