12 fascinating facts about David Bowie's bizarre debut album

It was the debut album that David Bowie tried to forget.

The year was 1967, and even though Bowie was just 20 years old, he had already been trying to make it in the pop world for several years — without much success. 

Then he developed a new approach: inspired by popular English actor and musician Anthony Newley, he would create colourful character sketches, and deliver them in a highly theatrical way.

The result was his self-titled debut album, which has been referred to as "one of pop's genuinely crazy moments" and "the vinyl equivalent of the madwoman in the attic." But despite the flop, it offered hints of the Bowie who was to come.

The album was released 50 years ago this week, on June 1, 1967. So to mark the occasion, we've gathered 12 fascinating facts about one of pop music's most bizarre debuts.

1. It was released the same day as another unusual album — one that would fare far better

The album was released in both mono and stereo (one of the first to do so) on the same day as the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band — June 1, 1967. In the U.S., it came out in August of the same year, minus two of the songs, "Hungry Men" and "Maid of Bond Street."

2. It didn't take long to record

Bowie gathered his bandmates from the Buzz — Dek Fearnley, Derek Boyes and John Eager — along with a group of session musicians at R G Jones Studios in Surrey, where they recorded three songs in four and a half hours. They were "The London Boys," "Rubber Band" and the bizarre "Please Mr. Gravedigger." The remaining tracks were recorded between Nov. 14 and Dec. 13, 1966.

3. The pay wasn't great

When they heard the demo, Decca records signed Bowie, paying him £150 plus a royalty agreement for the first three tracks and an advance of £100 for the rest of the album. It may not seem like much, but at the time, landing an album contract before having a commercial hit single was extremely rare.

4. It was a total flop

The album only reached number 125 on the U.K. album charts, and the singles all flopped. Bowie did not release another record for two years. After the failure of the album, Bowie's record label Deram Records (a subsidiary of Decca that was active until 1979) dropped him in April, 1968. Deram later reissued the album on CD in 1984, and the booklet includes the original press release. The album was re-released as a two-CD deluxe edition in 2010.

5. Even Bowie himself was embarrassed

Looking back, even Bowie himself was embarrassed by the record. "Aarrggh, that Tony Newley stuff," he said in an interview. "How cringey. No, I haven't got much to say about that in its favour. There's a naivety there that's not disenchanting, but I'm not very comfortable with it. Lyrically I guess it was striving to be something, the short-storyteller. Musically it's quite bizarre. I don't know where I was at. It seemed to have its roots all over the place, in rock and vaudeville and music hall and I don't know what."

6. Bowie and Fearnley learned the ropes themselves

The album — which features tuba, strings, waltzes, marches and more — was written by Bowie and his former Buzz bandmate Fearnley, who weren't exactly seasoned arrangers. But they weren't going in completely cold: the two reportedly taught themselves music theory using The Observer Book of Music so they could understand the terms the session musicians, many of whom were from the London Philharmonic, were using.

7. It wasn't his manager's fault

Many fans have blamed Bowie's manager, Ken Pitt, for the oddball album, and believe Pitt was trying to turn Bowie into a well-rounded entertainer — but apparently that theory holds no water. In fact, the album was made before Pitt played a central role in Bowie's affairs, and he was out of the country when most of it was written and recorded. In his memoir, Pitt says he was "never happy with David sounding like Newley on some of his records and the decision to do so, conscious or not, was David's alone."

8. The album hints at what's to come

The album sounds nothing like the David Bowie that would soon follow — but still, there are glimmers. "She's Got Medals" hints at gender bending and homosexuality; "We Are Hungry Men" touches on the Orwellian sci-fi themes that would thread through Bowie's later work; "The Laughing Gnome" uses the varispeed technique found in "Fame," "The Bewlay Brothers" and other hits; and "There is a Happy Land" introduces Bowie's view of children as belonging to a race distinct from adults. Themes from peer pressure to drug use to the military would appear in later works, and Bowie shows an early penchant for storytelling.

9. The sleeve was carefully considered

The album cover image was photographed by Fearnley's brother Gerald in his basement studio beneath a church, and features Bowie in a favourite military jacket. It also featured text by Pitt, who wrote that Bowie's vision was "straight and sharp as a laser beam. It cuts through hypocrisy, prejudice and cant. It sees the bitterness of humanity, but rarely bitterly. It sees the humour in our failings, the pathos of our virtues."

10. One of the background singers has a famous ancestor

At one point, Fearnley's friend Marion Constable was enlisted to sing backing vocals on "Silly Boy Blue." She was the great-great-grandaughter of famous English painter John Constable.

11. It was one of the first pop albums with an English accent

At this stage in pop music, English accents were almost unheard of, with bands from the Beatles to the Rolling Stones layering American accents onto their songs. With his debut, Bowie became one of the first artists to sing with a British tinge.

12. Reviewers said Bowie showed promise

The album may have been a flop, but some reviewers saw promise in Bowie, then a 20-year-old Londoner. NME called it "all very refreshing" and said Bowie was "a very promising talent." Disc & Music Echo called it "a remarkable, creative debut album" and added, "Here is a new talent that deserves attention, for though David Bowie has no great voice, he can project words with a cheeky 'side' that is endearing yet not precocious … full of abstract fascination. Try David Bowie. He's something new."

— Jennifer Van Evra, q digital staff