Originating as a soundtrack to the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul (1999), Hours was the final collaboration between Bowie and guitarist Reeves Gabrels, with whom he had worked since 1988.

After maintaining a relatively large media profile throughout 1997, David Bowie retreated from the limelight in 1998, primarily devoting his time to ventures outside of music, such as establishing his website BowieNet, but nevertheless continued making film appearances.

[a][1] In late 1998, Bowie composed the soundtrack for the upcoming video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, developed by Quantic Dream and published by Eidos Interactive.

[6] The biographer Nicholas Pegg contends that Bowie was drawn to the game due to its Buddhist overtones, noting that when a character died, he or she was reincarnated.

[5] Along with composing the music, Bowie appeared in the game, along with the guitarist Reeves Gabrels and the bassist Gail Ann Dorsey, as the singer of an in-game band performing gigs in the bars of Omikron City.

And lastly, it was the opposite approach from the usual cheesy industrial metal music one would normally get.At an E3 press conference in 1999, Bowie said that his main priority was to imbue Omikron with "emotional subtext" and regarded this as a success.

[2][5] After Bowie completed collaborations with the band Placebo in February and March 1999, he and Gabrels entered Seaview Studios in Bermuda[1]—his new residence after he sold his home in Switzerland[2]—the following month to commence recording.

[10] Bowie and Gabrels completed most of the work by themselves,[11] although the musician Mark Plati and the drummer Sterling Campbell, who played on Earthling (1997) and Outside (1995), respectively, returned to contribute.

[13][14] Ohio native Alex Grant was revealed as the winner in January 1999 and was flown to New York for the vocal and overdub session on 24 May, which was broadcast live on BowieNet.

When speaking with the biographer David Buckley, Plati described having leisurely conversations with Bowie and Gabrels about the Internet and contemporary topics of the time.

[15][28] Incidentally, the title recalls material from that era, particularly Hunky Dory, Pin Ups and the Stooges' Raw Power, which Bowie mixed.

[31] O'Leary finds a demo-like quality to the recording, noting its "acerbic chord structure, shifting rhythms [and] lengthy coda".

The artwork reflects the Christian themes of the tracks and was inspired by the Pietà, which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus.

Bret Day explained: "We shot Bowie and then made a dummy of him and set the whole thing alight ... Lee Stewart did the rest in post-production," intending to represent the "burning [of] the old".

[9] Consequence of Sound's David Sackllah agreed, stating: "This is the most '90s cover made by an artist who was over 50 at the time, and its embarrassing sprawl is a bit of juxtaposition to the actual songs on the record.

[15] On 6 August 1999, Bowie began releasing 45-second snippets of each song on BowieNet and gave track-by-track descriptions, which was followed by a square-by-square reveal of the album cover during the ensuing month.

The British-based retailer HMV announced: "If artists release albums on the Net before other people can buy them in the shops, it's not a level playing field.

"[15] Buckley states that with the internet release, "Bowie had accurately foreseen the revolution in the music industry that would be brought about by the download generation.

Among positive reviews, Mojo's Mark Paytress announced that the album was "no masterpiece" but nonetheless "crowns a trilogy that represents significantly more than a mere coda to a once-unimpeachable career.

"[47] Q considered it "a richly textured and emotionally vivid set", adding that "This time around, Bowie sounds influenced by nobody except himself, and he couldn't have picked a better role model.

[44] Similarly impressed, Alternative Press described Hours as "a masterpiece", adding that it "finds Bowie returning to basics he never should have left behind".

[40] Chris Willman agreed in Entertainment Weekly, praising "Thursday's Child" as "the loveliest ballad Bowie's written in an aeon", but felt the rest of the album was subpar.

[39] Both The Independent and The Observer unfavourably compared Hours to Hunky Dory, with the former calling it "fairly traditional" and "not one of his best"; the latter criticised the songs as unremarkable.

[46] Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork criticised the album, saying: "Hours opts for a spacy, but nonetheless adult-contemporary sound that comes across with all the vitality and energy of a rotting log."

[2][15][53][58] During the tour he primarily played in small venues, save for one appearance at the NetAid benefit concert at Wembley Stadium in late October.

[53] The returning pianist Mike Garson found the Hours material was better live, telling Buckley he thought the studio recordings were "underdeveloped".

On the positive side, AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote: "It may not be one of Bowie's classics, but it's the work of a masterful musician who has begun to enjoy his craft again and isn't afraid to let things develop naturally.

[66] Perone, who criticises the non-linear track sequencing, finds that the album works in expressing a message of hope to the listener and commends the growing maturity of both the music and lyrics as well as the overt spirituality throughout.

In his book Starman, Trynka summarises: "Like Space Oddity [1969], Hours, for all its finely crafted moments, end[s] up being less than the sum of its parts.

[18] Three years later, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock placed Hours at number 22 out of 26, primarily criticising Bowie's vocal performances as sounding "tired" and the music mostly boring except for the occasional interesting melody.