David Bowie’s parting gift to everyone
David Bowie was an extremely influential musician mostly known for his work during the 1970’s. On Sunday, Jan 10, Bowie died after months of battling liver cancer. Days before his death Bowie released his his final album, Blackstar, which many consider his parting gift to the world.
Blackstar released on Jan 8, following Bowie’s death, the album shot to number one in many countries. The album was released to widespread critical acclaim.
Bowie had a career spanning across six decades. During this time he released 27 studio albums, including David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World, Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, among others. Bowie’s breakthrough hit was the single Space Oddity, which was his first to break the top five on the UK charts and is now considered his signature song. Bowie’s music was revolutionary, as it inspired many generations through his long career.
“David Bowie’s music is very inspirational to me,” senior Lars Stannard said. “I think about his music and style when I create music in my band, the Bindings.”
The recording of Blackstar began right after the release of Bowie’s 2013 album The Next Day. The album featured a New York based jazz quartet that Bowie discovered playing in Greenwich Village in New York City. The sounds of the quartet are featured throughout the album.
“I’m deeply saddened, stunned, mystified and completely awed by the power of David Bowie’s creativity and determination to produce all he did in the single year I’ve known him,” Jason Lindner, the quartet’s keyboardist told Billboard in a statement. “It’s humbling to have been invited to share in the process leading to Blackstar, and to witness his brilliance and benevolence.”
Blackstar has had two singles thus far these being Blackstar and Lazarus, each being released in November and December, respectively. Blackstar is the leading track of the album and clocks in at nine minutes 57 seconds, it is an art rock and jazztronica, the song shifts time signatures and feel throughout the ten minute running time. Lazarus is currently being used in an off-Broadway musical by Bowie which has the same name.
“We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar,” record producer Tony Visconti told Rolling Stone. “We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn’t do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that’s exactly what we wanted to do. The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll.”
Blackstar was released with critical acclaim from major music review websites. The album received 4/5 stars from Rolling Stone, an A- from Entertainment Weekly and also an 87/100 from the review aggregator Metacritic. These numbers translate into giving the album “critical acclaim”.
“This album represents Bowie’s most fulfilling spin away from glam-legend pop charm since 1977’s Low,” wrote Rolling Stone reviewer David Fricke. “Blackstar is that strange, and that good.”
Blackstar is considered a much more experimental album, it blends genres such as jazz, art rock and experimental rock. The themes explored are interpreted by many as being about Bowie’s impending death, as he was battling liver cancer at the time of writing and recording. The album is interpreted by many to be Bowie’s way of saying goodbye to his fans and the world through his music.
The album sold extremely well across the world. It sold 146 thousand copies in the United Kingdom, and 181 thousand copies in the United States during its first week of sales. Amazon initially ran out of stock on both the CD and vinyl versions of the album. The album was the number one album on 25 iTunes Charts in 25 different countries. It was Bowie’s first album to reach number one on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States. Along with Blackstar topping at number one, the week following his death the Best of Bowie album topped at number four on the Billboard 200 album list.
“I think it’s great the album is selling so well,” Stannard said. “The album definitely deserves it.”
“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring,” David Bowie at Madison Square Garden, 1998.
Charlie Skaret is a Podcast Editor for the Pony Express newspaper. In his free time he participates in the band program at SAHS, including Concert Wind...
Kaitlin Bloom • Mar 28, 2016 at 9:26 pm
Overall this article was really well written, and one of the most interesting I’ve read. I particularly really liked the sources used. The variety of using a local Stillwater musician who’s band was influenced by Bowie, a musician who played with Bowie, and a producer really added a lot more to the story; rather than just using the opinions of three Stillwater students as a lot of writers may have done. This was very well researched, and as a fan of David Bowie’s I think this article does a great job of honoring his life and work. Also the quote at the end is my favorite David Bowie quote so bonus points for using that!
Sarah McCarthy • Feb 9, 2016 at 8:49 pm
I really enjoyed how this article paid tribute to Bowie, and his successful music career. The background information was well researched, and the information about his recent album was informative, but interesting. However, I felt that the quote about the record producer Visconti listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar was not very relevant to the story. Besides that, I loved the article. Great job!