The third and latest single from David Bowie’s first album in a decade, The Next Day, is its opening title track, and the accompanying music video for the rock song, debuted overnight on Wednesday, has already managed to drum up controversy due to its religious imagery.
Following on from MTV executives losing their heads over the latest Two Door Cinema Club, banning the decapitation-centric video from its broadcasting, Bowie is the latest musician to see his video fall victim to sensitive censors, this time over at YouTube.
The video, depicting the 66-year-old cultural icon as a Christ-like figure doted on by medieval groupies and priests in a bar was pulled from YouTube on Wednesday shortly after its debut, before being reinstated with an adult-only rating for its seemingly controversial imagery, as The Guardian reports.
The clip for ‘The Next Day’ was pulled down from the popular Google-owned video streaming website with a screenshot saying it had been removed because of content violations in YouTube’s terms of service, says Bowie’s publicist.
The clip also stars Oscar-winning French actor Marion Cotillard as a woman suffering from stigmata-like wounds, with plasma spurting forth from her hands as corporeal tears stream from her face, and esteemed British character actor Gary Oldman, playing the part of a priest condemning Bowie’s messianic figure.
A YouTube spokeswoman explained that the video was pulled because of its content then returned with its 18+ viewer restriction.
“With the massive volume of videos on our site, sometimes we make the wrong call,” she said. “When it’s brought to our attention that a video has been removed mistakenly, we act quickly to reinstate it.” The video, depicting the 66-year-old cultural icon as a Christ-like figure doted on by medieval groupies and priests in a bar was pulled from YouTube…
‘The Next Day’ clip was written, conceived by, and starring Bowie, with directing duties going to Italian filmmaker Floria Sigismondi, the visionary director responsible for imaginative clips for Muse, Sigur Rós, and Interpol, and has a working history with Bowie since the 90s, having helmed the videos for ‘Dead Man’ and ‘Little Wonder’.
She also directed the Tilda Swinton-starring short film come music clip for ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’, the second single and video from Bowie’s The Next Day, released in March, with the first being the sombre ‘Where Are We Now?’ dropping seemingly out of nowhere in early January, coincidentally on the singer’s birthday.
The surprise announcement of The Next Day stunned both fans and media alike, many presuming he had retired from music following a period of absence after his heart attack in 2004. Despite not performing on stage since 2006, at the conclusion of his Reality Tour, many had thought Bowie was quietly entering his twilight years.
Instead, he was secretly eluding the entire music industry while working on a new album with a cast of close friends. The musician’s 24th(!) studio album earned a 9/10 review from Tone Deaf, with our writer remarking “there’s no fear of Bowie resting on his laurels here – The Next Day is an excellent album that sits proudly amongst his extensive back catalogue.”
According to two sources, fans won’t have to wait another decade for a new Bowie album, with both Oasis graduate Noel Gallagher and producer Tony Visconti saying that there’s more material than the 17 tracks that wound up on The Next Day.
“According to people I’ve spoken to, there’s another album in the pipeline,” Gallagher told a UK radio station, “there was, like, 29 songs or something.” While Visconti, speaking to The Guardian about how Bowie managed to keep recording his new album top secret, remarked: “We have tracks left over that are really great, that just didn’t fit with this batch, so I know we have the makings of another album. And I know he wants to keep recording. I’m not sure when, but I think he’ll be back in the studio later this year.”
