David Bowie

Well, I listened to the album.

It's quite good (apart from maybe one or two tracks). And... it is now clear he was dropping hints that he wasn't gonna last much longer (then again, mortality is a matter that he approached at certain points of his career).

The title track is just enormous. Several tempo changes and moods throughout the whole almost-10 minutes of it. And the lyrics are really impressive, by putting you in this weird place I can't quite describe. It conjured images of an afterlife, an ascent into that afterlife, an airport check-up, or some peculiar cosmic imagery in me, that's for sure.

"'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" seems a bit... comedic to me? It wasn't a track I got really into, and I feel there's some moments where I lost the focus of the story. Great use of sexual language, though.

"Lazarus" features the whole dicotomy of heaven and earthly city (namely, New York), and the transition between them. Oddly enough, it doesn't seem like he wants to be in Heaven (maybe he dislikes eternal pain (the 'scars' reference) and some supposed 'drama'?), even though (as shown in the music video) he's already lying in a deathbed and he's yearning for freedom to fly out ("you know, I'll be free/ Just like that blue bird"). It also features some quite assertive guitar chords and sounds by the man himself (he played a "Fender Guitar", according to the liner notes).

"Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)" is the rock-ier track, and it's quite the show-stopping number, with its tight and fast drumming and percussion (the latter is provided by James Murphy), as well as his breathing which sets the track in motion. I'm gonna have to listen to it again, since I didn't quite figured out the message.

"Girl Loves Me" is quite the Word Salad Lyrics song. What the heck is a 'Malchek', 'moodge', or a 'Popo'? I didn't really like the vocal intro, but it gradually got better (James Murphy also provides some percussion here, and a bit more noticeably). This song is fairly abstract, almost like something out of a Sparks album. I also don't know if the 'girl' in question is his wife (now widow) Iman or someone less specific.

"Dollar Days" is quite a relaxing track, which was fairly needed after the fast "Sue" and the unusual "Girl Loves Me". Fairly conventional, by Jazz standards, yet it progressed towards something else beyond Jazz a bit. I detect some detachment and 'no fucks given' attitude by him in his lyrics, even in regards to stuff from scenes he remembers and/or envisions. Which is then transitionally followed by...

"I Can't Give Everything Away". I loved this final track (this and the title track are my favourites). From its melodic nods/call-backs to "A New Career In A New Town" to the sense of musically heartwarming departure (even if the lyrics are fairly sombre). Kinda like Riding into the Sunset, I guess. I wonder if his 'everything' is his life in general, or maybe his more introspective details that he doesn't want to share with the world...

Overall, it's a pretty good album, in spite of a couple of flaws here and there. It's quite the experimental jazz (but far from stereotypical experimental jazz), with some bits of guitar and electronic bleeps and subtle sounds which do set the tone for his lyrics (which are quite capable of conjuring a lot of images).

Thank you, David Bowie, for everything you've done. I'll be listening to this and many of your other albums (for these next few days and beyond). May your memory be eternal.

edited 11th Jan '16 2:07:50 AM by Quag15

I can't believe he's gone. 69 is no age to die in this modern world of ours. Fuck cancer.

My first reaction? "You are fucking kidding me".

Today was my fathers unfortunate duty to inform me Bowie has passed away, I don't know what to say.

I will admit I only started following the man during the early 2000s, but someting about his experimentation got me hooked. It is unfortunate such influencial man is lost, especially soon after the release of the well received Blackstar.

Thank you Bowie, may you remain among the stars in this black space.

Girl Loves Me's bizarre lyrics come from Polari, a slang used by gay people in the 60s to keep hidden from mainstream society.

I did recognize "malchek" as phonetic gratuitous Russian for "boy" ^note not because I know any Russian, but because I've read A Clockwork Orange, which has Future Slang based on Russian, so that sort of makes sense.

I haven't listened to Black Star just yet, and may wait a while longer before I do; I almost cued it up on Spotify today and decided against it because it felt "too soon" somehow. I did put on Low and Ziggy Stardust on his birthday.

Wikipedia says it was liver cancer.

Peace is the only battle worth waging.

Isn't liver cancer hard to diagnose until you're about to die or something?

Have you any dreams you'd like to sell?

Bless the man for still going hard right up to the end.

I still need to hear the rest of Blackstar, but the title track intrigued me simply because of how much it sounds like Bowie's take on what Scott Walker has been doing on his last three albums, albeit with the emphasis on that first part—it's very Scott Walker, but it's also very David Bowie.

I'll hide your name inside a word and paint your eyes with false perception.

