DAVID BOWIE

Type: Audio CD (8 Jan. 2016)

Number of Discs: 1

Label: ISO / Columbia

Item Details

Blackstar

Subliminal messages from the subliminal mind of our generation.

My personal journey with David Bowie starts with the Berlin trilogy, the otherness of the 1976 movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, finds the disquitening discord of Fripp on Scary Monsters and years later finds a return to sublimeness with Eno and Outside. Blackstar sits with all these wonders from the past hand in glove.

So much can be read into it. One wonders if it can ever be seperated from Bowie's death and gather a life of its own. I think it will: it's that good.

These are soundscapes that remind me of another time. Of West Berlin of the late 1970s. Of Low, Lodger and Heroes. It reminds me of feint, crackling radio sounds of voices in foreign tongues from somewhere far away, somewhere I've never been to like an East Germany far behind the Wall.

Plight & premonition.

Throughout the album there is atmosphere in spades. I can hear jazz and I can hear slickness but most of all I can hear Bowie embracing his My Way moment more skillfully than anyone I can think of. Everything is as Bowie demands it to be for his goodbye to this world and hello to the next. A final curtain, a final cupboard.

Every track is strong but like all great music it takes time and repeated listening to really get the most out of it. Stay with it; it will grip you as surely as the Mainman knew it would.

I think from a musical point the best recommendation you can give to anyone approaching Bowie for the first time is that this and The Next Day prove that right up to the end of his life an artist of his stature was trying to make music that was revelant, that he never stopped trying to re-invent himself.

Can you name another artist of his iconic magnitude who has done the same? I can't think of one.

Facts:

On January 8th, 2016, Bowie turns 69. He releases Blackstar the same day. On January 10th he dies after an 18 month battle with cancer, leaving son Duncan (44), daughter Alexandria (15) and wife Iman (60).

Blackstar: The title track is 10 minutes long and steeped in death. There is a resurrection of sorts. Black Star is the name of a song by Elvis Presley.

Dollar Days: Soft and wistful, mentioning the 'English evergreens' and declaring an ambivalence to seeing them again.

Lazarus: This is the title track of the musical written by Bowie and Enda Walsh, which opened off Broadway in December 2016.

I Can't Give Everything Away: The final track and as elusive as can be, perhaps the way Bowie wanted the end to be for those on the outside looking in on his life.

Is it his final album? Is there more? I wouldn't bet against it.

The last person that the DavidBowieReal official Twitter account followed before the singer died was God (@TheTweetofGod).

Tony Visconti said: "His death was no different from his life - a work of art."

Track Listing:

1 Blackstar 9:57
2 'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore [Explicit] 4:52
3 Lazarus 6:22
4 Sue (Or In a Season of Crime) 4:40
5 Girl Loves Me [Explicit] 4:51
6 Dollar Days 4:44
7 I Can't Give Everything Away 5:47
Video: Blackstar (Video) [Digital Version Only]
Digital Booklet: Blackstar

Blackstar sounds and looks even better on vinyl than CD, in my opinion. Available ebay.co.uk (direct link to Vinyl)

Lazaras Video

View video at YouTube

I think each individual takes their own pieces from the video. On its basic level, it is a man dying, a life ending as the past envelops him, passing from the here and now and into the in-between (that corridor between life and death which I hope has glimpses of the bluest clear skies, vast mountains and the deepest valleys) and, finally, onto the journey to the Great Beyond.

It is unsettling first viewing. But 'unsettling first viewing' will turn into Art soon enough.

Time is a healer, they say. Whatever - time is our companion on the road to death, a kind of Samuel Beckett old tramp found to hold your hand on the road to the inevitable.

- Paul Page.

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