Anticipate David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

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.

i loved it at first, but after the initial spins i couldnt listen to it for probably 6 months after his death, it was almost too intense. now its the Bowie album i've listened to the most over the last 5 years. easily top 3 of his career imo.

Blackstar feels a bit monochrome despite (because of?) the heavy emotionality of the subject. My pick for late Bowie albums is Heathen; not as consistent, but better highlights.

Who else in “rock” music put out such amazing work while conscious of his imminent death?

Not Warren Zevon. Maybe Leonard Cohen?

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.

of course you are

So lonely

Blackstar feels a bit monochrome despite (because of?) the heavy emotionality of the subject

The title track, "'Tis a Pity," and "Girl Loves Me," to pick three, sound nothing like each other, though.

What do you mean by emotionality?

i love outside and earthling but for entirely different reasons. outside is employing a lot of misdirection; earthling is very direct

I loved the recent Pitchfork review of the Brilliant Adventures boxset b/c he wrote it as someone who was there at the time. It flabbergasted me to buy Bowie albums from 1993 to 1999 and not one of them was similar -- it was the '70s again.

The title track, "'Tis a Pity," and "Girl Loves Me," to pick three, sound nothing like each other, though.

I mean monochrome in feeling, not stylistically; after the title track, the emotions are muted, possibly because he knew this was a last testament and wanted to downplay any potential melodrama in the material. I'm glad it's well-loved, though, but I would not suggest it to anyone as a great place to start with Bowie.

to be fair, there's stuff from the '90s I like. I can't get through the albums in their entirety, but the singles are enjoyable - like "Little Wonder," and the single remixes like the Pet Shop Boys remix of "Hallo Spaceboy" and Trent Reznor's "I'm Afraid of Americans" are both excellent. "I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday" may be my favorite cover of a Morrissey song. I liked "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" when it showed up in David Fincher's Se7en. The decade's last album actually has nice songs too, especially "Thursday's Child" - I just didn't like how he recorded them, the record feels kind of light and bland in that respect.

hours is his worst album since Tonight.

1. Outside has "Strangers When We Meet" (one of his grand ballads), "We Prick You," "Thru' These Architects Eyes," "I'm Deranged" -- bangers not dependent on his fussy concepts. His best of the decade.

Shit, Black Tie White Noise boasts some of the most ear-catching Nile Rodgers productions ever: "Jump They Say," "You've Been Around, the Scott Walker cover (which I prefer to the original).

And The Buddha of Suburbia! What a delicious little thing!

I tried making sense of things here.

Love the best pets of Black Tie White Noise

Parts

woof

the emotions are muted Always sounded very intense, very exciting to me--he's jumping into the fire, and the void---the creative pushback, the overall musical effect is the expression and transmutation, not muting.

or jumping into the musical fire, knowing the void will come to him, whatever he's doing.

To me, he was mainly one of the great singles artists of his era---I like most of the albums I've heard, which is not nearly all---but I know I'd consider this one of his very best ever, regardless of release date.

(I think of "his era," radio star-wise, as late 60s-early-ish 80s.)

listening to the brilliant adventure box set and i am LOVING black tie, white noise, didn't really make much of an impact at the time beyond i remember liking "jump (they say)" but i really dig the whole thing, cool sounds

Nothing sounded like it in 1993: the Amy Grant album of my dreams. Then there's cuts like "You've Been Around" where Rodgers-Bowie destabilize the elements. Nothing unfurls as it should: the bass is mixed too high, Reeves Gabrels reduced to a surly growl, and the vocals are like a clown shouting from Everest. I love it.

If it's heretical to say I prefer Bowie's "Nite Flights" to Scott Walker's, burn me.

yeah it's such a unique sound, the arrangements always seem to zig when you expect them to zag

there's an unsettled quality to the whole thing, i guess if i had to find a point of reference in his catalog i might compare the overall feeling to Lodger?

Which is funny cause it’s his “I’m married to a supermodel and I’m happy” album

A classmate of mine interviewed/hung out with Iman like ten years ago and said she was like her best friend for the duration of that entire evening. So when Rob Sheffield argued that Iman gave him something to write about after years in the wilderness, I immediately thought of my friend's interview - like I can totally see how someone like that can suddenly turn your life into this huge ray of sunshine.

I'm not sure if I heard this before...I've heard from musicians that Bowie was really generous about singing guide tracks while they cut their parts, but not that most of the Blackstar tracks were truly live in the studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZE2QZwtuec

Even more impressive, Bowie's home demos are not too dissimilar.

Check out what he came up with on his own:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0FmXpbcRT0

What a lovely read this thread is from start to finish. Must be one of the finest on this esteemed message board.

Also from upthread and not about Blackstar but …

Xpost I listened to this is not America today and I love that fucking song

― banned on ixlor (Jon not Jon), Monday, 11 January 2016 23:58 (six years ago) l

I listened to this the other day and I agree

xp alfred it's not clear to me he performed the demo himself, did you read that somewhere or is it apparent from recording notes?

Yep. The band and Chris O'Leary confirmed it.

What we hear are sax, keys, and drum machine, all of which he could play.

It's a demo Bowie recorded by himself, Pushing Ahead of the Dame has lots of interesting information on it: https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/tis-a-pity-she-was-a-whore/

Although Bowie was in the studio in summer 2014 to record full demos with Tony Visconti, Zachary Alford and Jack Spann, the B-side of “Sue,” issued that November, was Bowie alone: the same home demo he’d sent McCaslin, full of keyboard presets and crackling with cheap distortion.”The B-side was a demo. It was just kickass,” Visconti said. “His production skills have gone up 5,000%.”

x-post :)

I really think Tis a Pity She Was a Whore could be the very best thing he ever did.

Anyone read this yet? Looks interesting: https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/blackstar-theory-9781501365379/

xp that's so cool thanks!!

Man, she punched me like a dude
Hold your mad hands, I cried
'Tis a pity she was a whore
'Tis my fate, I suppose
For that was patrol
That was patrol
'Tis a pity she was a whore