Song · David Bowie
“The Heart's Filthy Lesson” by David Bowie
From the album 1.Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper Cycle (1995)
“The Heart's Filthy Lesson” by David Bowie appears on 16 radio countdowns from 3 stations between 1995 and 2014. It was first released in 1995 on the album 1.Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper Cycle. Its best result is #57 on The Buzz Top 103 Alternative Songs of '95. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #161 alternative song of 1995 and #2,429 alternative song of all time.
"The Hearts Filthy Lesson" came out in September 1995 ahead of Outside, David Bowie's 20th studio album, and it announced his new industrial-leaning sound with a clank and a leer. Bowie and Brian Eno produced, with David Richards co-producing, and the band grinds hard: Reeves Gabrels' guitar scraping, Mike Garson's piano skittering, Erdal Kızılçay on bass and Sterling Campbell on drums, while Eno's drum machine and sampler add to the gloom.
The song ties into the album's story, a lament for its "tyrannical futurist" Ramona A. Stone, and it also has Bowie poking at how art gets ritually made and then degraded. Samuel Bayer's video was controversial enough that MTV needed a re-edit, and the song rolls over the end credits of the 1995 film Seven.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 57 | 103.1 The Buzz West Palm Beach, FL | The Buzz Top 103 Alternative Songs of '95 | 103 |
| 1995 | 77 | WDRE Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA | WDRE Top 103.9 Songs of 1995 | 104 |
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | 1510 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2000 Songs of All-Time (December 1999) | 2000 |
| 2000 | 1510 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2001 Songs of All-Time (December 2000) | 2001 |
| 2001 | 1514 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2002 Songs of All-Time (December 2001) | 2002 |
| 2002 | 1512 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2003 Songs of All-Time (December 2002) | 2003 |
| 2003 | 1516 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2004 Songs of All-Time (December 2003) | 2004 |
| 2004 | 1516 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2005 Songs of All-Time (December 2004) | 2005 |
| 2005 | 1515 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2006 Songs of All-Time (December 2005) | 1994 |
| 2007 | 1420 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2008 Songs of All-Time (December 2007) | 2008 |
| 2008 | 1438 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2009 Songs of All-Time (December 2008) | 2009 |
| 2009 | 1456 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2010 Songs of All-Time (December 2009) | 2010 |
| 2010 | 1486 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2011 Songs of All-Time (December 2010) | 2011 |
| 2011 | 1555 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2012 Songs of All-Time (December 2011) | 2011 |
| 2013 | 1608 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2013 Songs of All-Time (December 2013) | 2012 |
| 2014 | 1674 | CD101 | CD101 Top 2014 Songs of All-Time (2014) | 2013 |
Also listed as: The Hearts Filthy Lesson.
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