The album displays a baroque pop and music hall sound influenced by Anthony Newley and the Edwardian styles of contemporary British rock bands.

Released in both mono and stereo mixes, David Bowie received positive reviews from music journalists but was a commercial failure due to a lack of promotion from Deram.

According to the author Paul Trynka, his songwriting focused less on traditional instrumentation and more in favour of orchestral arrangements, in the vein of the Beach Boys' recently-released Pet Sounds.

"[3][5] He found that when presenting the charts to the musicians, some of whom were members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, they threw them back and requested new scores, which he had to do himself while Bowie monitored from the control room.

The sessions continued between 8 and 13 December with the recording of "Sell Me a Coat", "Little Bombardier", "Silly Boy Blue", "Maid of Bond Street", "Come and Buy My Toys" and "The Gravedigger", now titled "Please Mr.

[2][6] Besides the orchestra, Vernon hired several uncredited session musicians who were integral to the album's sound; credited players included guitarist John Renbourn, whose playing is heard prominently on "Come and Buy My Toys", and multi-instrumentalist Big Jim Sullivan, who contributed banjo and sitar on "Did You Ever Have a Dream" and "Join the Gang", respectively.

[2] Vernon recalled having "a lot of fun" during the sessions and described Bowie as "the easiest person to work with", further adding that "some of the melodies were extremely good, and the actual material, the lyrics, had a quality that was quite unique".

[8] A provisional running order was drawn up at the end of December 1966, which included tracks that were absent from the final album, such as "Did You Ever Have a Dream", "Your Funny Smile" and "Bunny Thing".

[2] Bowie and the musicians reconvened at Decca on 26 January, recording the backing tracks for "The Laughing Gnome" and "The Gospel According to Tony Day", which were chosen as the next single; vocals were added in early February.

[14] "Little Bombardier" and "Maid of Bond Street" are in waltz time,[8] while "Join the Gang" includes sitar and a musical quotation of the Spencer Davis Group's recent hit "Gimme Some Lovin'".

[16] The latter is noted by the biographer Chris O'Leary as more minimalist in nature,[5] and exemplifies folk in a way the author Peter Doggett likens to Simon & Garfunkel.

[7] Lighthearted themes, such as childhood innocence, are celebrated in "Sell Me a Coat", "When I Live My Dream" and "Come and Buy My Toys",[7] as well as the psychedelic-influenced "There Is a Happy Land", which took its title and subject matter from the Andrew Young hymn of the same name.

[21] Darker ideals such as peer pressure and drug use are discussed in "Join the Gang",[16] while "We Are Hungry Men" depicts a totalitarian world that reflects messianic worship and cannibalism in a comedic way.

[22][23] "Little Bombardier" concerns a war veteran who is forced to leave town after being suspected for pedophilia,[12] and the a cappella "Please Mr. Gravedigger" details a child-murderer contemplating his next victim while standing in a graveyard.

[24][25][26] The American release, issued in August 1967, omitted "We Are Hungry Men" and "Maid of Bond Street", which Pegg speculates was possibly due to the US practice of trimming track listings in order to "reduce publishing royalties".

[2] Spitz considers the image "very rooted" in the mid-1960s,[19] while Consequence of Sound's Blake Goble called it "perhaps the most uninteresting and dated album cover of Bowie's career" in 2018.

[8] Bowie's other Deram singles "The Laughing Gnome" and a remake of "Love You till Tuesday", issued in April and July, respectively,[29] both failed to chart, further signalling his downturn with the label.

[32] Pitt sent copies of David Bowie to music executives in order to generate publicity, receiving letters of admiration from Lionel Bart, Bryan Forbes and Franco Zeffirelli.

[2] Departing from the sound of David Bowie, these included "Let Me Sleep Beside You", "Karma Man", a new version of "When I Live My Dream", "In the Heat of the Morning" and a remake of "London Bye Ta–Ta".

[2] Outside of music, he acted in mime actor Lindsay Kemp's play Pierrot in Turquoise throughout early 1968, performing the David Bowie songs "When I Live My Dream", "Sell Me a Coat" and "Come and Buy My Toys".

[2] Other claims made about David Bowie include the argument that it sounded like nothing else at the time,[26] which is mostly attributed to Dudgeon's "oft-quoted" description of the album as "about the weirdest thing any record company have ever put out".

[2] Pegg debunks this idea, writing that the record's blend of "folk and short-story narrative" shared similarities with the more commercial releases of the British psychedelia movement of 1966–1967, while the motifs of wartime nostalgia and childhood innocence reflected the contemporary ideals of Syd Barrett's Pink Floyd, the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and the Beatles.

matched the waltz-style of "Little Bombardier", while Pegg compares the styles of "Uncle Arthur", "She's Got Medals" and "Sell Me a Coat" to "Eleanor Rigby", "Lovely Rita" and "She's Leaving Home".

[40] Regarding the blend of folk, pop and classical, Perone argues that the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed, also released by Deram in 1967, was more commercially viable but displayed the combination on David Bowie, particularly on "Rubber Band" and "Sell Me a Coat".

[48] Reviewing in 2010, BBC Music's Sean Egan found an "unrefined" talent in Bowie, noting "above average" lyrics that are "hardly deep".

NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray said, "a listener strictly accustomed to David Bowie in his assorted '70s guises would probably find this debut album either shocking or else simply quaint",[16] while Buckley describes its status in Bowie's discography as "the vinyl equivalent of the madwoman in the attic", ridiculing it as a "cringe-inducing piece of juvenilia" only to be braved by "those with a high enough embarrassment threshold".

[12] Trynka praises Bowie's confidence and highlights individual tracks, such as "We Are Hungry Men" and "Uncle Arthur", but notes that he lacked ambition and commerciality at the time.

[48][54][58] The tracks were remastered by Peter Mew and Tris Penna, who previously undertook Virgin's deluxe reissue of David Bowie (1969).

[59] Reviewing the deluxe edition for The Second Disc, Joe Marchese considered it a welcome supplement to The Deram Anthology 1966–1968 that showed Bowie had talent but lacked direction.

[55] Erlewine praised the addition of the new tracks, arguing that they enhance the debut rather than diminish it, fully offering more insight into Bowie's talent at this stage of his career.