Anticipate David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

Listening to the lovely I Can't Give Everything Away this morning, and the ending where he repeats the title over and over, it struck me how there are several readings of the phrase, e.g.:
- there is a limit to how much I can give
- I must not reveal the big secret
- I can't (or don't want to) relinquish this life
- I'm not going to explain what all of this means

And, the way he sings the line, the word "Away" becomes separated, so in the end that's the final statement in itself: "Away... away..." It's really beautiful.

"i am so rich i literally cannot rid myself of this tall coin"

one listen in : bloody hell i enjoyed that.
not so sure i can listen to it again for a while given just how obvious it is his 'goodbye' album, but it's very special stuff.

there are several songs with "live" drum&bass rhythm section, no?

i meant Sue (Or in a Season of Crime), that's the only one Mark Guiliana really Guiliana-s out.

It's weird, I haven't listened to Kaddish by Towering Inferno for a long time so my memory of it is sketchy, but I'm getting some kind of odd compulsion to dig it out and revisit because of this record, like my subconscious is telling me they would make great bookends.

one listen in : bloody hell i enjoyed that.
not so sure i can listen to it again for a while given just how obvious it is his 'goodbye' album, but it's very special stuff.

― mark e, Wednesday, January 13, 2016 8:12 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

keep noticing more and more things

like from Sue (or in a Season of Crime)

"The clinic called
the x-rays show
I brought you home"

;_;

yeah, stuff like that hit hard.
but damn, what a final statement.

I'm on the nth of many listenthroughs and I just keep noticing all the little clues Bowie peppered throughout. I can't imagine the pain he must have been in while recording it, working so hard for it to be released before the inevitable came.

just a really cool album. first bowie album I've listened to all the way through.

however it is really dark

i haven't really listened to much late bowie, but this is really tremendous

the title track is pretty much consuming me atm, not in a ghoulish way but because it's such an accomplished and original piece of work. i can't even think what to compare it to apart from maybe islands-period king crimson.

cosign

still giving the rest of the record time, don't dislike it but I am sort of thrown off by the jazzy "live d&b" arrangements. Interesting choice anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0Jkv1cs6PE

'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore is a killer fucking song

The drum geek in me is jealous of the drum part on the first section of Blackstar, it's one of those perfectly conceived for the song studio parts.

man 'blackstar' is sold out everywhere on vinyl. i paid $50 to some random amazon vendor because i can't wait anymore. only heard it once at a friend's (before DB passed) and i was blown away -- besides latterday scott walker it really evoked 'the idiot' and 'lust for life' for me if not directly sonically then vibe- and quality-wise. (i guess the sax sort of reminds me of 'fun house' which i realize bowie had nothing to do with but i can't help associating the stooges in their entirety with him.) making dying a final art project is such a generous parting gesture that it seems disrepectful to even point out the obvious. i mean this is some serious 'fuck you' to the gallows, 'ballad of reading gaol'-style. thanks dave wherever you are!

I ordered it from Soundstage Direct but might have gotten there too late- now listing as "awaiting repress"

when i got my shipping confirmation email i felt serious relief. i'd been on a trip where i really didn't have the opportunity to get it, and upon returning when i tried to buy it at my local record store tuesday morning they just sadly shook their heads. but whatever -- however much the wait sucks i'm glad there's all this interest

The prices its going for on eBay are just ridiculous.

just spotify and chill

I missed the final vinyl copy in my local store by about 10 minutes, at 1145 on Monday morning. Ordered it on Amszon with a shipping date of Jan 22, then got a "delayed - awaiting repress" mail later in the week. Was persuaded to go for the vinyl on the atrength of Visconti's recommendation in Mojo - he took personal responsibility for the vinyl mastering and raved about the sound quality.

bought the cd, it's great too! 2016 is going to be my cd year

I went to buy the LP the day it came out but the record store didn't have any copies - I don't think many were initially pressed. Obviously impossible now for a month or two.

Target had plenty of CD copies, I noticed.

Vinyl repress should be ready in just about another week according to Sony, at least in UK. It went out of stock with them on Monday 11th with last stock reaching shops Tuesday/Wednesday. Repress takes about 2 weeks.

HENRY ROLLINS: BOWIE'S BLACKSTAR IS ON THE LEVEL OF LOW AND HEROES
http://www.laweekly.com/music/henry-rollins-bowies-blackstar-is-on-the-level-of-low-and-heroes-6481055

Target had plenty of CD copies, I noticed.

Good to know; I'm making my bi-weekly Target run tomorrow, and that's where I do most of my CD shopping anyway. I'm kinda hoping they've brought in other stuff of his as well; I want the 3CD Nothing Has Changed. (If they don't have it there, I'll get it from Amazon - I know they have it in stock again now.)

That's so cute that even Bowie calls Rollins "Rollins" even though they'd never met :)

Title track is as good as any song he's ever written imo

yes

It's been in my head since the day it came out

"Blackstar" single reminds me of radiohead's "Pyramid Song". Not a ripoff, just kinda similar. I haven't heard the album yet.

I hear a bit of Radiohead in the record definitely, and certainly in the first part of the title track, though not so much the second section.

Are there any good "annotations" for the videos yet? I feel like there has to be a lot of allusion and allegory in them and my ignorant American ass is just not following them.

Well, there's this... which seems insane on its surface, especially given the author's previous posts on Jay-Z and Lady Gaga, but there's actually a lot in Bowie's previous work to support his assertions, so enjoy!

His voice on "Something happened on the day he died/spirit rose a meter and stepped aside" fuck, tears.

I think my second favorite thing on this record though is actually Girl Loves Me. Feel like he is aping a specific pop singer with his vocals but can't place it.

This album is great but I've been listening to it too much & it's not really good for my frame of mind.

There's really no analog to this, just the album and it's timing and Bowie's stature and how it's so obviously tied to his impending death. Just unreal. And the number one album in the country.

What a sense of theater the bastard had too, to do this, probably knowing full well how it would go down. I mean not just to make an album about dying while dying but to make THIS insane fucking album about dying while dying. And knowing people all over the world would be having this conversation about it.

There's a really odd "'blackstar' is satanist" video, if that's what you mean by annotated.

i wonder if the Lazarus theater piece will be revived in any sense now that this has happened.

Bought the CD today, at Target as predicted. I can't remember the last time I bought a #1 album.

"Blackstar" single reminds me of radiohead's "Pyramid Song". Not a ripoff, just kinda similar. I haven't heard the album yet.

― remove butt (abanana), Saturday, January 16, 2016 9:10 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just got it today; to dovetail with 誤訳侮辱's point, I think the last time I bought a #1 album was Amnesiac.

(and according to Thom Yorke, the inspiration for "Pyramid Song" was Charles Mingus' "Freedom")

Regardless of context this is a really fabulous record. Properly up there with his best.

Note: If he had died before "The Next Day", his last song would have been that "Sad Little Man" song for Ricky Gervais.

Also, he is not on the front cover of "The Next Day" either, is he?

His face is obscured, but he's there.

Properly just playing this over and over now.

Properly.

I think my second favorite thing on this record though is actually Girl Loves Me. Feel like he is aping a specific pop singer with his vocals but can't place it.

― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Sunday, January 17, 2016 2:49 AM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Rihanna perhaps? Bitch Better Have My Money. Or even Young Thug or Future perhaps? Maybe not any of those specifically, but that rising cadence definitely suggests an affinity with the kind of vocal tics floating around contemporary hip-hop and r 'n b.