It’s hard to write a fair review of Blackstar now that it's
January 12th. Would I write something different if it were January 9th?
In all fairness I heard Blackstar on January 5th. And in all honesty
I was still waiting to write a review because I was still letting it sink in. But
now that it is January 12th, I find myself forced to write a review
of the new album because it’s easier than writing an obituary. Which is what I
should be writing now that it is January 12th. Because sadly David Bowie passed on
into the cosmic stream early Monday Morning January 11th. One would think this casts new light on
this record and it certainly does, even though I already made up my mind about
it before his untimely passing. Have some perspectives changed? Of course. First,
last week I believed Bowie was simply revisiting his old trick of finding new
musicians and going into bold directions. With only seven tracks, you got the
feeling he was revisiting his formulas from albums like Station to Station and Young Americans. Cutting to the chase if you will. However, now I’m not so sure
that was his initial intention. Perhaps it’s only seven tracks because he didn’t
get a chance to finish more? Or perhaps he knew he didn’t have time, so he did
in fact plan a succinct artistic statement? The album certainly has that
feeling of urgency that his previous record did not have. You get this
sense that Bowie didn’t want to go out with that one. He wanted to do one more
adventure into the unknown. And the album certainly is daring. The production
on most of the record is masterful. In hindsight, you get the feeling the Tony
Visconti worked his ass off to get it to that sublime place. Another thing is
now this album stands as Bowie’s final statement. And from this point on, it
will be hard not to look into every single thing about it, trying to make the
connections. Perhaps Bowie has achieved his greatest masterstroke of all with
this album? Why not make an album about your own death and mortality? Yet, if
you examine his last four records, that theme is a constant. I suspect David
might have been ill earlier in his career as well. Of course this is just my
guess but somewhere around “hours… “ perhaps? But the fact that this album is
so singular in it’s vision (helped by the amazing jazz ensemble he assembled
just for this album), leads me to believe that this time around, David knew he
didn’t have much time. I’d seen photos of him recently and generally he looked
good. But I saw one shot where he looked really bad. He looked like an old man
who just got out of the hospital. And that photo certainly made me wonder about
the state of his health. And even last week, I was telling a friend that I
thought the album smelled like a final album. From the title down to the very
last glorious, beautiful moment of the album in which now I see David was
saying goodbye. As of last week I
believed he was simply making a bold artistic statement and saying, “ I’m
back!” And that’s why the album is so good. But now I see it’s so good, because
he was going through an existential crisis. And in true Bowie fashion, he
transformed his situation into art. In many aspects, he got lucky that he had
the knowledge of his imminent death. It gave him the impetus for going so far
out on a limb. That’s another reason why it is a masterstroke. Because no
matter what you thought of it before, now it will always be seen in the context
in which it was created. It is a worthy send off to one of the most brilliant
careers of any artist in any medium. I believe David Bowie passed with peace in
his heart because he got to feel the love for his final work. And he got to secretly
savior the fact that no one knew its true meaning. At least not until January
11th, 2016.
