Subscribers could browse a vast archive of Bowie’s photographs, videos and interviews, as well as a blog, career chronology and news feed. The result, on 1 September 1998, was the launch of BowieNet, initially in North America, but later worldwide – an ISP offering “uncensored” access to the internet attached to a dedicated David Bowie website. Throughout 19 he worked with the web and interactive entertainment pioneers Robert Goodale and Ron Roy to explore the deeper possibilities of the internet as a means of reaching fans and distributing music. In 1997 he arranged an ambitious live ‘cybercast’ of his Earthling concert in Boston – although the limits of internet access at the time meant that capacity was quickly reached, and most viewers received only stuttering images and error messages.īut his true ambitions were more profound. By then, like many other music artists, he had his own website and was exploring interactive CD-ROM technology – notably through the 1994 release of Jump, a PC CD that let users create their own video for the track Jump, They Say as well as watch interviews with Bowie and music videos from the Black Tie White Noise album. In 1996, Bowie became the first major artist to distribute a new song – Telling Lies – as an online-only release, selling over 300,000 downloads. Bowie had always appreciated the interplay between pop music and technology, but the explosion of web usage in the mid-1990s offered entirely new communication possibilities.
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