Anticipate David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

From David Bowie News:

Everyone’s talking about . . . Bowie’s new album!!

David Bowie's new album Blackstar is set for release on January 8th 2016. The album consists of 7 songs and is 45 minutes long.

The single Blackstar is ten minutes long and is released on November 17th.

Recorded at the Magic Shop studio in New York with local jazz musicians, Blackstar may well be the odd-est work yet from the 68-year-old singer says The Times.

Cannot wait...

!

Oh cool, my first thought is that it seems like he's following on in the direction of 'Sue' from the recent compilation, although this is Bowie and it could easily be 45 minutes of free jazz or whatever.

Apparently an excerpt:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6J44zGDb6g

Visconti y/n

"Finally, doing the Scott Walker album I wanted to do!"

^^^

Quote from the Times article:
"...long jazzy jams mixed with the kind of driving beat pioneered by Can and Kraftwerk"

Mmmmmm

Viconti was involved in "Blackstar", the song Bowie provided for the Last Panthers series so I assume he's involved in the album. He was saying last year that he'd been working with Bowie on new stuff

This is gonna be one of those things that's described as "jazzy" by writers who've heard, like, three jazz albums in their entire lives, isn't it?

I mean, I'm superficially intrigued - I thought he made good use of the saxophonist on The Next Day, and liked "Sue" a lot - but will have to wait until I hear the first single to decide whether he's actually gonna get my money.

I dunno, I think it's a positive thing that Bowie is at least continuing to work on new stuff, even if it's not likely that we'll ever see him touring again. I'm kinda glad that The Next Day wasn't a one-off thing and he doesn't seem to be going on yet another decade-long hiatus.

The Next Day bored me. Wish he'd stayed away tbh -- what a grand, neat, perfect gesture.

hmm, I came late to The Next Day but was surprised at its quality overall. I wasn't crazy about Sue- it seemed a pretty typical meandering search for a melody that he gets into. Anyway, regardless, I would welcome a new record. A 45 min LP sounds refreshing as well.

Ideally how many jazz albums shld writers hear before calling bowie's new material jazzy?

Or maybe you're just suggesting "jazzy" is a silly word

hyped for this, hope it's a lot weirder than next day

xp

xxpost:

Yeah, 45 minutes is kinda the optimum album length for me. Personally, I got a bit tired with bands/artists, particularly in the '90s, saying "hey, the maximum capacity of a CD is 70+ minutes so let's make our albums that long!"

"jazzy" is a silly word and jazz probably has no bearing on what Bowie does/will do.

"jazzy" is a silly word and jazz probably has no bearing on what Bowie does/will do.

Exactly. I'm expecting this to have more or less the same relationship to jazz as Radiohead's "The National Anthem" or Primal Scream's "MBV Arkestra" - i.e., there will be horns.

conflating styles with instruments common to them is such a sad, terrible tendency

Well yes a sax is nor inherently jazzy (or classical, or yacht-y) but I think there was a contemporary jazz sensibility to a lot of the playing on next day, and if press says musicians with jazz backgroundd are playing on this one...

"jazzy" = "rocky" in the silliness chart.

We got a website and snippet.

http://imablackstar.com/

Some video to go with another bit of the same song.

http://pitchfork.com/news/62095-david-bowie-shares-blackstar-short-film-trailer/

Names of the backing musicians have been released: Donny McCaslin on saxophone, Ben Monder on guitar, Jason Lindner on keyboards, Tim Lefebrve on bass, Mark Guiliana on drums. That's a band I'd listen to with or without David Bowie.

has bowie made any public appearances in the last ~5 years? how do we know he's not dead? THE NEXT DAY was loaded with references to alzheimer's, parkinson's, dementia... the whole museum exhibit seemed like a memorial.... is this all an art stunt?

he's obviously too sick to tour or perform

i realise this exposes my stupidity (again), but without googling, i have not heard of anyone in that band lineup ..

quesiton : does this revelation give further insight into the sound of the new album ?

i realise this exposes my stupidity (again), but without googling, i have not heard of anyone in that band lineup...

They're all New York jazz dudes.

question: does this revelation give further insight into the sound of the new album?

Yes. It will be an album of jazz dudes playing rock music. So it'll probably sound like Steely Dan.

thank you.
i am not that tuned into the NYC jazz scene, so, appreciate the insight.

First single/video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kszLwBaC4Sw

This is good.

