Anticipate David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

...yeah I dunno about this.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05ss3sk

he's not a film star

that

sounds

awful

xp of course not, he's a black star

waht

Culshaw's a reasonable mimic but idk if he's an actor

xp failed pun, sorry

We got it. Well, I did.

https://www.avclub.com/a-psychic-apparently-told-david-bowie-exactly-when-he-w-1822784961

OK I’m flagging you for sharing that

i had a premonition you would

Garson's an interesting guy but...yeah.

In the Jones oral bio, Garson's attitude is, "Well, I never did drugs, ever, and...well, David didn't call me for years. Then he acted weird when I'd say something."

I'm not one for tributes or covers etc, but this (Dutch, soz) sounds promising: a live tribute and reinterpretation of Blackstar at the Holland Festival, with vocals by Laetitia Sadier, Anna Calvi and Anja Plaschg (Soap&Skin). The newly arranged music will be performed by stargaze, a classical ensemble that I only know because they performed with Owen Pallett at Berghain some years ago.

with vocals by Laetitia Sadier,

!!!

I know right?!

cause it's impossible to search for: ★

Came on my music player today after listening to another album and...wasn't prepared. I haven't listened to it in about two years but, God, what a great, elegiac yet defiant piece of work this album is. Bowie Forever.

how many times does an angel fall?

i can't answer why, just go with me.

Came on my music player today

Boy did I misread that.

Got the cd in Chester le Street market two weeks ago. Nice to hear it again. It is so good.

did a marathon run of this and no plan this morning. fucking top gear all the way. talk about masterful exits.

It amazes me still this album is so good.

i saw cellist maya beiser do her version of this the other night. haunting stuff.

https://www.mayabeiser.com/post/bowie-cello-symphonic-blackstar

I think this is Bowie's career masterpiece and I'm sure he was aware he was dying while recording it and maybe writing it as well; which begs the question of whether it's a better album with him knowing that; would it have happened if he hadn't known he was dying; what if he didn't know he was dying and made something god awful

god, the vagaries of shuffle play on my overstuffed old iPhone - the car served up "Dollar Days" as I pulled up at home, it crashed over me like a wave. I turned it up and cried.

I haven’t listened to it since he died - I bought it on the day it came out and listened to it that night in a good stereo in a darkened room in a quiet house - full reverent teenage-style listen

then two days later i listened to it on a sunny sunday morning drive and remember whooping with pleasure that David Bowie was still around and had made such a great new LP

I can guess at your pain, but don't deny yourself this astonishing gift.

it hasn't been a particularly conscious choice but has clearly become a bit of a Thing

my Bowie fandom really surged as a result of reading Chris O'Leary's blog, and had become a deep and sustained engagement and enjoyment of his work - but it was also really informed by the idea that Bowie was still out there making art - his presence in the world was just cool! I particularly found the long struggle to reclaim his powers post-80s slump a hugely compelling/inspiring creative journey

so when he died I just felt my brain needed some time to rewire itself into an appreciation of his music in a post-Bowie context, which feels a bit weird now I write it I guess, but that's how it is/was - and I've definitely been coming back to it ever more strongly - and at some point I will listen to Blackstar and it will definitely have a few emotions attached to it, but in a rewarding way rather than an overwhelming way - and I appreciate the encouragement/reminder that it is a thing worth doing

I'm not a film star!

I'm going through Chris O'Leary's book and the Pegg book while listening to the songs in more or less chronological order. I've finally moved past the Early On cd and the Deram stuff. Some of those songs finally started clicking with me while others are just *shiver* "Love You Till Tuesday" in particular is vile, there are quite a few songs that remind me of swinging London via Austin Powers. But "Silly Boy Blue" is very good.

Last night I started making my way through the Conversation Piece box. Trying to get caught up so that when the Man Who Sold The World thing (Width of A Circle) comes out I'll be able to dive into it.

finally listened to this for the first time. put it off because I wanted to catch up on the Bowie I missed...but fuck it. god damnit the final song is so perfect. can't believe he went out like this

Every time I pull out this album I'm startled anew by its goodness.

It amazes me still this album is so good.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, January 12, 2020 12:15 PM

highly good.

It really is one of his best. Not an astonishing return to form or anything, but something new and really that was he was working on.

New and really good

yeah I'd maybe go as far as to argue it's his best album

otm -- nothing in his catalog sounds like this

It’s so hard to compare it to something like sight, but incredible that it’s a totally valid convo

Sorry, autocorrect

Sight = ziggy

Marley

Who else in “rock” music put out such amazing work while conscious of his imminent death? The only parallels I can think of are in classical music: Mozart, Schubert, Mahler.

i had this tumblr i had started back then, i think i only ever made like 2 posts, but one was about blackstar which I'd received on the friday prior to his death i believe the following monday...anyway it wasn't particularly insightful or anything but i did say something along the lines of i genuinely think this might be his best album in decades and that i'd written that before his death so i wasn't being swayed by all that emotion

I was not nor am I a newly converted fan of The Next Day, so to review this rich, sophisticated, energetic album a week before his death was just marvelous.

i like next day, but it definitely has the feel of "let's try to make a David Bowie (TM) album that people will like" whereas Blackstar is like Ziggy or Low or Station to Station etc where there's this real vision he had

agreed re: general sentiment towards the next day even if i do really like that album. feels like a very solid three star album to me; plenty of good stuff, but nothing completely dazzling.

i'd be comfortable saying black star is in his top five. i'm a walking cliche, so to me the berlin trilogy is unbeatable and just so . . . mesmerizing and completely enduring. those songs still sound contemporary.

where did you guys fall on the no plan material? i've always considered it part of black star and it hangs right there with the rest of the album for me.

Good to excellent -- a coda.

I listened to this album over and over again the entire weekend before news broke that he died. (I think it was Monday morning here in the U.S.) Absolutely loved it. For that reason, when Jim DeRogatis argued that critical praise for it was distorted by Bowie's death (i.e. we'd never objectively see whether or not it was good) I thought he was full of shit.

I think Bowie was getting better and better, and Heathen was the first album he had done since Scary Monsters (yes, cliché) that didn't seem like an artistic failure or a calculated attempt to sell a shit load of records. It wasn't great, but it had a few great tracks and it was pretty decent album overall. I thought Reality was better, again pretty decent with a few great tracks but overall a more consistently strong and confident record. Then he had that great tour that I regret missing (the DVD is excellent), and when he resurfaced with The Next Day I though it was excellent too. It was kind of like, say, Beck's Guero where it was revisiting his strengths without breaking any new ground, but I thought it was a very sturdy set of songs and a big step up from the previous two. I figured a decade between albums simply gave him enough time to come up with a strong album's worth of material. I thought Blackstar would probably be good, but it felt like he recaptured his sense of adventurousness. Collaborating with jazz artists was especially a risk as it's just inherent in the music that you have to leave certain things completely to chance rather than re-work or re-compose those elements. Bowie's done that to an extent on some of his best works like the first three Eno albums, but it was really impressive to hear him and his musicians pull it off here. It really felt like he was back in a way that I wouldn't have expected anymore. It made his death all the more heartbreaking.

Yeah I loved this album on first listen even before his death

We're as one about Reality, bird.

I can't agree about his intelligent, restless, largely excellent '90s work -- for many of us our intro to Bowie.