David Bowie - Blackstar

David Bowie
Blackstar
2016
David Bowie - Blackstar

It's Bowie. That is a phrase you hear only every now and again when it comes to artists. People's who's work is so revered and on so high a pedestal that they could do almost anything and people would still love it. Of course the crux of this is that they rarely produce anything other than greatness. David Bowie has been a part of this rarefied air for his whole career because He is never looking back. You won't find Bowie doing a greatest hits tour, rehashing about the past or focusing on one particular sound or another. He is always experimenting always exploring always creating. Blackstar is that super creative record that trying to pin down one genre or another is damn near impossible. At times it's Jazz, sometimes it's Broadway and then it slides into Pop it truly is limitless in it's scale and experimentation. On "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" you hear Donny McCaslin going to town with some free form sax while Bowie gets explicit and then out of no where an old school synth starts to creep in just in the background teasing you with days of old while never pretending they ever mattered at all. "Lazarus" the most autobiographical of the songs and also the best track on the record is nothing short of a revelation. Six minutes and twenty-two seconds of 69 year old David Bowie embracing age while still pushing boundaries that others wouldn't dare.  

For the casual pop listener there is no way this album connects. It requires way to much thought way to much dedication to really dive into this. That being said Blackstar really is pleasing to listen to. Bowie's voice though aged is haunting in it's perfection. "Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)" is probably the most modern of the tracks taking on an almost Aphix Twin vibe. It also is one of the most jarring tracks because it takes you away from this ethereal state of mind that Bowie has been creating on all the previous tracks. "Girl Loves Me" could be called Jazz Trap, despite how absolutely insane that sounds. David Bowie takes on a rapper vibe, but never rapping still singing it is odd yet interesting to say the least. If you take a piece of each one of these tracks and isolate it things would just not work, but when it all comes together something magical happens, and "It's Bowie".

9 out of 10