"he's obviously too sick to tour or perform"

I think he just lost interest in touring after having a heart attack. I don't think he's got some kind of ongoing illness; he's getting old, from the videos that are out, but he doesn't look unwell.

well, his eyeball popped out too

wow this song is wild

He's looking a bit like John Robb in that video, most disconcerting.

I really like this new song.

did he just sing, "I've got game"?

"i'm not a porn star"

great fucking song. can't wait now

this makes me want to listen to The Next Day

see what daves been up to

this makes me want to listen to The Next Day

― flappy bird,

it'll take a few minutes to change your mind

I keep seeing Scott Walker comparisons

i'm so fucking about this holy shit

bowie!

The "I'm a black star!" refrain is annoying after 20 times. The froufrou bits at the five-minute mark are by far the best.

nice echo off his spooky oooooohhs from "Subterraneans."

Love it. And love The Next Day. My most played Bowie album in years.

I couldn't get past how many terrible rock songs TND had. The one in which he yelled through clenched teeth that she'd NEVER BEEE THE BOSS OF MEEEEE made me laugh for days.

That's a lot of laughing!

this is so wild!

of course you are

So lonely

Blackstar feels a bit monochrome despite (because of?) the heavy emotionality of the subject

The title track, "'Tis a Pity," and "Girl Loves Me," to pick three, sound nothing like each other, though.

What do you mean by emotionality?

i love outside and earthling but for entirely different reasons. outside is employing a lot of misdirection; earthling is very direct

I loved the recent Pitchfork review of the Brilliant Adventures boxset b/c he wrote it as someone who was there at the time. It flabbergasted me to buy Bowie albums from 1993 to 1999 and not one of them was similar -- it was the '70s again.

The title track, "'Tis a Pity," and "Girl Loves Me," to pick three, sound nothing like each other, though.

I mean monochrome in feeling, not stylistically; after the title track, the emotions are muted, possibly because he knew this was a last testament and wanted to downplay any potential melodrama in the material. I'm glad it's well-loved, though, but I would not suggest it to anyone as a great place to start with Bowie.

to be fair, there's stuff from the '90s I like. I can't get through the albums in their entirety, but the singles are enjoyable - like "Little Wonder," and the single remixes like the Pet Shop Boys remix of "Hallo Spaceboy" and Trent Reznor's "I'm Afraid of Americans" are both excellent. "I Know It’s Gonna Happen Someday" may be my favorite cover of a Morrissey song. I liked "The Heart's Filthy Lesson" when it showed up in David Fincher's Se7en. The decade's last album actually has nice songs too, especially "Thursday's Child" - I just didn't like how he recorded them, the record feels kind of light and bland in that respect.

hours is his worst album since Tonight.

1. Outside has "Strangers When We Meet" (one of his grand ballads), "We Prick You," "Thru' These Architects Eyes," "I'm Deranged" -- bangers not dependent on his fussy concepts. His best of the decade.

Shit, Black Tie White Noise boasts some of the most ear-catching Nile Rodgers productions ever: "Jump They Say," "You've Been Around, the Scott Walker cover (which I prefer to the original).

And The Buddha of Suburbia! What a delicious little thing!

I tried making sense of things here.

Love the best pets of Black Tie White Noise

Parts

woof

the emotions are muted Always sounded very intense, very exciting to me--he's jumping into the fire, and the void---the creative pushback, the overall musical effect is the expression and transmutation, not muting.

or jumping into the musical fire, knowing the void will come to him, whatever he's doing.

To me, he was mainly one of the great singles artists of his era---I like most of the albums I've heard, which is not nearly all---but I know I'd consider this one of his very best ever, regardless of release date.

(I think of "his era," radio star-wise, as late 60s-early-ish 80s.)

listening to the brilliant adventure box set and i am LOVING black tie, white noise, didn't really make much of an impact at the time beyond i remember liking "jump (they say)" but i really dig the whole thing, cool sounds

Nothing sounded like it in 1993: the Amy Grant album of my dreams. Then there's cuts like "You've Been Around" where Rodgers-Bowie destabilize the elements. Nothing unfurls as it should: the bass is mixed too high, Reeves Gabrels reduced to a surly growl, and the vocals are like a clown shouting from Everest. I love it.

If it's heretical to say I prefer Bowie's "Nite Flights" to Scott Walker's, burn me.

yeah it's such a unique sound, the arrangements always seem to zig when you expect them to zag

there's an unsettled quality to the whole thing, i guess if i had to find a point of reference in his catalog i might compare the overall feeling to Lodger?

