Of course, the main reason it's created such a fuss is simply because no one knew. It's incredible that, in an era of gossip websites and messageboard rumours, one of the biggest stars in the world, presumed retired, can spend two years making a new album without the merest whisper of it reaching the public. But somehow he did it. The first speculation that something was afoot came literally hours before the single appeared: no blurry cameraphone shots of him leaving a recording studio, no MP3s of demos leaked on to filesharing sites, no slip-up by someone involved in its making on Twitter. It's the opposite of how you're expected to do things: at the very least, a major artist releasing a new album is supposed to drop hints, create an online buzz of expectation, stoke the rumour mill, ensure the biggest audience possible is primed and waiting. Bowie has done none of that: whatever The Next Day sounds like, he's turned it into the biggest release of 2013 by the simple expedient of doing absolutely nothing other than make an album. Furthermore, he's managed to maintain the myth and mystique that was always central to his stardom and his art in a world where rock and pop music has almost no myth or mystique left, an age of 360-degree connectivity, where pop stars are supposed to be perpetually available to their fans via social networking. But as we've already established, David Bowie has always shown a brilliant understanding of how to promote records.
And look at just a small selection of the stories that this surprise new album has generated...
David Bowie's comeback single eligible for charts after allChart compiler announces it will try to separate sales from giveaways, making Where Are We Now? a chart contender
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