History Music / TheNextDay

-->--'''{{Tagline}}''' from the album's advertising campaign.

* KubrickStare: Bowie pulls one throughout the music video for "Valentine's Day", tying in with the lyrics about a school shooter.
* LyricalDissonance: "Valentine's Day"-- a song about a school shooting set to 60s-style pop music.

* ViewerGenderConfusion: Invoked in "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", as a nod back to Bowie's famous subversion and criticism of gender norms in his youth: the celebrity couple are both played by women (the "male" by Saskia de Brauw and the "female" by famous transgender model Andreja Pejić.) There is also a young Bowie {{Expy}} played by Iselin Steiro-- also a woman.

''The Next Day'' is the twenty-fifth studio album by Music/DavidBowie, released in 2013.

''The Next Day'' is the twenty-fifth studio album by Music/DavidBowie, released in 2013. His first album since 2003's ''Music/{{Reality}}'', the album was sporadically put together in secret over the course of two years, with Bowie requiring everyone involved to sign non-disclosure agreements and even going so far as to change studios when his presence at the first one was disclosed without permission. Even then, an unannounced visit to the second studio by Canadian band Metric nearly blew the lid off the whole thing when Bowie's saxophonist found himself tempted to give away everything that was going on. Despite these hurdles, the album was kept under tight lock and key for the entirety of its production.

''The Next Day'' was a commercial success for Bowie, debuting at the top of the UK Albums chart (his first No. 1 in the country since ''Music/BlackTieWhiteNoise'' 20 years prior) and at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, further topping the charts in Argentina, Belgium (on both the Ultratop Flanders and Ultratop Wallonia charts), Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, the Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia, Sweden, and Switzerland. The album would also top Billboard's Top Alternative Albums chart and peak at No. 2 on their Top Rock Albums chart. ''The Next Day'' would go on to become the 26th best-selling album of 2013 in the UK and the third-best-selling album of the year in Finland, later being certified platinum in the UK, France, and the Netherlands, and gold in Australia, Austria, Canada, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Poland, Sweden, and Switzerland.

** In the video for "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", one of the new neighbors looks and sometimes dresses like [[Film/TheManWhoFellToEarth Thomas Jerome Newton]]/[[Music/StationToStation the Thin White Duke]] and the cover of one of the tabloid magazines uses his alien form as [[http://cyoulateralligator.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03-bowie-stars-are-out-tonight.jpg an image]] with the caption "Woman Goes To Oscars Without Makeup On".

** "Love is Lost" re-used puppets that had planned to be used for the filmed-but-unreleased ConceptVideo for [[Music/{{Hours}} "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell"]]. The remix of the same song also samples the piano lick from [[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps "Ashes to Ashes"]].

** The cover is a modified version of the cover of ''Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum'', which has that album's title removed and a large portion of the picture of Bowie covered by a blank white square with this album's title on it.

* CallBack: Loads:
** "Love is Lost" re-used puppets that had planned to be used for the filmed-but-unreleased ConceptVideo for [[Music/{{Hours}} "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell"]]. The remix of the same song also samples the piano lick from [[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps "Ashes to Ashes"]].
** The percussion on "Love is Lost" recreates the hollow drum sound that served as a crucial part of ''Music/{{Low|DavidBowieAlbum}}''[='s=] sonic aesthetic.
** The first released track, "Where Are We Now?", references several UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} landmarks (Potsdamer Platz, Nürnberger Straße, [=KaDeWe,=] etc.), nodding back to the trilogy of albums that Bowie recorded while residing in Berlin during the late '70s.
** In the video for "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", one of the new neighbors looks and sometimes dresses like [[Film/TheManWhoFellToEarth Thomas Jerome Newton]]/[[Music/StationToStation the Thin White Duke]] and the cover of one of the tabloid magazines uses his alien form as [[http://cyoulateralligator.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03-bowie-stars-are-out-tonight.jpg an image]] with the caption "Woman Goes To Oscars Without Makeup On".
** The penultimate track, "You Feel So Lonely You Could Die", ends with the opening drums from [[Music/TheRiseAndFallOfZiggyStardustAndTheSpidersFromMars "Five Years"]].
** The director of the videos for "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" and "The Next Day" is Floria Sigismondi, who also did two of his ''Music/{{Earthling}}''-era videos: "Little Wonder" and "Dead Man Walking".