Which is funny cause it’s his “I’m married to a supermodel and I’m happy” album

A classmate of mine interviewed/hung out with Iman like ten years ago and said she was like her best friend for the duration of that entire evening. So when Rob Sheffield argued that Iman gave him something to write about after years in the wilderness, I immediately thought of my friend's interview - like I can totally see how someone like that can suddenly turn your life into this huge ray of sunshine.

I'm not sure if I heard this before...I've heard from musicians that Bowie was really generous about singing guide tracks while they cut their parts, but not that most of the Blackstar tracks were truly live in the studio:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZE2QZwtuec

Even more impressive, Bowie's home demos are not too dissimilar.

Check out what he came up with on his own:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0FmXpbcRT0

What a lovely read this thread is from start to finish. Must be one of the finest on this esteemed message board.

Also from upthread and not about Blackstar but …

Xpost I listened to this is not America today and I love that fucking song

― banned on ixlor (Jon not Jon), Monday, 11 January 2016 23:58 (six years ago) l

I listened to this the other day and I agree

xp alfred it's not clear to me he performed the demo himself, did you read that somewhere or is it apparent from recording notes?

Yep. The band and Chris O'Leary confirmed it.

What we hear are sax, keys, and drum machine, all of which he could play.

It's a demo Bowie recorded by himself, Pushing Ahead of the Dame has lots of interesting information on it: https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2017/02/16/tis-a-pity-she-was-a-whore/

Although Bowie was in the studio in summer 2014 to record full demos with Tony Visconti, Zachary Alford and Jack Spann, the B-side of “Sue,” issued that November, was Bowie alone: the same home demo he’d sent McCaslin, full of keyboard presets and crackling with cheap distortion.”The B-side was a demo. It was just kickass,” Visconti said. “His production skills have gone up 5,000%.”

x-post :)

I really think Tis a Pity She Was a Whore could be the very best thing he ever did.

Anyone read this yet? Looks interesting: https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/blackstar-theory-9781501365379/

xp that's so cool thanks!!

Man, she punched me like a dude
Hold your mad hands, I cried
'Tis a pity she was a whore
'Tis my fate, I suppose
For that was patrol
That was patrol
'Tis a pity she was a whore

Did anyone figure out which star field/constellation is in the hidden NASA artwork? Surely it can't be just any random picture of stars...

Happy birthday. Nate Chine assembled a rough oral history of the ★ sessions: https://thegig.substack.com/p/at-the-centre-of-it-all

Completely forgot Jason Lindner was on that.

totally blew my mind at the time when i found out Bowie was working with Maria Schneider— i love both artists to bits

I nerded out and went to Brooklyn to bug Ben Monder with some Bowie questions shortly after he died.

Lovely.

This album is extraordinary. Hitting a real personal punch tonight. No exaggeration to regard it as one of his best ever records.

Listened to it last week for the first time in several years. It's very good, but not perfect; "Girl Loves Me" and "I Can't Give Everything Away" (which sounds like a closing-credits song from a mid '80s movie) are the weakest tracks. But it really hangs together as an album-length statement, and the first four tracks are all great.

McCaslin (I think) said somewhere recently there was an additional track from the album sessions that would be released on the 10th anniversary...but haven't heard any more about that

oh it was Tim Lefebvre

"I Can't Give Everything Away" (which sounds like a closing-credits song from a mid '80s movie)

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson),

I do not consider this a bad thing. I also don't think it's a weak track.

Would love to hear the demos

yeah I Can’t Give… is the emotional heart of the album

Oh man, I love “Girl Loves Me,” among other things for those gonzo drum fills.

"Dollar Days" is the only B+ track imo

ompletely forgot Jason Lindner was on that.

It's impressive as hell to think that Lindner, McCaslin, et. al. worked off Bowie's detailed demos.

"Dollar Days" is the only B+ track imo

If I'll never see
those English evergreens
I'm running to
it's nothing to me
it's nothing to see

that song has hit me so hard on many occasions

I do find that verse and his singing of it quite poignant.

Its limpid strum calls back to Space Oddity for me, too.

For me, Girl Loves Me is the only dud, and even that's pretty likeable. The album has definite Station to Station vibes I think. Just occurred to me he's wearing his STS outfit in the Lazarus video as well...