Tin Machine were a British–American rock band formed in 1988. The band consisted of English singer-songwriter David Bowie on lead vocals, saxophone and guitar; Reeves Gabrels on guitar and vocals; Tony Fox Sales on bass and vocals; and Hunt Sales on drums and vocals. The Sales brothers had previously performed with Bowie and Iggy Pop during the 1977 tour for The Idiot. Kevin Armstrong played additional guitar and keyboards on the band's first and second studio albums and first tour, and American guitarist Eric Schermerhorn played on the second tour and live album Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey, Baby (1992).

Hunt Sales said that the band's name "reflects the sound of the band", and Bowie stated that he and his band members joined up "to make the kind of music that we enjoyed listening to", and to rejuvenate himself artistically.

The band recorded two studio albums and one live album before dissolving in 1992, after which Bowie returned to his solo career. By the end of 2012, they had sold two million albums. Bowie said Tin Machine helped revitalise his career.

The 1987 Bowie album Never Let Me Down and subsequent Glass Spider Tour had left critics unimpressed, and Bowie was aware of his low standing. Eager to return to making music for himself rather than the mainstream audience he had acquired following the Let's Dance album, Bowie looked around for collaborators. He briefly worked with Bon Jovi producer Bruce Fairbairn in Los Angeles, recording a few tracks, including a demo of "Lucy Can't Dance" (which was eventually re-recorded and released on Bowie's 1993 solo album Black Tie White Noise) and a version of Bob Dylan's song "Like A Rolling Stone", but this did not bear much fruit, and the Dylan cover was passed to his friend Mick Ronson, where it was released on his posthumous album Heaven and Hull (1994). Soon after, Bowie began collaborating with Reeves Gabrels, who pushed the singer to rediscover his experimental side.

Bowie and Gabrels had initially met through Gabrels' then-wife Sara Terry, who was part of the press staff for the North American leg of Bowie's 1987 Glass Spider world tour. The two men had struck up a friendship when Gabrels visited at several tour venues. Notably, their relationship began as a social one, as Gabrels did not mention that he himself was a musician. Common interests in popular culture and the visual arts provided more than enough to talk about, Gabrels explained in later interviews, and also because he was in his wife's workplace, he felt it was not appropriate to bring up his own music. At the tour's end, Bowie kindly asked Terry if he could do anything for her. In response, Terry gave Bowie a tape of Gabrels' guitar playing. Months later, after listening to the tape, Bowie phoned Gabrels to invite him to get together to play and write. Bowie told him that he felt he had "lost his vision" and was looking for ways to get it back. After a month working together, Gabrels asked Bowie what he wanted of him, and, according to Gabrels, Bowie said "Basically, I need somebody that can do a combination of Beck, Hendrix, Belew and Fripp, with a little Stevie Ray Vaughan and Albert King thrown in. Then, when I’m not singing, you take the ball and do something with it, and when you hand the ball back to me, it might not even be the same ball."

The first public fruits of Bowie and Gabrels working together came with a new arrangement by Gabrels of the song "Look Back in Anger" which Bowie had written with Brian Eno in 1979 for the album Lodger. The occasion was a benefit show at London's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) on 1 July 1988 at which Bowie had been invited to perform with the avant-garde dance troupe La La La Human Steps. Bowie sang, played and danced with troupe members while in lighted grottoes upstage three musicians (Gabrels on guitar, Kevin Armstrong on guitar, and Erdal Kızılçay on bass) played the new 7+1⁄2 minute score that Gabrels created from the three-minute song; the new material included drums programmed by Kızılçay. "We went into the studio to rearrange it", said Bowie in a filmed interview; "I like the hard-edged wall of guitar sound that we put into it."

Gabrels recalled that early on, they were not sure whom they would work with. They discussed working with Terry Bozzio on drums and Percy Jones on bass. But Bowie, who had run into Tony Sales in Los Angeles at a wrap party for his Glass Spider Tour, convinced Tony to call his brother Hunt so they could work together again, as Tony and Hunt had performed with David Bowie in support of Iggy Pop in the late 1970s. Tony recalled that Bowie was "thinking about getting a band together — something together. He didn't know exactly what he wanted to do, but he wanted Hunt and I to meet Reeves and maybe we could all write together, come up with something."

Bowie himself was surprised with how things came together with the band: