"[46], The artwork for Blackstar was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, who filled the same role on Heathen (2002), Reality (2003) and The Next Day. [64][65][66] Two days later on 10 January, Bowie died of liver cancer; his illness had not been revealed to the public until then. The release date for Blackstar coincides with David's 69th birthday. [6] The refrain, the explicit "Where the fuck did Monday go? When we see Bowie for the first time in the video, his eyes are bandaged. [11] According to biographer Nicholas Pegg, most of the rhythm tracks were recorded in one or two takes. For now, though, he's making the most of his latest reawakening, adding to the myth while the myth is his to hold. [6][56] The music video for "Blackstar", shot in September 2015 in a studio in Brooklyn,[57] is a surreal ten-minute short film directed by Johan Renck (the director of The Last Panthers). [89], Blackstar was acclaimed by music critics and fans. [55] Originally over 11 minutes in length, Bowie and Visconti shortened it to 9:57 after finding out that iTunes will not post digital singles for individual sale that exceeded 10 minutes. ", "Was David Bowie's Blackstar named after a cancer lesion? Visconti described the album as Bowie's intended swan song and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death. "[23] "Lazarus" is described by Pegg as "an intense, brooding threnody". [25][38] "Dollar Days", the sixth track, contains a sax solo and an arrangement that Dalton considers reminiscient of Bowie's work on Young Americans (1975). According to Metacritic, it was the most prominently ranked record of 2016. [48][49] Music journalists noted that a "black star lesion," usually found inside a breast, suggests to medical practitioners evidence of certain types of cancer. [27] The saxophone was the first instrument Bowie learned; he was an avid jazz listener in his youth[28][29][30] and had occasionally worked with jazz musicians in the past. [44] It also included Polari, a type of slang used commonly in England by homosexual men during the mid-20th century. It features a large, black, five-pointed star on a white background. "[20] NME critic Sam Richards stated that Bowie had maintained his "formidable record of reinventing himself" on a "busy, bewildering and occasionally beautiful record", adding that "one of the few certainties we can take from this restless, relentlessly intriguing album is that David Bowie is positively allergic to the idea of heritage rock. Blackstar is the 25th studio album from David Bowie and features seven brand-new tracks, including the nine-minute title-track first single. [88] It has sold more than 1,900,000 copies as of April 2017. [11] During the week, Bowie celebrated his 68th birthday; his wife Iman visited him in the studio and the band played an avant-garde rendition of "Happy Birthday". The album fea… read more [10] The musicians were sent demos from Bowie in December 2014 in preparation for the sessions at the start of the new year. ", "BPI Official UK Recorded Music Market Report For 2016", "David Bowie's 'Blackstar' Album Debuts at No. It was released worldwide on 8 January 2016, coinciding with Bowie's 69th birthday, through his ISO label, Columbia Records and Sony Music. "[97] Chris Gerard of PopMatters called the album "singular in its unique sound and vibe," describing it as "trippy and majestic head-music spun from moonage daydreams and made for gliding in and out of life. Bowie lives, "David Bowie's Blackstar video: a gift of sound and vision or all-time low? "[17] Electronic duo Boards of Canada and experimental hip hop trio Death Grips have also been cited as influences. The video begins with a dead astronaut on a remote planet. Blackstar was recorded in New York City's Magic Shop and will be released on Bowie's 69th birthday. Geburtstag. At first glance, the album cover for Blackstar (shown below) is incredibly simple. Visconti told Mojo: "If we'd used [Bowie's] former musicians they would be rock people playing jazz...Having jazz guys play rock music turns it upside down. [59] The short film won the award for Best Art Direction at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. Unbeknownst to all but his inner circle, Bowie wrote and recorded Blackstar after receiving word that he had liver cancer, so the album was certainly shaped through the prism of this diagnosis. [6][36] Andy Greene of Rolling Stone said that the re-recording of "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" was "powered by a hip hop beat and free-form sax",[6] unlike the original, which was described by