Review Summary: This is all I ever meant...
As an artist, I can only imagine changing your sound to suit your current tastes must be a risky, yet challenging task – in doing so, you risk alienating your audience, as well as the ones who critique results of said change. To approach David Bowie’s newest work,
Blackstar, is a challenge in itself (from a writing standpoint at least). To label David Bowie as rock and roll’s chameleon in this day and age is just another cliché, it’s been said before; and while Bowie himself has changed his sound on nearly all of his albums, it’s a phrase that’s been worn out despite the truth in the meaning.
Blackstar – the twenty-eighth effort by Bowie, marks yet another change in the man’s sound; even discarding his old touring band for the occasion, bringing in a new jazz-tinted quintet led by saxophonist Donny McCaslin to further initiate the shift in direction that Bowie hinted at with
”Heat”, the closing track from 2013’s
The Next Day.
To accurately describe the sound that Bowie and company were aiming for here is warped, moody electronic-tinged jazz with a bit of classic Bowie on the side (most notably in the penultimate ballad,
”Dollar Days”) . Whereas
The Next Day was an album full of straightforward rock tunes that comfortably played it safe,
Blackstar takes hold of the listener from the very start with the woodwind-infused, schizo drumbeat of the title track. The real highlight of the ten-minute epic however, lies midway with Bowie switching to a poppier, bluesy-swing flavored segment augmented with lyrics that go from him contemplating his age (“Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside/somebody else took his place, and bravely cried – I’m a blackstar”); to what could be seen as taking a stab at his contemporaries akin to the classic tune
”Teenage Wildlife” (“You’re a flash in the pan/I’m the great I am”). The strengths of just this one track in particular hardly hints at the overall style of the album, as the title track itself is rather unique in comparison to the other six tracks.
”'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore and
”Sue” both released prior on a 2014 10”, see total makeovers. The former went from a bare-bones demo, now emerging as a vulgar mid-tempo soul jam, sees Bowie take on a crooning vocal that wouldn’t sound out of place on
Black Tie White Noise. On the other hand,
”Sue” was radically altered from an orchestral seven-minute long tragic drama about the titular character. The version here is cut nearly in half, the strings stripped and industrial-like guitars take the helm amidst a frantic rhythm section that harkens back to the evocative sounds of
Outside and
Earthling. The tragedy of the story though, is now paranoid, detached, and the vibe brings a hint of guilt rather than grief the second time around. If taking the title track out of the picture, the most absurd tune on here would undoubtedly go to the percussion-heavy
”Girl Loves Me”, a song that showcases Bowie’s rather cocky side with a sliver of vulgarity with the oft-repeated couplet of
“Where the fuck did Monday go?". The song is said to be based off the old English cant Polari, largely used among the gay subculture of yesteryear. While the heavy use of slang makes it difficult to decipher the meaning behind the lyric, the theme alludes to the weirder, more-worldly segments of
Lodger. In comparison to the oddity of the majority of
Blackstar, the penultimate ballad
”Dollar Days”, and the closing number
”I Can’t Give Everything Away” both strip away the complex rhythms in favor of tasteful acoustic guitars on the former; and a steady electronic rhythm on the latter.
In the centre of it all,
Blackstar as a whole isn’t a cosmic revelation to the masses in the form of music, nor is it a sign of something far greater to come (well, maybe), but it’s perhaps the album that Bowie needed to put out after the straightforward comeback album
The Next Day. Previous albums were consistent, had glimpses of greatness with minor tinges of excess, yet just didn’t reach the peaks of such classics like
Low or
Scary Monsters. If it were up to me, this would be the greatest thing he’s put out since the extremely overlooked
Heathen, but in terms of staying power and the strengths of the compositions, this is without a doubt, the best thing he’s done since the mammoth industrial concept album
Outside.
“The Next Day started out trying to do something new but something old kept creeping in. Not this album.”
As quoted by
Blackstar producer and long-time Bowie associate Tony Visconti, he suggested Bowie’s latest work took a sidestep into the avant-garde while avoiding the callbacks of its predecessor. This claim for the most part is true, but even some truths have a sense of falseness, with minor tidbits of past Bowie albums showing up throughout the album. With some albums, this would be the biggest downfall, in which the artist struggled to find a new sound without fully abandoning their past endeavors, yet here it complements the music perfectly to make an entirely new beast that fits perfectly into the Bowie canon. Is David using the same old thing in brand new drag? I couldn’t tell you whether he is or not, but if so, it’s pretty damn good. As for the man himself, David Bowie has effectively proven that he still has what it takes to release something close to a potential classic, even if he’s no longer as fearful of old age like he was back during the era of
Heathen. Here, he is more accepting of his advanced age, and has come to the consensus that he can only do what he does best, and that is to make music. After all, he can’t give
everything away.
