Recording and Production
Heathen marked the return of record producer Tony Visconti, who co-produced (with Bowie himself) several of Bowie's classic albums. The last album Visconti had co-produced was Scary Monsters in 1980.
Originally, Bowie had recorded the album Toy for release in 2000 or 2001. This album was meant to feature some new songs and remakes of some his lesser-known songs from the 1960s. Although Toy remains officially unreleased, a few of its tracks—including "Afraid" and "Slip Away" (then titled "Uncle Floyd")—appear on Heathen. Some other re-recorded songs were included as B-sides to the singles from Heathen.
The album features guest appearances from The Who guitarist Pete Townshend (who had played guitar on an earlier Bowie track, "Because You're Young" from Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)), Foo Fighters frontman Dave Grohl, Dream Theater keyboardist Jordan Rudess, pianist Kristeen Young, and prolific bassist Tony Levin of King Crimson.
Read more about this topic: 5:15 The Angels Have Gone
Famous quotes containing the words recording and/or production:
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The problem of culture is seldom grasped correctly. The goal of a culture is not the greatest possible happiness of a people, nor is it the unhindered development of all their talents; instead, culture shows itself in the correct proportion of these developments. Its aim points beyond earthly happiness: the production of great works is the aim of culture.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)