David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | Heathen | Reality | 'hours...'
The Next Day | ★ | Changesonebowie
- Acting for Two: Bowie gives voice to a 52-year-old detective, a 14-year-old female murder victim, mad artists 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.
- Better Export for You: The Japanese release includes the B-side "Get Real" at the end as a bonus track, a configuration that would later be repeated for Columbia Records' international reissue in 2004.
- Black Sheep Hit: While Bowie has long been known for his constant shifts in sound, the Pet Shop Boys single remix of "Hallo Spaceboy" is nonetheless an outlier for him. While it was a top 20 hit in the UK, its sound is much closer to Pet Shop Boys' distinctive brand of dance-pop than anything Bowie himself has done.
- Career Resurrection: General consensus is that Outside is considered to be the album which ends Bowie's Audience-Alienating Era (well, for those that don't consider Black Tie White Noise as such).
- Channel Hop: Because Savage Records went under shortly after the release of Black Tie White Noise, Bowie signed a deal with Virgin Records to release the album Stateside, marking a return to EMI after a 5-year gap; Virgin would gain the US rights to Bowie's material from Let's Dance to Tin Machine in the process.
- 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).
- Popularity Redo: "Strangers When We Meet" was re-recorded for 1. Outside in part because the album it was first included on, 1993's The Buddha of Suburbia, flopped and was deleted for a while due to Misaimed Marketing.
- Promoted Fanboy: Longtime Bowie fan Trent Reznor co-produced the Alt. Mix of "The Hearts Filthy Lesson"; Reznor would also go on to produce most of the single remixes for "I'm Afraid of Americans" off of Bowie's next album.
- Referenced by...: The SpongeBob Musical includes a rearranged version of "No Control" as part of the setlist, sung as the Bikini Bottomites' contemplation about an impending cataclysmic volcanic eruption.
- Refitted for Sequel: The Title Track originated during the Tin Machine sessions, where it was called "Now". It ended up being re-recorded, re-worked, and retitled for inclusion on 1. Outside.
- Stillborn Franchise: Bowie had two sequels to this album planned: one was entitled 2. Contamination, and according to some sources, the third installment was going to be called 3. Afrikaans. Bowie claimed in early 1997 (during the promotional cycle for Earthling) that he'd already planned out characters for 2. Contamination, including some from the 17th century, and it's rumored that he even recorded some songs for it, only to shelve both records. Bowie later explained in a 2000 online chat that his main reason for doing so was because he didn't have the patience to spend "hours and hours and hours" scouring and reconfiguring the myriad of material recorded during the Leon sessions in 1994.
- What Could Have Been:
- The album was initially developed as Leon, a series of extended ambient suites, which was dropped due to a mix of Arista Records finding the recordings too uncommercial and a Content Leak of the material by bootleggersnote . Excerpts of this iteration would be reshaped and reedited to form "Leon Takes Us Outside", the segues, and "A Small Plot of Land" on the final version of 1. Outside. The B-side "Nothing to Be Desired" would be the only portion of the original suites to see an official release (albeit considerably remixed); Bowie expressed interest in putting out the full original material, but this never came to fruition.
- Brian Eno initially proposed releasing Leon in all-black packaging, a-la Prince's untitled black album. This concept was not carried over to the final version of 1. Outside, which instead featured a self-portrait of Bowie.
