David Bowie | Space Oddity | The Man Who Sold the World | Hunky Dory
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars | Aladdin Sane | Pin Ups | Diamond Dogs | Young Americans
Station to Station | Low | "Heroes" | Lodger | Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps) | Let's Dance | Tonight | Never Let Me Down
Tin Machine | Black Tie White Noise | The Buddha of Suburbia | Outside | Earthling | 'hours...' | Heathen | Reality | 'hours...'
The Next Day | ★ | Changesonebowie
- Executive Meddling: The title track was cut down from over eleven minutes to just under ten because of iTunes' restriction on single length. Bowie was adamant that it be the lead single from the album, and did not wish to release two versions of the song, as he felt doing so would confuse listenersnote . Producer Tony Visconti called Apple's policy "total bullshit".
- Similarly Named Works: No, ★ and "★" have no relation to the Radiohead song "Black Star" (or the Elvis Presley song "Black Star" for that matter). The album also shouldn't be confused with the Mos Def and Talib Kweli-helmed supergroup Black Star.
- Swan Song: Bowie was diagnosed with liver cancer in 2014 and spent much of the following year recording this album as a reflection of what was then the very real possibility of his death; the cancer would be declared terminal in November 2015, with Bowie meeting the inevitable just two days after the album's release and his own 69th birthday. The whole record is Bowie's most personal since Low nearly 40 years prior, being an extended musing on his amplified awareness of his own mortality and his uncertainty at the time regarding whether or not he would live (he wouldn't), and his feelings of uncertainty and desire to tie up as many loose ends as possible is very much apparent.
- What Could Have Been:
- "★" was originally meant to go over eleven minutes, which would've made it Bowie's longest-released song ever, only to be cut down to just under ten to meet iTunes' single length limit.
- There was intended to be a follow-up to ★. Bowie had actually recorded five demos and was planning to work again with Visconti a week before his passing.
- LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy was initially planning to produce the album, with Visconti serving as executive producer in the way Brian Eno has on the later U2 albums. Murphy got cold feet about wielding that much authority on a Bowie album, but still appears on a couple of tracks.
- Working Title:
- The re-recorded "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" and "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" was produced under the respective titles "'Tis a Pity" and "Re-Sue (With Strong Bass)".
- "Lazarus" was originally recorded as "The Hunger", a nod to the film Bowie starred in.
