Limited 180gm audiophile vinyl LP pressing including 20-page booklet. Hours... is the 21st studio album by British musician David Bowie, released in 1999. It was the first complete album by a major artist available to download over the Internet, preceding the physical release by two weeks. A lot of the material that ended up on Hours... was originally used, in alternate versions, for the video game Omikron: The Nomad Soul, which also featured two characters based on Bowie, as well as one on his wife Iman, one on Hours... collaborator Reeves Gabrels, and one on bassist Gail Ann Dorsey. The album cover, designed by Rex Ray with photography by Tim Bret Day and Frank Ockenfels, depicts the short-haired Bowie persona from the intensely energetic previous album Earthling, exhausted, resting in the arms of a long-haired, more youthful version of Bowie. Indeed, Hours... is a much mellower album than it"s predecessor, and features numerous references to earlier parts of Bowie"s musical career (particularly the early 1970s).