Dalton as "a propulsive, roaring, heavily electronic wall of sound. [4], *sales figures based on certification alone^shipments figures based on certification alonesales+streaming figures based on certification alone, ("Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" and "Girl Loves Me"), International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, "David Bowie's last release, Lazarus, was 'parting gift' for fans in carefully planned finale", "Producer Tony Visconti Talks David Bowie and Blackstar", "The Inside Story of David Bowie's Stunning New Album, 'Blackstar, "David Bowie Confirms New Album Blackstar Coming in January", "Details of David Bowie's 25th album 'Blackstar' revealed", "David Bowie Allowed His Art to Deliver a Final Message", "New David Bowie album, inspired by Kendrick Lamar, features LCD's James Murphy", "David Bowie's new album 'Blackstar' inspired by rap group Death Grips", "David Bowie gains immortality with Lazarus, the boldest character of his career", "David Bowie, Blackstar, review: 'extraordinary, "David Bowie's new album Blackstar was his perfect goodbye message to fans", "David Bowie's Blackstar a nearly perfect goodbye: review", "David Bowie – 'Blackstar' Review: The NME Verdict", "David Bowie Albums Ranked Worst to Best", "Was David Bowie saying goodbye on Blackstar? "[27] In 2018, Consequence of Sound ranked the album as Bowie's eighth greatest, writing "This is one of Bowie’s most dynamic outings and a courageous triggering of a second creative wind." The Atlantic • January 7, 2016 The title track of David Bowie’s new album, Blackstar, is about ISIS. The album was largely recorded in secret between the Magic Shop and Human Worldwide Studios in New York City with Bowie's longtime co-producer Tony Visconti and a group of local jazz musicians – comprising saxophonist Donny McCaslin, pianist Jason Lindner, bassist Tim Lefebvre and drummer Mark Guiliana; guitarist Ben Monder joined the ensemble for the final sessions. ", "Amazon.com: Blackstar: David Bowie: MP3 Downloads", "David Bowie: 7 Things We Already Know About His 2016 Album 'Blackstar, "David Bowie's last days: an 18-month burst of creativity", "Elisa Lasowski, queen of 'Versailles', talks about history, television and fashion", "Behind "Blackstar": An Interview with Johan Renck, The Director of David Bowie's Ten-minute Short Film", "David Bowie Receives Four Posthumous 2016 VMA Nominations", "David Bowie launches trailer of new single Lazarus", "David Bowie announces new album Blackstar for January release", "David Bowie confirms 25th album will be released in January 2016", "Watch "Blackstar" video teaser online now", "Amazon Is Sold Out of Every David Bowie Album (And Accused of Price-Jacking)", "David Bowie's longtime artist releases beautiful posthumous video for "I Can't Give Everything Away, "Final David Bowie songs collected on new EP released for his 70th birthday", "Watch David Bowie's Mysterious 'No Plan' Video", "David Bowie on course for tenth UK chart-topping album", "David Bowie matches Elvis Presley's Official Albums Chart record", "How the loss of David Bowie impacted the UK charts this week", "David Bowie's final album soars to number one, as ten of the artist's records hit the top 40", "David Bowie sees off Sia to replace himself at Number 1", "Who would win this year's BRIT Awards if they were decided on sales alone? It was listed as one of the best albums of 2016 and later the 2010s decade by numerous publications. Previously, people speculated that Blackstar might have a connection to ISIS, after saxophonist Donny McCaslin, who worked with Bowie on the album's title track, told them as much in … Bowie's final album, released January 2016, only two days before his death is an ideal way to end the career of an extraordinary musician. It sold twice as many copies as the previous year's winner, Adele's 25. I believe this to be a reference to the next track on Blackstar, “’Tis a Pity She Was a Whore.”The song borrows its title from a tragedy by the English playwright John Ford. "[105], Following Bowie's death, Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock ranked Blackstar as Bowie's twelfth greatest album, describing it as a throwback to his Berlin Trilogy. [69] Apart from "Lazarus", the EP includes three songs, "No Plan", "Killing a Little Time" and "When I Met You", that were recorded during the Blackstar sessions, but were left off the album and subsequently appeared on the soundtrack album for the Lazarus musical in October 2016. It has since been certified Gold and Platinum in the US and the UK, respectively. A surreal music video for David Bowie's single "Blackstar". In the years following his death, Blackstar has been named as one of Bowie's greatest albums by multiple publications, and was included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. 