The Buddha of Suburbia (soundtrack)
| The Buddha of Suburbia | ||||
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| Soundtrack album by David Bowie | ||||
| Released | 8 November 1993 | |||
| Recorded | June–September 1993 | |||
| Studio |
Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland O'Henry Sound Studios, Burbank, USA |
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 55:26 | |||
| Label |
BMG International Virgin/EMI Records |
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| Producer | ||||
| David Bowie chronology | ||||
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| Alternative cover | ||||
Cover of the 2007 re-release
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Trouser Press | generally favourable |
The Buddha of Suburbia is a 1993 soundtrack album by David Bowie which accompanied the 4-part television serial The Buddha of Suburbia on BBC2 (itself adapted from the book The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi).
The album is a soundtrack album, sitting between Black Tie White Noise (1993) and Outside (1995). It was produced and mixed at Mountain Studios (Montreux) in Switzerland and according to Bowie it took only six days to write and record, but fifteen days to mix due to some "technical breakdowns".
The album has been classified as a soundtrack although the title track was the only song to be featured in the television programme (see below).
Two of the tracks are ambient instrumentals and quite similar to Bowie's work with Brian Eno in the late 1970s. Other tracks on the album make strong use of saxophone, electronic keyboards and piano.
Although classified on the album cover as a soundtrack, this album is not the soundtrack Bowie wrote for the BBC dramatisation of Hanif Kureishi's book with the same name (which remains unreleased). Rather, after writing the actual soundtrack Bowie decided to work further on the same motifs, creating the radically different pieces that are heard on the album. Only the title track remained unaltered from the original soundtrack.
Despite Bowie once hailing it as his favourite album, the European (released in 1993) and the American (released in 1995) versions were deleted for many years, or as Bowie put it: "The album itself only got one review, a good one as it happens, and is virtually non-existent as far as my catalogue goes – it was designated a soundtrack and got zilch in the way of marketing money. A real shame."
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Wikipedia