David Bowie: The next thread and the next thread...

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okay i just finally listened to blackstar for the first time.

i am not fucking at all coping. I've been pacing the house in fucking tears for the last 15 minutes
 
the album is fucking incredible, even if I put my gigantic bias aside, it is a genuinely fuckingly phenomenally good album.

maybe in about a month i'll be able to articulate some thoughts on it without drowning in my emotions. fucking hell. god i love you david bowie.
 
It's gotta be rough to hear that album for the first time with a ton of baggage attached. All first time listeners from 1/10/16 on will only know it as the incredible album that announced Bowie's death.

For those of us that had heard it beforehand, the first posthumous listen was mindblowing. So many difficult truths were right there in front of our faces, waiting to be confronted. All I could think of after my first listen was how excited I was for Bowie's future. I'll never listen to Blackstar the same way again.
 
LemonMelon said:
So many difficult truths were right there in front of our faces, waiting to be confronted. All I could think of after my first listen was how excited I was for Bowie's future. I'll never listen to Blackstar the same way again.
Click to expand...

Yeah it's amazing in retrospect how no one really connected the dots with a song like Lazarus. I heard it on the radio the other day and was floored at how much it immersed me in emotion. "Look at me, I'm in danger; I've got scars no one can see." Jesus.
 
Not only that song, but the final one:

I know something is very wrong
The pulse returns for prodigal sons
The blackout's hearts with flowered news
With skull designs upon my shoes

Seeing more and feeling less
Saying no but meaning yes
This is all I ever meant
That's the message that I sent


If that's not a summation and farewell, I don't know what is. Perhaps he was consciously planning on releasing more music, but subconsciously, he knew this was the end.
 
I don't think so: his treatment was going well during the recording, and by the time they were finishing it up he was in remission. It was only in November that the cancer was found to be back, and to be terminal. When Blackstar was written and recorded he didn't know he was going to die. He'd made a career writing about death and dying. He was very sick though, and he told Visconti to not be excited by the remission, so he may have thought death was likely, or possible. But the album isn't a deathbed goodbye. Though there are goodbyes there...it's complicated, as it always is with Bowie. I still can't believe he's gone.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using U2 Interference mobile app
 
It was very difficult to listen to. I can't recall ever having such a strong emotional reaction to hearing an album for the first time. The lyrics are so visceral, it did feel like a gut punch at times. "Something happened on the day he died..." "Somebody else took his place..." and the way he was singing those lines compared with the rest of the song. All of Lazarus. The drums on one of the songs that sounded almost exactly like the way Tony Visconti produced the drums on Low. James Murphy's drumming on his two tracks. The combination of the very jazzy sound with electronic elements and how good he sounded vocally; those two things had me devastated because I just couldn't help but be excited by the form he was in and what he'd do next. "Fool them again and again..." "I'm trying to, I'm dying to..." The pictures of Bowie seemingly in heaven in the liner notes for the last song.



I was very emotional throughout but after the first verse of I Can't Give Everything Away I completely lost it. His last song calling back to my favourite Bowie song was just too much for me.
 
Saw a Bowie cover band last night. Really fun. Everyone singing along and dancing. Excellent band. Almost bailed because I'm old, but glad I got my ass off the couch and went.
 
If you'd asked me how I wanted David Bowie to go out, I wouldn't have said with a cryptic goodbye song that calls back to my favourite David Bowie song, one that is extremely evocative and full of hope, yet also about moving on. I wouldn't have said that because it would have been ridiculously far-fetched. I was so happy, although I wish I hadn't seen any posts about it beforehand, because I did somewhat know it was coming.
 
Okay, who cried at the Audi commercial that aired during the Super Bowl? "Starman" started and that was it--I was sobbing. Fortunately the friend I was with was someone who loves music as we all do here, and she said she understood because his music reminds us of our childhoods (early teen years in my case).
Thankfully that silly Puppy Monkey Baby ad by Mountain Dew was the next ad, and made me laugh. Good job on placement by whoever decides these things.
 
LemonMelon said:
It's gotta be rough to hear that album for the first time with a ton of baggage attached. All first time listeners from 1/10/16 on will only know it as the incredible album that announced Bowie's death.

For those of us that had heard it beforehand, the first posthumous listen was mindblowing. So many difficult truths were right there in front of our faces, waiting to be confronted. All I could think of after my first listen was how excited I was for Bowie's future. I'll never listen to Blackstar the same way again.
Click to expand...