2. hét", January 2016/ "Oricon Top 50 Albums: 25 January 2016", "Beyonce's 'Lemonade' Highest-Selling Album Globally in 2016; Drake Lands Top Song: IFPI", "World Music Awards: David Bowie has the world's best-selling Album for a second week! Bowie knew exactly what he wanted, so Lefebvre felt special that Bowie chose a band that was a "unit" and not a random set of studio musicians. [113] In addition, the title track won both Best Rock Song and Best Rock Performance. This album represents Bowie’s most fulfilling spin away from glam-legend pop charm since 1977’s Low. [113] Blackstar was later named as one of the greatest albums of the 2010s decade by numerous publications, including Billboard,[114] Consequence of Sound,[115] NME,[116] Pitchfork,[108] Rolling Stone,[117] Slant Magazine[118] and Stereogum.[119]. [14] "Dollar Days" was created without a preliminary demo being made for the song. The album's title track is the first single, and is accompanied by a short film visual by the acclaimed director Johan Renck. Walters felt that the album is "so startling" because it reminded listeners that even though Bowie was long past his golden years, it is almost as if he never left them. [41] The title track features the lyrics: "Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside / somebody else took his place, and bravely cried, 'I'm a blackstar, I'm a blackstar'"; Jesse Kinos-Goodin of CBC Music felt these lyrics represented Bowie reflecting on his life and impending death. Although Visconti believed this policy was "total bullshit", Bowie was insistent on releasing it as a single, and didn't want both album and single versions, since that "gets confusing". [68], An EP, No Plan, was released on 8 January 2017, which would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. [102], Reviewing for Q magazine, Tom Doyle wrote, "Blackstar is a more concise statement than The Next Day and a far, far more intriguing one. Blackstar is David Bowie’s 28th studio album and his first since stunning the world in 2013 with the critically acclaimed ‘The Next Day’. "[6] For the March sessions, the band was joined by jazz guitarist Ben Monder, who played on the original recording of "Sue". [101] The Daily Telegraph's Neil McCormick hailed Blackstar as an "extraordinary" album which "suggests that, like a modern day Lazarus of pop, Bowie is well and truly back from beyond. Bowie also encouraged the band to try new things and experiment with ideas; Lindner told Rolling Stone, "He gave us the freedom to really just play, sort of be ourselves, and if we were hearing anything in particular, to try it out." [77] Bowie was the biggest-selling vinyl artist of 2016 in the UK, with five albums in the vinyl Top 30, including Blackstar as the number one vinyl album of the year. [75] The album remained three weeks at number one,[76] falling to number two behind another Bowie album, the compilation Best of Bowie (2002), which became the first ever album to get to number one in the UK because of streaming. [34][35] Ten minutes in length, it originally began as two separate melodies, before being merged to one single piece. [26] Bryan Wawzenek of Ultimate Classic Rock writes that it was his most experimental album in years. "[96] Jon Pareles of The New York Times described the album as "at once emotive and cryptic, structured and spontaneous and, above all, willful, refusing to cater to the expectations of radio stations or fans". Although he felt it wasn't as "accessible" as The Next Day, he considered it a "great companion piece" and "a fitting end to one of rock's most influential careers. It is made obvious during the course of the album that Bowie has accepted his imminent end and stares death right in the eye with a poetic and self reflecting way, just like Jacques Brel does in his song La Mort. "[95] In a favourable review for Exclaim!, Michael Rancic wrote that Blackstar is "a defining statement from someone who isn't interested in living in the past, but rather, for the first time in a while, waiting for everyone else to catch up". [67] The third and final single, "I Can't Give Everything Away", was released posthumously on 6 April 2016. He concluded the review stating "even while staring down death, [he] reversed his claim on "Station to Station" so many years ago: It's never too late to be grateful. [61] A music video for "Lazarus", shot