I put on Ziggy Stardust tonight to honor Bowie. Ended up bawling my eyes out whenever I heard the chorus to Starman.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"

I watched Labyrinth in memoriam and listened to the Protomen's cover of "Under Pressure" (with a guy from Evil Bebos as David Bowie). They were the only Bowie-related things I had on me, though my parents have some of his music.

The Labyrinth fandom has exploded with tribute fics.

The Protomen enhanced my life.

To celebrate him, Square Enix has made David's sole videogame appearance Omikron The Nomad Soul (to which he also made the soundtrack) completely free for a limited time. They seem to be having some technical issues at the time, though.

edit: Also he's been dedicated his very own constellation.
Close to Mars, natch.

edited 15th Jan '16 3:13:55 PM by LE0Night

Following the man's death (I won't deny I didn't really care before that >.>) and my liking of the album Blackstar, I've decided to dive deeper into his discography by listening to every album from the start. I just finished Scary Monsters.

It's quite fascinating, really. While his first two albums are kinda… okay I guess, everything he made in the seventies is excellent. Though I didn't really like Ziggy Stardust that much − it's good but not quite in his top tier to me −, Hunky Dory and Aladdin Sane are brilliant, and Station to Station and Low are among the most intense musical experiences I've had. Yeah, kinda ironic that "Low" is the one I like the most so far.

I really appreciate that every album sounds different − and quite ahead of their time for some. Now I've read here and there that his eighties period was not quite as good, but I'll see that soon enough. Scary Monsters is good at least (with a gorgeous reprise of Space Oddity, which doesn't hurt).

I actually would call the Space Oddity album an underrated classic. Most of the songs on it are folk rock gems, and its centerpiece, the sprawling epic "Cygnet Committee", while a bit overlong in parts, is simply glorious as its works up to its climax. Also, the song "Janine" is simply a fun song. I even recorded my own cover of it:

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

I'm a huge fan of Memory of a Free Festival myself, especially the Mick Ronson version.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"

Almost done, I just finished Hours.

The eighties albums were… not bad per se, but I can get why they're considered his most "meh". They just scream "EIGHTIIIIIES" at every beat. But I quite liked Tonight, to be honest. However, I won't forgive Bowie for being the culprit of this fucking earworm. I've heard it for years but I never realized it was a Bowie song.

Then the nineties! Kind of a hit-or-miss period, weren't they. BTWN and Outside were rather well crafted and had a good atmosphere but were waaaaay too long (no album should ever go beyond the 70 minute mark if you ask me), Buddha of Suburbia was… not bad I guess, and Hours… sounded kinda more mainstream but very pleasant.

And I freaking LOVED Earthling, which I didn't expect, as the only song I had heard from it (I'm Afraid of Americans) didn't leave that big an impression on me at first. It's actually easier to appreciate in the general atmosphere of the album, which has a very "alien" feel to it, ironically. Like it was composed somewhere between Roswell and Area 51. I can't quite explain it.

…And before I noticed, I only have 4 albums left to listen to. Well, 3, as I already know Blackstar.

edited 6th Jun '16 2:45:19 PM by Lyendith

Not a big fan of double albums, then? EDIT: I could've sworn we had a page for that.

edited 10th Jun '16 6:35:51 AM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

Not really, no. I mean, the only two double albums I've listen to are IAM's Ombres et Lumière and Jay-Z's Brueprint 2 (yeah, both rap albums), and I don't really see the point. Maybe the concept is used better by other artists, I don't know.

More generally, I almost never listen to two albums in a row.

Well, a double album usually is one album with either a single theme running throughout it (e.g. The Who's Tommy), two themes-within-one (e.g. Kate Bush's Aerial) or a collection of songs that showcase how remarkably different/diverse a band or an artist can end up being (e.g. The Beatles' 'White Album'). The key thing is to consider it a longer single album, rather than two CD's or two vynils that one has to sit through as if it was a chore.

Maybe try giving an album with more of a concept or a story a try. The Who's Tommy is a good start. If you want something with a lot of variety that keeps things fresh as it goes on, The Beatles' The White Album is also a good choice, though it is a bit polarizing to people, so that might be something to dig into after you've already gotten your feet wet. (I'm personally also a big fan of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass, but that one is even longer, being a triple album^note though if you're not interested in instrumental jam sessions, you can skip the last record, and even longer than that in its modern expanded releases, so that might not be your cup of tea—still, I do recommend at least listening to some of the bigger songs from it, since it's got fantastic music throughout.)

edited 10th Jun '16 8:52:56 AM by Odd1

Insert witty 'n clever quip here.

It should be noted that the third disc of All Things Must Pass is incredibly short.

"If you spend all your heart / On something that has died / You are not alive and that can't be a life"