Bowie composed the tracks with Reeves Gabrels and Mark Plati, who are credited as co-producers, with Mike Garson, Gail Ann Dorsey and Zack Alford providing overdubs later.

Although the album was mostly received positively on release, later reviews find Earthling lacked innovation in a time when the drum and bass craze was well-established; others consider it a worthwhile addition to an underrated decade.

The lineup for the tour included Reeves Gabrels and Carlos Alomar (guitars), Mike Garson (piano), Zack Alford (drums) and Gail Ann Dorsey (bass).

The song, which expanded on the jungle and drum and bass rhythms found on the Outside tracks "I'm Deranged" and "We Prick You", made its debut at the summer shows.

"[8] Also recorded around May was an untitled piece containing the lyric "dead men don't talk" that, like "Telling Lies", pre-dated the Earthling material.

Outtakes from the sessions included remakes of the Tin Machine tracks "Baby Universal", which was played on stage earlier in the year, and "I Can't Read", which was replaced by "The Last Thing You Should Do".

[d][3][5] According to O'Leary, Earthling was initially envisioned as an EP of new tracks sequenced with the remakes and covers, but by the end of the sessions, there was enough material for a full-length album of new content.

[5] While reviewers generally consider Earthling Bowie's "drum and bass album", the biographer Marc Spitz argues that "it's simply [a] case of a veteran artist pursuing a sound with which he or she has fallen in love.

[22] The author James E. Perone found an emphasis on techno and jungle and deems Earthling more musically accessible than its predecessor, partially aided by "strong melodic hooks" throughout.

[25] Described by O'Leary as a combination of arena rock and electronica,[7] it utilises percussion and power chords from the Prodigy's "Firestarter", a 1996 UK number one that assisted in bringing drum and bass rhythms to the mainstream.

[30] It initially began as a tribute to the actress Susan Sarandon,[f] but took additional influences from songwriter Neil Young after Bowie, Gabrels and Dorsey performed at a pair of benefit concerts for the artist in October 1996.

[7] Both the music and lyrics represent a hybridisation of the Outside and Earthling styles, with Pegg describing the final arrangement as a blend of "a very aggressive rock sound with drum and bass".

"[7] Pegg compares Bowie's Colossus of Rhodes-like stance in the cover to a "proud eighteenth-century landowner in a Gainsborough portrait" and, simultaneously, an alien-like visitor in an effect similar to the sleeve for Ziggy Stardust (1972).

Buckley writes that over the past thirty years in Britain, the Union Jack had gone from being symbols of confidence in the 1960s, oppression in the 1970s through the punk rock movement, and "rightist" through Morrissey's controversial use of it at Finsbury Park in the early 1990s.

[3] Pegg notes that the 1990s Britpop era frequently saw the use of the Union Jack in advertisements, while numerous bands at the time posed with the flag for both Melody Maker and NME.

[18] Additional images included with the sleeve dated back to Bowie's Los Angeles period in the mid-1970s, such as a blurred flying saucer and a Kirlian photograph of his fingertip and crucifix, which also appeared on the "Little Wonder" CD single.

[5] Bowie promoted Earthling with a string of television appearances from February to April 1997, including on Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

[3][7] The single reached number 66 on the Billboard Hot 100 and remained on the chart for 16 weeks, becoming Bowie's biggest hit in the country since "Day-In Day-Out" ten years earlier.

[11][15] Linda Laban of The Seattle Times found it a "richly textured return to excellence",[14] while, in the words of Chicago Tribune's Greg Kot, it represented "some of [Bowie's] finest music in a decade".

[61] Peter Aspden of the Financial Times positively compared Earthling to the Prodigy and the Chemical Brothers' concurrent releases The Fat of the Land and Dig Your Own Hole, respectively, stating that they "were strong on aggression and aural attack, but lacked the variety and subtlety to last beyond twenty-odd interesting minutes".

[3] Andy Gill of The Independent praised the music as innovative compared to other jungle and drum and bass acts of the time, stating: "What comes through most strongly on Earthling is the way Bowie retains an obsessional interest in the sheer variety and extremity of sound."

[8] In People magazine, Peter Castro credited Bowie with striking an "accessible" balance between the "jungle" and rock style akin to Lodger (1979) and Scary Monsters.

"[55] In a more negative evaluation, Carol Clerk and Andre Paine, writers of Melody Maker, included Earthling on their list of Bowie albums "best to avoid".

[64] In a particularly scathing review, Select magazine's Ian Harrison gave the album one star out of five, writing: "Earthling is splendidly coiffured and presented...but the selling point – Bowie goes original junglist nutty – is so negligible as to be non-existent.

[65] British reviewers, such as Melody Maker and NME, praised the shows in general but were initially critical of the Earthling material, although the latter reversed its opinion by July.

[68] At the festival, Bowie approached electronic duo Orbital for a possible collaboration, although this never came to fruition; member Phil Hartnoll later considered it "the biggest disappointment of [his] career".

[65] Additionally, live performances from the entire year and other tracks were compiled for Earthling in the City (1997), a six-track promotional CD that was included with the November 1997 American issue of GQ magazine.

[78] In Pitchfork, Sean T. Collins, positively compared Earthling to Young Americans (1975) and Let's Dance, calling the record a "muscular collection" that "deserves a place in the pantheon alongside its predecessors.

"[88] Three years later, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock placed Earthling at number 18 out of 26, criticised its emphasis on "sounds over songs" and, like Davidson, found "Bowie being late to yet another sub-genre party".

[...] Those faults would have been forgivable had the album been released two years earlier; its appearance just as the nineties drum and bass craze was subsiding suggested Bowie was content to surf on someone else's wave rather than make his own.