Lodger

Sessions began in September 1978 during a break in the Isolar II tour, largely at Mountain Studios in Montreux. The lyrics, overdubs and mixing were finished at the Record Plant in New York in March 1979. Adrian Belew, whom Bowie had recruited while Belew was touring with Frank Zappa, played guitar over backing tracks he had not heard and was not told the key. Bowie and Eno used Eno's Oblique Strategies cards, and the band tried playing old tunes backwards and swapping instruments, as Carlos Alomar and Dennis Davis did on Boys Keep Swinging. Visconti said they dropped the ambient second side and just recorded songs. Eno appears on and co-wrote six of the ten tracks.

The gatefold cover was designed with the pop artist Derek Boshier. It shows Bowie in a tiled bathroom, made up as an accident victim, in a photograph taken by Brian Duffy in February 1979.

Release and reception

Boys Keep Swinging came out as the lead single on 27 April 1979 and reached number seven in the UK. D.J. followed in June and reached number 29. The album reached number four in the UK and number 20 in the US. Reviews at the time were mixed. Greil Marcus of Rolling Stone called it one of Bowie's weakest, while Ken Emerson of the New York Times found it his most eloquent record in years. Pitchfork's Mike Powell wrote in 2016 that it was the first time Bowie really seemed accessible.

Visconti remixed the album in secret during the Blackstar sessions, Bowie approved the new mix before he died, and it appeared in the 2017 box set A New Career in a New Town. Blur's M.O.R. uses the chord sequence of Fantastic Voyage and Boys Keep Swinging, and Philip Glass based his Symphony No. 12 on the album.