Heathen (stylised upside down and in lowercase) is the twenty-third studio album by the English musician David Bowie, originally released in Europe on 10 June 2002, and the following day in America.

Two tracks, "Afraid" and "Slip Away", evolved from Bowie's shelved Toy project, while three were covers of songs by Pixies, Neil Young and the Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

[a][1] In the meantime, Bowie began work on a new album with his former producer Tony Visconti, the duo's first full-length collaboration since Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980).

[6] Personal events in Bowie's life, including the birth of his daughter Alexandria in August 2000, and the deaths of his mother Margaret and friend Freddie Buretti in April and May 2001, respectively, deeply affected him and influenced some of the new material.

The lineup consisted of Bowie, Visconti and the drummer Matt Chamberlain, whom the two had met while scouting at the studio; Torn contributed guitar parts in September.

Additionally, Foo Fighters' frontman Dave Grohl guested on a cover of Neil Young's "I've Been Waiting for You", having performed with Bowie at his 50th birthday concert in January 1997, while the Who's Pete Townshend played parts for "Slow Burn".

Visconti added contributions from the Scorchio Quartet (Greg Kitzis, Meg Okura, Martha Mooke, Mary Wooten), who previously played with Bowie at the Tibet House Benefit Concert in February 2000, and the Borneo Horns (Lenny Pickett, Stan Harrison, Steve Elson), last seen on Never Let Me Down (1987).

[4][5] Outtakes from the sessions included "Wood Jackson", "When the Boys Came Marching Home", "Fly" and a new version of "Safe", a track Bowie and Visconti recorded for The Rugrats Movie in 1998, but ultimately cut from the film.

[15] Bowie said he wanted to capture the mood of Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind (1997),[5] and based "Sunday", "Heathen (The Rays)", "I Would Be Your Slave" and "5.15 The Angels Have Gone" off of Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs.

[9][8] The author James E. Perone even stated in his book The Words and Music of David Bowie that the album "chronicles New York City at the time of the...attacks", identifying "Slip Away", "Slow Burn" and "A Better Future" as reflecting a post-9/11 atmosphere.

[15] Bowie denied any connections to the attacks, stating that all the songs were written beforehand[18] and reflected a general feeling of anxiety that he had accumulated living in America,[17] particularly "Slow Burn".

"[9] The album opener, "Sunday", displays pervading electronic textures and synthesiser-based loops,[5][15] musically descending from the atmospherics of Low and tracks such as "Word on a Wing" (1976), "The Motel" (1995) and "The Dreamers" (1999).

[5] Featuring Visconti on bass and Bowie on all other instruments, including his only recorded drum performance,[21] Pegg considers the rendition a raw, tightly produced piece of garage rock that pays homage to T. Rex's "The Groover" (1973).

"[5] "Slow Burn" musically harkens back to his 1970s works, particularly with saxophone playing;[15] Pegg finds it a modernised update of the R&B styles of "'Heroes'" and "Teenage Wildlife" (1980).

[5][12] "5.15 The Angels Have Gone" is a somber number that concerns a hopeless man who feels isolated and packs up to leave town, continuing a theme present throughout Bowie's entire career, from "Can't Help Thinking About Me" (1965) to "Move On" (1979).

[15] Musically, the track displays textured production and a simple melody, with electronic minimalism akin to the Berlin Trilogy and the "catchy synthesiser pop" of "Dead Against It" (1993),[28] foreshadowing the songs on the artist's next studio album Reality (2003).

[4] Klinko's photographs included in the booklet reinforce the sense of divine rejection: Bowie sitting at a Spartan school-desk with his pen in the air above a blank page.

[4] An image included in the packaging contains three books that announce the themes: Albert Einstein's The General Theory of Relativity (1915), Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams (1899),[d] and Friedrich Nietzsche's The Gay Science (1882).

Columbia's chairman Don Ienner offered his full support of Bowie in a released statement, praising Heathen as "a remarkable addition to [an] incredible body of work [...] I think it's the album his worldwide audience has been waiting for.

[5][19] A 60-second clip of Bowie and child actress Hayley Nicholas directed by Gary Koepke appeared as a television commercial to promote Heathen, but its full Koepke-directed music video remained unreleased until 2016.

[53] In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis found a "strident, confident" album "lush with melodies" that "achieves a balance noticeably lacking in Bowie's output of the past 20 years".

[64] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine reasoned that despite a lack of innovation, the ending result is "an understated, utterly satisfying record, [...] simply because he'd never sounded as assured and consistent since.

[4][56][55] The author Paul Trynka argued the producer helped ditch the "intense sonic textures, overlayered production, and the sense that Bowie was trying too hard" that pervaded its predecessors.

"[59] A writer for Time Out magazine described the album as "a collection of strong, melodic songs executed with playful primitivism and sung with a force and passion that would be remarkable in a man half his age.

Time magazine's Benjamin Nugent found that the only good songs were the covers, while Kyle Smith of People complained about a general lack of melodicism.

[15] The veteran critic Robert Christgau was also mixed in The Village Voice, naming Heathen his "dud of the month", primarily citing weak songwriting.

[55] In a negative review for Uncut magazine, Ian MacDonald complained that none of the album's 12 tracks have memorable choruses or melodies, with "short-breathed and tired" phrasings and "energyless" sequences.

"[16] The lineup featured returning musicians Earl Slick, Gail Ann Dorsey, Plati, Garson, Campbell, Leonard and Catherine Russell.

[8][15] In 2016, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock placed Heathen at number 17 out of 26 in a list ranking Bowie's studio albums from worst to best, calling it "distinguished, thoughtful and spirited".

[9] Pegg felt the inclusion of three covers was excessive and noted the overall lack of melodies, but "combined with superb performances, not to mention some of the finest and most probing lyrics Bowie ever wrote, the result is a positive triumph."