History Music / Outside

* {{Feelies}}: The limited-edition CD single release of "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" came on a shaped disc designed after Nathan Alder's head (as seen in the liner notes and single cover).

* HellIsThatNoise: The voice for Ramona A. Stone is that distorted and disturbing it comes as a relief when her act segues into "I Am With Name".

''Outside'' (also known as ''1. Outside'') is the twentieth studio album by Music/DavidBowie, released in 1995. This album also sees Bowie reunite with Music/BrianEno for the first time since ''Music/{{Lodger}}'' in 1979, and unlike the Berlin Trilogy, on which he served as a collaborator rather than a producer (as is commonly mis-believed), Eno actually ''did'' take over production duties this time around, marking the first and last time he ever outright produced a Bowie album. The album marks [[NewSoundAlbum yet another shift in sound and style]] for Bowie, this time switching over to a blend of {{industrial}} rock and art rock influenced heavily by Music/NineInchNails (to the extent where he toured with NIN and became personally acquainted with Trent Reznor while supporting the album).

* OfficiallyShortenedTitle: The full title as presented on the album cover and interior insert reads ''1. Outside: The Nathan Alder Diaries: A Hyper-Cycle'', while the full title presented in the linear notes reads ''The Diary of Nathan Alder, or The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-cycle''. The album is typically referred to as just ''1. Outside'' or ''Outside'' in official material.

* LongTitle
** The full title as presented on the album cover and interior insert reads ''1. Outside: The Nathan Alder Diaries: A Hyper-Cycle''
** The full title presented in the linear notes reads ''The Diary of Nathan Alder, or The Art-Ritual Murder of Baby Grace Blue: A non-linear Gothic Drama Hyper-cycle''

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles: Bowie gives voice to a 52-year-old detective, a 14-year-old ''female'' murder victim, {{mad artist}}s of both genders, a 78-year-old shopkeeper, etc. There are pictures of most of them in the booklet, via the magic of makeup, costume, and image manipulation of Bowie himself.

The album also marks cautious reconciliations with Creator/RCARecords and Creator/{{EMI}} for Bowie, who had left the former in 1982 after souring relations over the course of the late '70s and the latter in 1990 over their hesitation towards his stint in Tin Machine. RCA would become Bowie's UK distributor as part of a deal with BMG throughout the '90s, also distributing Bowie's 2010s albums ''Music/TheNextDay'' and ''Music/BlackstarAlbum'' in the territory (though he would remain properly signed onto various other labels). Meanwhile, after his previous US distributor, Savage Records, went belly-up while promoting ''Music/BlackTieWhiteNoise'', Bowie signed onto EMI subsidiary Creator/VirginRecords for US distribution of ''Outside'' (while its immediate predecessor, ''Music/TheBuddhaOfSuburbia'', was also released on Virgin in the US, that didn't come out in the States until one month ''after'' this album). Similarly to RCA, Bowie would stick with Virgin as his US distributor throughout the rest of the decade, permitting them and EMI to also handle the 1999 remastering campaign of his 1969-1989 back-catalog in all regions, eventually leaving the EMI group a second time in 2001 following the shelving of ''Toy''.

* OrphanedSeries: The album was supposed to have two follow-ups continuing the story (hence the "1." in ''1. Outside''), but they were ultimately abandoned in favor of simply exploring the base themes further on ''Music/{{Earthling}}'' and ''Music/{{Hours}}''.

Bowie planned for the album to be the first of a trio of [[ConceptAlbum concept albums]] (the second would have been called ''2. Contamination''), but Bowie ultimately [[WhatCouldHaveBeen scrapped the other two records]] [[StillbornFranchise and left the story unfinished]]. However, the themes of the album would continue to be explored on its follow-ups, ''Music/{{Earthling}}'' and ''Music/{{Hours}}'', with a lingering influence that stretches all the way to ''Music/BlackstarAlbum''.

* RegionalBonus: The Japanese release includes the B-side "Get Real" at the end as a bonus track, a configuration that would later be repeated for Creator/ColumbiaRecords' international reissue in 2004.

** "The Hearts Filthy Lesson" has bits and pieces of droning background noises and whistles that sound very similar to the backing track on ''[[Music/IggyPop Iggy Pop's]]'' "Mass Production", a song that David Bowie composed for Iggy.

* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: "Strangers When We Meet", the closing track, is considerably LighterAndSofter than the rest of the album, being a tranquil and regretless rumination on an old romance. One website describes it as "like a boarded-up window being pried open to let in the sunlight."

* BreatherEpisode: "Strangers When We Meet", the closing track, is considerably LighterAndSofter than the rest of the album. One website describes it as "...like a boarded-up window being pried open to let in the sunlight."

Set TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture in 1999, a new art craze is sweeping the world: the [[Main/{{Gorn}} murdering and mutilation of human bodies]]. Known as "Art Crime", Detective Professor Nathan Adler has been tasked by the government to investigate the phenomenon and determine which actions within the movement are truly art and which are just glorified murder. When a 14-year old girl named Baby Grace is found murdered in too gratuitous of a way to count as art, Alder is sent to find and arrest the culprit-- which causes waves of conflict when everyman Leon Blank is accused and incarcerated, despite Blank's claims that he had never even set foot in the town where the murder took place. Thus, the album explores these events and their fallout in a (possibly) nonlinear fashion, focusing not only on the storyline but also providing in-depth character studies-- from Nathan to the names on the suspects list to even the anonymous murderer and their victim-- and a thorough examination of what truly counts as art in a world where the meaning of the word "art" itself is coming under question more than ever before.

* LoadsAndLoadsOfRoles: Bowie gives voice to a 52-year-old detective, a 14-year-old ''female'' murder victim, {{mad artist}}s of both genders, a 78-year-old shopkeeper, etc. (There are pictures of most of them in the booklet, via the magic of makeup, costume, and image manipulation of Bowie himself)