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‘The internet is an alien life form’: how David Bowie created a market for digital music

Bowie’s 1999 album Hours… was the first to go on sale online before hitting regular stores – and his experimentation caused horror in the music industry

He had also enthusiastically embraced webcasting and created his own internet service provider with BowieNet in 1998 “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,” is how Bowie explained the Hours… release at the time. Cyberspace oddity … artwork for David Bowie’s Hours…In early 1998, Virgin Records/EMI had made Massive Attack’s Mezzanine available for streaming in full online at the same time as its physical release, albeit previewing it track-by-track over several weeks. Brian McLaughlin, chairman of music retailer trade body Bard and MD of HMV Europe, insisted that UK labels must “make their international affiliates aware of the potentially disrupting effects such internet initiatives will have if they can be accessed in this country”.

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