The Star Man dies - TTLG Forums

Thor on 18/1/2016 at 21:08

I haven't listened to enough David Bowie's stuff (unfortunately) to decide a favorite album, but I've been listening to his new album these days. I wish I listened to it at leat once before his death, but what can ya do. He really did held it in until that very day to make all signs (occult 69 - according to (http://www.ridingthebeast.com/numbers/nu69.php) this 69 can mean the zodiac sign of the cancer) align didn't he (where the fuck did monday go?).

My favorites of this new album are..
The title track - Blackstar - especially the bit in the middle, where Bowie sings in his real voice. The bits before and after are good too, but the middle feels like the best part of it.
Lazarus - pretty powerful instrumentals and singing. I couldn't really watch the video though. Though with time it gets a little less saddening and becomes more watchable.
The closing song - I Can't Give Everything Away - possibly my favorite. There's something about that lone harmonica that gives the nice, slightly melancholy (if that's the best word) goodbye.

icemann on 19/1/2016 at 13:23

I absolutely love the song Blackstar ever since someone posted a link to it over in the music thread (and that was a month-ish before Bowie's death). Good progressive rock style stuff.

Purgator on 19/1/2016 at 20:13

Low.
Hands down favourite. "Art Decade" is an absolute gem of a track.
I haven't listened to a single song of Bowie's since his untimely demise.
I have, however, been watching a lot of documentaries and old interviews of his on a popular video viewing site, some good stuff out there.
He could be quite funny when he wanted to be.

doctorfrog on 21/1/2016 at 00:58

Quote Posted by icemann

I absolutely love the song Blackstar ever since someone posted a link to it over in the music thread (and that was a month-ish before Bowie's death). Good progressive rock style stuff.

I'm still behind the curve on that one. I dunno how common this is, but in albums that I end up really loving, they always take a while to filter through. There are often those moments where I go, "Why did I buy this?" to start with, because the tracks aren't instantly digestible. Then my brain cherrypicks a few good earworms to skip to, then after more listens, the more proggy or complex, or just sometimes hard to swallow tracks start to click.

So it'll be a bit before Blackstar really embeds itself in my picture of the overall album.

Right now, Lazarus and I Can't Give Everything Away are busy just breakin' my heart each time I hear them. "Ain't that just like me?" Oh, you bastard. Why couldn't you have hung around a couple more albums.

faetal on 21/1/2016 at 09:33

According to Tony Visconti, he was keen to record another one after Blackstar as he was thought he would have more time than he did.

Tomi on 21/1/2016 at 21:17

why are you doing this to me faetal :(

faetal on 21/1/2016 at 21:30

Mostly to allay the post facto notion that Blackstar was Bowie's catafalque, which the press seems so fond of pushing.
His mortality was definitely a pervading presence to the song writing, but the way the media is telling it you'd think he'd rigged his own metastasis like a lightshow or something.

Tomi on 21/1/2016 at 22:49

Wasn't it Tony Visconti though who was the first to claim that Blackstar was "always supposed to be Bowie's swansong"?

But yeah, I get what you're saying, and I too have thought about the whole album recording/release process. Many people are probably forgetting that Blackstar was set to be released on Bowie's birthday (I have no idea how long before a release date must be set for a huge release like this, but it must have been months ago), so it was just a bit of a weird coincidence that he passed away so close to his birthday.

I don't know how long ago the songs on Blackstar were written or recorded (I could probably look up that information somewhere, but I don't really want to), but to me it sounds quite obvious that Bowie knew that he wouldn't have long left when he was writing those songs. But I did just read a (http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-planned-post-blackstar-album-thought-he-had-few-more-months-20160113) story in Rolling Stone where Tony Visconti says that Bowie called him only a week before his death and told him that he'd like to record one more album, so that contradicts with my view a bit... However, his condition must have deteriorated very suddenly in the last few days of his life. Even if it means no more new Bowie music, I'm glad that he probably/hopefully didn't have to suffer that much before his death at least.

Tocky on 23/1/2016 at 04:15

I remember rolling a doobie in strawberry Zigzag the first time I heard Space Oddity. I also recall playing Omicron to the song New Angels of Promise. So much difference between the two times but he was there for both. I don't think anyone can explain those early days to those who were not there. I loved those times. The reckless abandon with which we attacked life, fully certain it was going to be a fantastic discovery more profound than the day before, and it was. IT WAS.

Optimism? Pah. Kings of the earth we were. We had no need of optimism. It ran in our veins. I was voted weirdest in my senior class and so what? I had the most fun. The prettiest girls, the most interesting situations, and always a backdrop of music. I understood Bowie. I WAS the young American as I drove around the square blowing my horn as she blew me. I knew there were dues to pay but life was a charge forward at full speed. No time for even yesterday.

Now I'm old and with age comes wisdom and you know what? I wouldn't change a thing. He was there for the time of my life and his. I know he enjoyed life as I did. He never held anything in reserve. He never held anything from anyone. He never held anything back for a rainy day. It was all going to be great and IT WAS. It really was. I hope it wasn't too painful at the end. Even if it was I know he was grateful for it all, every bit, every wonderful sight and sound and touch. I know he loved life because it loved him back. And why not? He was weird and wonderful. There wasn't and never will be another. Life appreciates an oddity. I can't help but feel it will miss one as well.

I wouldn't trade our time for being 16 over again today. My brain tells me every generation must feel this way but my heart tells me no, it was the best of times and you know it was. These days they wave cell phones but lighters were so much better. Everything is a fading echo of what it was. Life itself is an old addict chasing the rush of the first thrill, a harlot desperately grasping the prettiest flesh in search of innocence lost, an asylum orderly looking with longing at the out of control laughter of a lunatic even.

We were bad. Very very bad. But if I took twenty years off my life for those days it was worth it. I'm respectable (somewhat) now and my idols who showed me the way are dying. I never want them to dwell on it. I don't think he was with his last album. I think it was just passing along his experience. Sometimes I think if a convertible drove up blaring Bowie with an old friend who wanted to drive all night to the coast just to take a handful of blotter and watch the sun come up I would do it, not as a last gasp, but to remember the why of the first one. I still don't want to die knowing my last conversation was about prostates or politics. I want beauty, the beauty of those days, it's still there. I hear it in the music. And I'm still not afraid to be bad for good reason. Bowie never was. There is a secret in that.

doctorfrog on 26/1/2016 at 22:13

Quote Posted by faetal

Nah, I get it, there's this need to hang the most saleable narrative on it, something people are going to glom onto, fit in just right with a popular notion of the dude.

It doesn't seem too far a reach, though, to have the man be done with one album, then saying, as Bill Shatner says in You'll Have Time: "Maybe, I won't go." Or even if you know you're going, you seize on a few ideas that maybe you can spin into something, and you gotta get it out. Or the song factory keeps pushing stuff out in spite of what the rest of the brain is trying to get around, and hey, may as well see where this takes me.

Death and dying are weird and awful, and there are certainly many possibilities. I don't need to know the truth of them any more than I need to know exactly what the intended mythos of Ziggy Stardust was, the movie I made in my head on my repeated listenings of the album are suitable.

So for me, that's how it went with Blackstar, that's the story I'm gonna bore my kid with 20 years from now.