Definitely too long and uneven, but I think the album is OK, albeit nothing special. Blackstar is special and I could hear that even in the few days I had listening to it before his death changed its meaning.
I think the problem with The Next Day is that he'd been so long out of the game that he was probably worried whether he could pull it off, and so he consciously made a 'Bowie album', in the neoclassical rock mode of Heathen and Reality. It's of a piece with those two (although not as good as Heathen), whereas Blackstar is a new direction right at the end.
― Zelda Zonk, Friday, 10 March 2023 01:20 (one year ago) link