David Bowie, 66, is back at No1... but has Ziggy lost his stardust?



Album The Next Day will be reclusive singer's first release in 10 years



Video for single Where Are We Now? posted on Bowie's website



Spokesperson told MailOnline 'there are no plans for live dates'

Single Where Are We Now? has shot straight to the top of the iTunes chart



It's almost three decades since David Bowie had a UK number one. But the master of reinvention enjoyed instant success yesterday after releasing a new single on the internet.



Where Are They Now? appeared for sale on iTunes at 5am and by the end of the day had topped its chart.



The song’s video had also been viewed 200,000 times on YouTube.

David Bowie, the original Young Dude, dispelled rumours yesterday that his career was over with an out-of-the-blue release on his 66th birthday of his first new single in a decade.

But for many fans, the relief that the iconic singer-songwriter still has all his creative faculties gave way, after the first couple of bars, to sadness.



For millions – me included – Bowie had once been the most exciting pop star of his generation; now, judging by his new single, he has dwindled to little more than a pale echo of his Seventies glory days.

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Back on the scene: David Bowie celebrated his 66th birthday on Tuesday by releasing new track Where Are We Now? on iTunes, while new album The Next Day will be available from March

New video: The release of single Where Are We Now coincided with a video by David Oursler, which shows the musician's face projected onto the body of a puppet

The four-and-a-half minute song, Where Are We Now?, appeared on his website without forewarning or fanfare early yesterday morning. The only publicity was a single message on Twitter, inviting his followers to ‘stumble upon ... a well-kept secret’.

Within minutes, the news had travelled across the world, spread by the chattering of social media websites. It seems the man who once, as an unknown rocker in 1972, hired a platoon of bodyguards to make himself look like a megastar on tour in America, has learned to appreciate the effectiveness of understatement.

The surprise of fans and critics was all the greater because many thought the singer, still most famous for his Ziggy Stardust incarnation 40 years ago, had been brought low by illness and advancing years.

Legend: The video pays homage to the time Bowie spent in Berlin

Following a heart attack on stage in 2004, Bowie has turned down all invitations to play live, even refusing to attend the Olympics opening ceremony last August, where his 1977 song Heroes practically became the anthem to a summer of sporting success.

A photograph taken on a New York street in October, close to his apartment, showed a frail man, shuffling along in a flat cap and sweatshirt, clutching a paper bag that appeared to contain his lunch. It sparked fears the former drug addict and chain smoker was suffering from cancer or perhaps dementia.

The new single at least reassures us he retains his poetic gift. In one poignant line he calls himself, ‘a man lost in time, just walking the dead’.

With its stark piano chords and echoing drums, the single sounds like an out-take from his late-Seventies albums, which were recorded in Berlin, where he escaped in an attempt to recover from his cocaine addiction.

He's back: The new track is produced by long-term collaborator Tony Visconti and written by Bowie

Breaking the silence: The unusual video pays reference to the time Bowie spent in Berlin, Germany, in the late 70s

The video which accompanies the single emphasises the Berlin connection, with grainy footage of the German capital projected on to a screen in a cluttered basement. In front of the flickering pictures of deserted streets and grimy statues, Bowie’s heavily-lined face materialises on a teddy bear, alongside the face of a woman set on another bear.

Yesterday internet chatter suggested that the woman may be the Icelandic singer Bjork, who performed at Bowie’s 50th birthday party in 1997. Others have intimated that she may be Coco Schwab, Bowie’s longtime personal assistant, or even the painter Jacqueline Humphries, wife of the video’s director Tony Oursler.

If there’s a message hidden in the eerie video, we probably won’t be able to decipher it until the album – The Next Day – goes on sale in March. Although little is known about the album, the titles of the songs have been released to whet the appetites of fans: You Will Set The World On Fire, Dirty Boys, Dancing Out In Space.

Comeback: David Bowie is releasing his first single and album in a decade

TWITTER REACTIONS TO DAVID BOWIE'S COMEBACK:

Boy George: 'Bowie's new song has made me cry! Happy tears of course!'

Graham Coxon: 'So is Bowie goin back to blonde hair and pegs or that bugs bunny thing he's been vockink for a while #bugsbowie.'

Nikki Sixx: 'Happy 66th birthday to one of my all time musical hero's David Bowie.'

Jo Whiley: 'BOWIE IS BACK . THIS IS VERY VERY EXCITING NEWS!!!'

Piers Morgan: 'Love this new David Bowie song... still the classiest guy in world music. Great to have him back.'

Jonathan Ross: 'He'll yeah! Welcome back David! DavidBowie!!!!!'