in November 2015 in a studio in Brooklyn and again directed by Renck,[62] was released on 7 January 2016, the day before the album's release. McCaslin later stated that Bowie one day "just picked up a guitar ... he had this little idea, and we just learned it right there in the studio. [12] The backing band were reportedly unaware of Bowie's declining health – according to McCaslin, the band worked with Bowie "essentially from 11 to 4 every day", while Lefebvre stated that "it never looked to us like he was sick". [82] The album also peaked at number one in 24 countries, number two in Greece[83] and Mexico,[84] number four in Hungary,[85] and number five in Japan. The album is more experimental than its predecessor The Next Day, combining art rock with different styles of jazz. "[106] The album was also included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Two days after its release, Bowie died of liver cancer; his illness had not been revealed to the public until then. [17], The music on Blackstar has been characterised as incorporating art rock,[19][20] jazz,[21][22] experimental jazz,[23][24] free jazz,[19] and experimental rock,[25] as well as elements from industrial rock, folk-pop and hip hop. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do. Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, topping charts in a number of countries in the wake of Bowie's death, and becoming Bowie's only album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. The latter's surname is consistently misspelled as "Bharma" in the album's liner notes. [86] It has since been certified Gold in Germany, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the US, certified Platinum in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Italy, Poland, Switzerland and the UK, and 2x Platinum in the Netherlands. [111][112] At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards in 2017, the album won awards for Best Alternative Music Album, Best Recording Package and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Jan. 11, 2016 With the sudden announcement of David Bowie’s death, it is leading many to explore his latest (and last) album, Blackstar in more detail. [72] The album debuted at number one after selling 146,000 copies in the first week[73] (a week that saw four other Bowie albums in the Top 10 and a further seven in the Top 40, the latter equalling Elvis Presley's chart record)[74] and became his tenth number one album in the UK. On Metacritic, the album has an average score of 87 out of 100 based on 43 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim". [16][18] According to Pegg, another album Bowie listened to during the sessions was D'Angelo's Black Messiah (2014), which featured a fusion of soul, jazz and funk that was reminiscent of Bowie's work on "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". "[10] Lefebvre later said that the band's chemistry made the sessions much easier. ‘An extraordinary, alien, otherworldly creature’: David Bowie 1947-2016 - video tribute. Praising the experimental nature and lyrics, staff writer Lior Phillips concluded "It's a startling reminder that the only way Bowie can transcend 49 years of artistry is by detaching from the Superstar he had become and transform into a new thing altogether. I find it fascinating that instead of going back to basics for his final album, the dying David Bowie went experimental with Blackstar. [a] The album's title track incorporates nu jazz,[33] while progressing through a drum and bass-style rhythm, an acid house-inspired portion of the instrumental, a saxophone solo, and a lower-tempo blues-like section. [4], Personnel adapted from Blackstar liner notes. [69][70] In 2018, Jon Culshaw played Bowie in the BBC radio play The Final Take: Bowie in the Studio, an imagined account of Bowie as he works on the album and looks back over his life. [19] The video was nominated for three awards: Best Direction, Best Cinematography and Best Editing, at the 2016 MTV Video Music Awards. [5] The title of the latter derives from 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, a play by the 17th century English dramatist John Ford. Blackstar is David Bowie's 28th studio album and his first since stunning the world in 2013 with the critically acclaimed The Next Day. [50][51] The sleeve is the first and only Bowie sleeve to not feature an image of the artist himself. [23] Biographer Chris O'Leary believes "Dollar Days" has "the lushest arrangement" on the album. Visconti gave consistent praise to the band, saying "They can play something at the drop of a dime".