Anticipate David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

Finally heard this record today. Definitely got some Portishead vibes from the tracks.

"To be played at maximum volume."

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6882887/david-bowies-blackstar-instagram-video-series-starts-this-week

Looks interesting

Apple Music did a playlist titled "Blackstar: the musicians behind the album" and it's stellar. One unexpected side effect of the album has been finding a trove of fantastic contemporary jazz I've never heard of. Another reason to thank Bowie for this great record.

Cool.

Lots of people playing "Istfahan" these days, interested to hear this version. Why is there an LCD Soundsystem song on there?

Murphy remixed a song from Next Day, and i guess played some tambourine on a couple Blackstar tracks.

Here's the playlist:

http://mixing.io/playlist/apple-music-jazz-the-musicians-behind-david-bowies-blackstar

here's a Spotify playlist of all the tracks I could find (missing a couple Ben Monder tracks, Jason Lindner, Rudder, and I added a different Monder track)

https://open.spotify.com/user/123055593/playlist/5VJ9C00pELCAc7IFQuTVH6

I had more reasons to avoid this record than to listen to it (I assumed it'd be too much of a downer, I disliked The Next Day, I wasn't impressed with "Blackstar" as a standalone single), but I finally got around to it and really like it. The playing is fantastic; I certainly wouldn't want a Bowie-less version, but I could easily listen to an instrumental version of this record. "I Can't Give Everything Away," "Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" and "Dollar Days" are the clear standouts for me so far, but I've even grown to like "Blackstar." The experience of listening to this album is still plenty harrowing, of course, and probably always will be, but overall I find the album so musically rich and engaging that I don't actually find it depressing.

I finally got the LP on the 2nd press and wow, what a stellar package. Gorgeous packaging, printing, booklet... really nice, and good sounding vinyl as described upthread.

feel like this album cast a dark spell over this whole year, so much death in both popular culture and also my personal life :(

Just listened to the first three tracks again this morning, for the first time in a month or so. Incredible stuff.

I was never a Bowie fan beyond the singles but his death hit me much harder than I expected. This album is stunning front to back, regardless of the circumstances surrounding its creation, though they make it even more poignant.

I've since listened to his recent work on Spotify and bought the Zeit box. I've got a whole new level of appreciation for his talents.

feel like this album cast a dark spell over this whole year, so much death in both popular culture and also my personal life :(

― robbie ca$hflo (upper mississippi sh@kedown)

You know I'm on that wavelength.

yeah i read your piece on that ez, sorry again about your friend :(
was very affecting writing

I'm curious how this record will sound a few years removed from his passing. Will it sound universal and open to personal discovery or will it be a historical relic, like a tombstone?

Will it sound universal and open to personal discovery or will it be a historical relic, like a tombstone?

future blog headline

I should give this another listen soon... it's been a while since I last gave it a deep listen, but the last time I did after all the info regarding its recording came out, I found it a bit unsettling.

I still find that it works best if you listen to it front to back, as a single cohesive work (like a jazz album), rather than as a collection of songs.

Y'all, look!

http://i.imgur.com/DWfh36J.jpg

Apparently, if you expose the sleeve of Blackstar to sunlight, a starfield emerges.

wow, just the vinyl or the CD as well?

Unsure. I don't own either format, but it clearly needs to be tested.

have not exposed my copy to sunlight, but i like this; it's magical.

i like the idea that there are hundreds of thousands of these out there in the world, but since so few bowie fans expose themselves to sunlight it is only now being discovered

ha ha yeah. my records are stored in a long, windowless hallway and will likely not see the light of day until my "heirs" inevitably dump them at goodwill.

If you close the door

Tried it. Didn't work.

apparently if you place a light behind the inner cover this happens
i.e. its not a chemical reaction to sunlight.

Good way to sell people a second copy, though...

"sue" is SOOOOOOO good

Listened to this again today for the first time in a few months. It really holds its impact, and demands to be heard as a whole - you can't pull out individual songs and discard the rest. As I've said before, it's like a jazz album in that way.

I'm not a film star!

yes, this holds up quite well. I love knowing that albums heard at the beginning of the year will be among the year's best

I heard if you held the cover long enough under a fluorescent light the tattooed arm from White Light/White Heat appears.

Where the fuck did Monday go?!

I imagine that's David's reaction to hard chemo treatments.

I'm still not 100% down with this album, but "I Can't Give Everything Away" hits me hard every time

"Where the fuck did Monday go?!" - I think he was euthanized, and died on a Sunday...

you sure have a lot of terrible opinions

http://i-cdn.phonearena.com/images/article/52185-image/Catch-the-pigeon-Here-are-the-best-and-worst-Flappy-Bird-clones.jpg

http://pitchfork.com/news/69088-listen-to-one-of-david-bowies-last-recordings-no-plan/
http://pitchfork.com/news/69085-listen-to-final-david-bowie-recordings-when-i-met-you-and-no-plan/

Really gorgeous, especially "No Plan." Listening brought me back to January in a big way this morning.

this thread is a grim read

Giving this a listen for the first time in a while and christ, this album has definitely retained its impact for me. I fucking love the rhythm section on this record, particularly on 'Sue'

Tis a Pity She Was a Whore is the one I listen to the most (title track is just too heavy most of the time). just an absolutely thrilling and grim death march of a song. those two final "WOO!"s Bowie lets out at the end have made me cry, facing death head on with such dignity for most of the record, but on Tis a Pity it's just primal rage.

The meat of the record is in the first four tracks and the last track, IMO.

"I Can't Give Everything Away" is such a fantastic last Bowie song. He had the class and dignity to keep his personal life private, and conveys through this song that it was always about the art and being a creative master of many disguises.

I Can't Give Everything Away is such a great performance. There's so much joyful release in it. My first reaction to the whole record was "He's really got it back, this is the best since Outside, I hope he carries on in this way". Obviously that never happened.

last five posts otm

The only thing I would change about 'I Can't Give Everything Away' is the drum loop. Everything else is OTM.

the tracks released on the Lazarus soundtrack, on the other hand, are a let down. almost wish they'd remained unreleased, as it's better to have this as his last word

I can understand that. On one hand, not having heard them yet, it's good to have more Bowie to listen to but on the other hand Blackstar is such a great final statement that it doesn't need half-fleshed out postscripts. Not just yet anyway, he's not even been gone a full year.

That was one of the things moved me the most about that Lazarus video after I heard the news: the part where he's frantically scribbling away just as he's about to disappear. The man had a very analytical brain, and while thankfully I don't know how it feels like to be dying so I can't project too much I get the sense that as angry and upset and relieved in equal measures as he would have been there was also that questing artist part of his brain going "Now as horrible as this is it's giving me so much to write about. A whole new way to talk about mortality". Let's face it, anything any of us write could easily be our epitaph if we died after writing it. Any aged artist's work contemplating The End from now on will be, in journo shorthand, "their Blackstar". At the risk of getting tedious thinkpiece-y about it that's a very fitting way to go out - he'd changed the way a lot of people thought about their lives and now he's changing the way some people think about their death too.