Alastair Campbell : 'David Bowie showing it's possible to be 66 and young. Great song.'

Legend: The star achieved success in the US in the mid 70s and scored a string of number one singles in the UK throughout the 80s, before experimenting with a series of musical styles in the 90s

Glam rocker: Bowie hasn't released an album since Reality in 2003, while his last single to grace the charts was a cover of Pink Floyd track Arnold Lane David Gilmour in 2006



Bowie’s son, the film director Duncan Jones (christened Zowie Bowie) tweeted yesterday, ‘First in ten years, and its a good ‘un!’ But his enthusiasm may not be matched by all of his father’s many fans.

Those titles appear to have been chosen by a random Bowie song generator: an all too recognisable combination of his most hackneyed phrases borrowed from hits like: Boys Keep Swinging, Space Oddity, Let’s Dance and The Man Who Sold the World. Bingo! Instant Bowie.

There will, of course, be a round of forced smiles and hearty reviews from middle-aged critics who grew up with the classic vinyl LPs: in other words, lifelong fans like me.



It’ll be the same respectful applause and worn-out praise that greeted new albums last year from Paul Simon and Bob Dylan, and concerts given by Bruce Springsteen and the Rolling Stones.



‘They’ve still got it!’ we cry, willing ourselves to believe it. But the truth is the new music of these rock dinosaurs isn’t a patch on the life-changing sounds that re-mapped popular culture the first time around. How could it be?

Famous fan: Comedian David Walliams joked around about Bowie's return Catch up: Actor Stephen Fry didn't hear the news until Tuesday afternoon Fan: TV presenter Piers Morgan is clearly a fan of the veteran pop star

VIDEO Bowie's first video in a decade has been created by artist Tony Oursler



Model behaviour: Bowie married second wife, supermodel Iman, in 1992

When Ziggy Stardust strutted on to Top Of The Pops in 1972, pouting into the camera and slinging an arm around his lead guitarist like they were lovers, the country was torn in two – one generation was disgusted, another inspired.

Bowie’s sexuality was so incendiary that the video for Life On Mars, a sustained shot (innocuous by today’s standard’s) panning across his heavily made-up face, was banned by the BBC that same year. The extreme, sexualised androgyny of Bowie’s make-up was deemed too shocking for television.

What is the most extreme reaction that his latest release could provoke? Mild interest, melancholy for lost youth, nostalgia for the faded thrill of old songs.

First wife: Bowie married Mary Angela Barnett in March 1970, pictured in 1974 with their son Duncan, before divorcing 10 years later in 1980

'A wonderful father': Bowie and his son, film director Duncan

It would have been far better if he’d done something else – anything, apart from revisiting the Seventies. A novel, a collection of poems, a movie role, a website, just something that didn’t sully his musical legacy. This new song seems a sad admission that his imagination has finally run out.

Could Beatle John Lennon ever have matched his greatest work – Imagine, or Help!, or Strawberry Fields – had he lived? By 1980 he was already making the most lacklustre music of his life, with songs like Double Fantasy.

Sir Paul McCartney meanwhile, has tried endlessly to recreate the glory of earlier days, without ever coming close. The same goes for all the ageing giants.

Glory days: David Bowie, seen performing as Ziggy Stardust in the 1970s, shocked fans with the release of a new single ahead of his first album in a decade



Still the old acts drag on. Hoary warhorses like Dylan and Springsteen continue their overpriced, never-ending tours playing old songs in new ways that no one much likes, or making hearts sink with that ghastly phrase: ‘Here’s one from our new album ...’

But no one ever sings the new songs in the shower, and no cover band plays them in the pub on a Friday night.

Revolutions happen once in a lifetime. That’s why there won’t be another Bowie. He changed the world…but that was long ago and far away.

Watch the full video at http://www.davidbowie.com/the-next-day



DAVID BOWIE'S THE NEXT DAY - FULL TRACK LISTING

1. 'The Next Day'

2. 'Dirty Boys'

3. 'The Stars (Are Out Tonight)'

4. 'Love Is Lost'

5. 'Where Are We Now?'

6. 'Valentine's Day'

7. 'If You Can See Me'

8. 'I'd Rather Be High'

9. 'Boss of Me'

10. 'Dancing Out In Space'

11. 'How Does the Grass Grow?'

12. '(You Will) Set the World On Fire'

13. 'You Feel So Lonely You Could Die'

14. 'Heat'



Deluxe Edition bonus tracks: 15. 'So She'

16. 'I'll Take You There'

17. 'Plan'