At least some of us had the unique opportunity of hearing the album in that very short gap between it's release and his death. I had listened to it about 3-4 times before he died and I was very confused about the meaning.
As stated, the callback in "I Can't Give Everything Away" is beautiful. It is a bit soon, but it's already one of my all time favorite Bowie tracks. I've only been able to make it through one whole listen to the album since he passed. I just had to give it a break.


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
I didn't even watch the game plus i don't own a TV, so....i had to look it up on YouTube. I guess they don't even keep those commercial as secret anymore.
 
Diane L said:
Okay, who cried at the Audi commercial that aired during the Super Bowl? "Starman" started and that was it--I was sobbing. Fortunately the friend I was with was someone who loves music as we all do here, and she said she understood because his music reminds us of our childhoods (early teen years in my case).
Thankfully that silly Puppy Monkey Baby ad by Mountain Dew was the next ad, and made me laugh. Good job on placement by whoever decides these things.
Click to expand...

I got emotional, but it was definitely begrudgingly emotional. Damn advertisers, trying to make me feel things.
 
Diane L said:
Okay, who cried at the Audi commercial that aired during the Super Bowl? "Starman" started and that was it--I was sobbing. Fortunately the friend I was with was someone who loves music as we all do here, and she said she understood because his music reminds us of our childhoods (early teen years in my case).
Thankfully that silly Puppy Monkey Baby ad by Mountain Dew was the next ad, and made me laugh. Good job on placement by whoever decides these things.
Click to expand...

I think my heart skipped a beat for that commercial. :up:
 
Hollow Island said:
I don't think so: his treatment was going well during the recording, and by the time they were finishing it up he was in remission. It was only in November that the cancer was found to be back, and to be terminal. When Blackstar was written and recorded he didn't know he was going to die. He'd made a career writing about death and dying. He was very sick though, and he told Visconti to not be excited by the remission, so he may have thought death was likely, or possible. But the album isn't a deathbed goodbye. Though there are goodbyes there...it's complicated, as it always is with Bowie. I still can't believe he's gone.

Sent from my MotoE2(4G-LTE) using U2 Interference mobile app
Click to expand...

I haven't spoken about this very much, but my Father was in great health 2 years ago up until his sudden passing mid-Feb. We had no idea anything was wrong to say the least...however...he did some rather strange and heartfelt things in the weeks and days before he passed. I will keep those to myself, however, i have to believe that he had an "inner voice" telling him to wrap up any loose ends with loved ones, because thats exactly what he did. We only realized it after the fact.

With Bowie, he knew he had a deadly disease, remission or not. Many times people can be in remission but have the cancer come raging back. I am sad that he is gone but i suspect that deep down he knew his time was coming. Visconti is on record saying that he knew what he was doing (with Blackstar) and it happened exactly as he had planned it (given the circumstances, one assumes). Also, strangely enough, i was reading somewhere (RS i think?) that he had told a close confidant that a fortune teller once told him he would live to be around 69-70 years old. Obviously that is not science but it's intriguing all the same.
 
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So, a sober, without so much crying, evaluation. It's great. All the songs are, at the very least, really good. Couldn't say that for The Next Day really. It passes quickly but it all feels very necessary and full of substance. It's lean. Girl Loves Me is probably the worst track but it still has its moments. The "I'm a blackstar" electronic moans get a bit much in the title track, but aside from those two things, I can't find something else to criticise. It's very, very, very good and if there's a better album released this year I'll be astonished.

I think I'd rate it something like...

Lazarus - 10
I Can't Give Everything Away - 10
Dollar Days - 10
Sue (Or in a Season of Crime) - 9
'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore - 8
Blackstar - 7.5
Girl Loves Me - 7
 
No offense to James Murphy, but Sue is easily the weakest track for me. The beats sound like something off Earthling, and not as fresh as everything else.
 
I Can't Give Everything Away - 10
Lazarus - 10
Blackstar - 10
Dollar Days - 9
Tis A Pity - 8
Girl Loves Me - 7
Sue - 7


Sent from my iPhone using U2 Interference
 
I trashed Bowie for years but after he died i have been listening to a few greatest hits albums and i have to admit, he produced some great songs. Not a fan of the arty/experimental stuff, but his big 60's and 70's hits are memorable.

His death didn't hit me massively as i wasn't a big fan and I didn't grow up with his music, but it is still a sad reminder that we all have to go, and the older we get the more heroes we will lose from our childhoods.

Peace to all Bowie fans
 
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