** The first released track, "Where Are We Now?", references several UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} landmarks (Potsdamer Platz, Nürnberger Straße, [=KaDeWe,=] etc).
** In the video for "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)", one of the new neighbors looks and sometimes dresses like [[Film/TheManWhoFellToEarth Thomas Jerome Newton]]/The Thin White Duke and the cover of one of the tabloid magazines uses his alien form as [[http://cyoulateralligator.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/03-bowie-stars-are-out-tonight.jpg an image]] with the caption "Woman Goes To Oscars Without Makeup On".

* ShoutOut: The opening line of "Heat" namedrops Creator/YukioMishima, a controversial Japanese writer known for both his innovative literature and the failed far-right coup attempt he led in 1970; Bowie had a portrait he painted of the author hung up in his Berlin residency and cited his writings as a lyrical influence. The same verse describes a scene from Mishima's ''Spring Snow'', in which two characters find the corpse of a drowned dog caught on the edge of a waterfall.

* RegionalBonus: The Japanese version of the album includes the B-side "God Bless the Girl" as a bonus track on both the VanillaEdition and the Deluxe Edition.

Sound-wise, the album continues the AlternativeRock sound of ''Reality'', but mixes it in with Bowie's signature brand of theatrical art rock, thereby offering a more complex take on its 2003 predecessor. Both musically and lyrically, ''The Next Day'' also shifts to a much darker direction, reflecting Bowie's awareness of his advanced age (he was already 66 when the album released) and his desire to look back and examine where he'd been and where he was now going. Despite this, the album isn't a voyeuristic look into Bowie's head, instead conveying his thoughts through a series of allegorical vignettes focused on a variety of characters and themes, ranging from a former East German resident's reminiscing on the fall of the Berlin Wall to a school shooter's friend to a defiant UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}. Tying in with the album's reflective tone, the album cover consists solely of a modified version of that for his landmark 1977 album ''[[Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum "Heroes"]]'', the title scratched out and a white square with the 2013 album's title plastered over Bowie's face.

* DarkerAndEdgier: "Dirty Boys" is about gang violence, "How Does the Grass Grow" is about PTSD, "Valentine's Day" is about school shootings, and many of the other songs deal with violence, death, and destruction in some form, far drearier than the sarcastic lyrics of ''Music/{{Reality}}''.

** "Valentine's Day" invokes the British Invasion style of 1960's rock that defined Bowie's earliest singles (before even [[Music/DavidBowie1967 his first album]]).

* SpecialGuest: Music/KingCrimson bassist Tony Levin provides bass parts on "Dirty Boys", "Where Are We Now?", "If You Can See Me", "I'd Rather Be High", "Boss of Me", and "Dancing Out in Space".

** "Love is Lost" re-used puppets that had planned to be used for the filmed-but-unreleased ConceptVideo for [[Music/{{Hours}} "The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell"]]. The remix of the same song also samples [[Music/ScaryMonstersAndSuperCreeps "Ashes to Ashes"]].

* CelebrityIsOverrated: The point of "The Stars (Are Out Tonight)".

* ShoutOut: The opening line of "Heat" namedrops Creator/YukioMishima, a controversial Japanese writer known for both his innovative literature and the failed far-right coup attempt he led in 1970; Bowie had a portrait he painted of the author hung up in his Berlin residency and cited his writings as a lyrical influence.

** The percussion on "Love is Lost" recreates the hollow drum sound that served as a crucial part of ''Music/LowDavidBowieAlbum''[='s=] sonic aesthetic.

Sound-wise, the album continues the AlternativeRock sound of ''Reality'', but mixes it in with Bowie's signature brand of theatrical art rock, thereby offering a more complex take on its 2003 predecessor. Both musically and lyrically, ''The Next Day'' also shifts to a much darker direction, reflecting Bowie's awareness of his advanced age (he was already 66 when the album released) and his desire to look back and examine where he'd been and where he was now going. Despite this, the album isn't a voyeuristic look into Bowie's head, instead conveying his thoughts through a series of allegorical vignettes focused on a variety of characters and themes, ranging from a former East German resident's reminiscing on the fall of the Berlin Wall to a school shooter's friend to a defiant UsefulNotes/{{Jesus}}. Tying in with the album's reflective tone, the album cover consists solely of a modified version of that for his landmark 1977 album ''Music/HeroesDavidBowieAlbum'', the title scratched out and a white square with the 2013 album's title plastered over Bowie's face.