David Bowie – Blackstar (Album Review)

For fifty-four years, London-born David Bowie (David Robert Jones) has been electrifying and shocking worldwide audiences beginning with his first band at fifteen years of age.  Calling themselves The Konrads, the band played local gigs, but quickly Bowie saw they were going nowhere fast, so he left them and joined another band called the King Bees. Making some contacts, he attained Leslie Conn to manage him with the quick release of his first single, “Liza Jane,” but it went nowhere.  After a few more bands, he decided a name change was in order so he could be distinguished from Monkees frontman, Davy Jones, taking the name from the Bowie knife made popular by the 19th-century frontiersman, Jim Bowie. David Bowie was born around 1967 with the release of a self-titled debut album which did not fare well. Two years later, the single, “Space Oddity,” the fictional story of Major Tom, was released, and peaked at first place on the UK Singles.  It was a first for Bowie, and actually became the title of his second album, which was also originally self-titled.

There would be subsequent Major Tom adventures in the songs, “Ashes to Ashes,” “Hallo Spaceboy,” and “Blackstar.” Then, 1970’s The Man who Sold the World had a harder edge to go with the topics of schizophrenia, paranoia, and delusion while beginning to introduce his androgynous Ziggy Stardust persona, which melded Iggy Pop’s personality with Lou Reed’s music sensibilities. Though the album was not a bestseller, it has the distinction of inventing Glam Rock.  Hunky Dory was released 1971 with a revisiting of “Space Oddity” singer, and featured the song, “Kook,” which was dedicated to his son, affectionately nicknamed Zowie. Then, in early 1972, Ziggy Stardust came out in full force with 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, reaching 5th and 75th on the UK and US charts and platinum and gold respectively.  This album, with its soundtrack-like concept and audacious character coupled with 1975’s number one single, “Fame,” would break Bowie wide open musically. Since, it has been one success after another for the genius musician who weaved in and out of musical styles with ease and poise.

Now in 2016, Bowie returns with his twenty-sixth overall studio album, entitled Blackstar. Released on his sixty-ninth birthday, Friday, January 8th, the album is his first since The Next Day in 2013. Featuring Bowie on vocals, acoustic guitar, mixing, production, string arrangements, and Fender guitar on “Lazarus,” Donny McCaslin on flute, trumpetophone, and woodwinds, Ben Monder on guitar, Jason Lindner on piano, organ, and keyboards, Tim Lefebvre on bass, and Mark Guiliana on drums and percussion, the album ends up to be the swan song for Bowie, passed after a fight with cancer days later. With so many fans merely just picking up their copy of Blackstar either via physical format or digital download, so much is left to sink in while listening to Blackstar, co-produced by Bowie and longtime collaborator, Tony Visconti.

Seven songs in total, Blackstar plays like a dream, beginning with the album title track, a 9:57 behemoth. Whittled down from over eleven minutes, the song caters to Bowie’s eccentric sensibilities with its hyper, club drumline and bits of trumpet street jazz interspersed.  Bowie calls this track “Art Rock and Jazztronica,” and its accompanying video could be construed as religious, but both director, Johan Renck (Madonna’s “Hung Up,” Bowie’s “Lazarus”) and Bowie have both said the meaning is totally up for interpretation.  Next, “Tis a Pity She was a Whore” is a hollow drum-driven piece headlined with sinewy trumpets in this Jazz/Blues hybrid as Bowie laments about a girl he digs is a whore.  The upbeat melody belies the sadness and pity of the lyrics.

Moving on to “Lazarus,” the title of his off-Broadway Rock Opera, Bowie slows the tempo down with this trumpet-driven Blues piece.  Apropos to his passing, the first bit he sings is “Look up here/I’m in heaven.”  The video for the track, which was also directed by Renck, preceded the album having Bowie reminiscing about his life from his deathbed. Foreshadowing, heartbreaking, and true to heart with the events that unfolded in the days following it release. Then “Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) picks the tempo back up with a bass riff with a sultry trumpet interspersed.  The melody and lyrics have a caper vibe, like a chase scene through the London streets as Bowie sings about his love and what seems like a double-cross.  The track was originally on the 2014 compilation album Nothing Has Changed, with an atmospheric black and white video directed by Tom Hingston (Massive Attack, The Rolling Stones).

True to Bowie’s diversity, “Girl Loves Me” has a unique Funk, bordering on Hip Hop drum/bassline accompanied with layered strings.  There is a sleazy sexiness to the piece as Bowie seems to sing about a down-low relationship.  The ballad-like “Dollar Days” seems to be trying to grasp a memory while trying to forget in a mix of street Jazz as Bowie sings about surviving the streets while others see trivial beauty as, say, tourists.  Finishing out Blackstar is “I Can’t Give Everything Away” with its up-tempo jazzy piece; however, there seems to be a resignation, like a knowing of fate.

In what turns out to be Bowie’s opus, his farewell to his fans as producer, Tony Visconti, put it, Blackstar gave fans what Bowie wanted everyone to remember him by; an album on his own terms by a man who lived on his own terms.  With that said, it is a wonderful listen with respect to Bowie’s past and a twist on present day music. CrypticRock gives this final record from this once in a lifetime talent 5 of 5 stars.