Blackstar

Posthumous Review of BlackStar = Masterpiece GrammyFriday, January 15, 20161:42 PMOn Monday Morning EST I wake @4:30am to the news of the passing of David Bowie. I was instantly struck, for his wife and daughter because I lost my father at the same age. As someone who has played keyboard since age 4 as well as woodwinds later, I feel that my review of his last Album is a special one. After listening to some favorites and crying through the day at 3pm Jan 11 I was finally able to stop everything, turn on a low light, and just listen. In Surround Sound.BlackstarIn five seconds flat I have been transported to another country. It's like a prayer, a chant and the middle east or Buda influence is instantly felt. I'm There. I'm Not IN America Any More. Not many artists have been able to capture in our Era, in Rock Jazz pr Electronic, the feel of another country. I felt that Alanis did so with Baba, but this is different. Already I am hearing something I cannot "label" I cannot describe, I can only absorb the beauty of it. Especially the flute and the sax.Then, Second Act Not Same as the First! I'm starting to feel like I did the first time I heard Dark Side of the Moon! The Song is all of a sudden Rock, not Pop Rock not Techno, not Electronic, a love song a ballad. And I'm finding the urge to put what I'm hearing in a box. I cannot. By the time Act 2 is over and the stanza begins again with new lyrics for the chant, I'm in tears-again. Just for the Beauty of what I've just heard. The eerie yet strong wail like a voice trying to be heard inside your head: I'm not a Pop Star, I'm not a White Star, I'm a Black Star…..I'm struck with sadness and love and my heart is aching. And I cry more. Then all of a sudden it is the best Jazz and Soul I've ever felt or heard. Because I know David Bowie was a Husband and a Father. He was a Black Star. And Michael C Hall, has stepped in and now I understand and I start to really cry. Because when I saw the tape of his performance, I knew there was just something…there was something I couldn't put my finger on. How could we ever dare call his work, Pop? It is so much more and it always has been. This is a composition, as complicated as any modern day Mozart would write. My Tears Fall."Tis a Pity She Was A WhoreThis, I'm already starting to groove. Is This Jazz? Is this Blues? Is this ….well not one Album has struck me like this since Dark Side of The Moon or Wish You Were Here. Man She Punched Me Like a Dude…and I laugh. All of a sudden I'm in a seedy place an alley or alongside a bar, afterhours, against a wall. David Bowies Sexuality is dripping out of this song. He has always been so Frigging Sexy, to everyone. Now, this, Is Ear Candy. I'm feeling Psychedelic Furs, the reverberation in my ear, a tickle, something that rarely happens. Hold Your Hands! For That Was Patrol! I'm grooving to the best Jazz I've ever heard.LazarusWith one bar, I'm crushed. I'm in Tears, the riff is the saddest I have ever heard. Ever. The sax coming in so sexy…Then "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" and I'm in a puddle in my heart and soul. I'm unprepared. It's so beautiful I gulp and cannot speak. I'm glad no one is here. I'm grateful for this and start to realize omg this is such a Gift. A daring one at that. It is Raw.I'm Raw. Then his voice and New York, he was living like a King. And I start to wonder, was he not ready for this. Was he afraid, who wouldn't be. And I cry, silent tears. We have a blue bird trail we put up a few years ago in the country. We have had a few clutches come and go. I'm a birdwatcher, and Now I'm heartbroken. The song is so beautiful, and so full of truth. Then this rift at the end, the bass is like yelling NO. Again I'm struck at what I'm hearing.Sue Or In a Season of CrimeEthereal. Jazzy. Rocking. Techno. Experimentation with sound even as he is dying. I love sound experimentation and the beat is pulling me in as are the Lyrics. The Xray is fine. I don’t believe him. Then this rift at the end the bass driving and it is rocking this song and it ends like anesthesia does, going out with a buzz. No time to count down from 10.Girl Loves Me = Song of the YearI'm like what? I had to start the song Over. My tears are drying. Girl Loves Me I think is my favorite song on this Album and it's hard to say that. But it was Monday. My realization, was dizzying. I understand, he is ready to go. To leave Us. He is coping. He is writing about it. The Lyrics, omg I realize I must get the lyrics out when I'm done and read them. When that Baritone Hey Cheena comes in, I have goose bumps. Because, Girl Loves Me…these seductive voices come through…calling….Hey Cheena. Oh My God I love this song. WTF Did Monday Go? For me, it was very hard to hear…and of course yes I'm in tears again. How could I not be? This man obviously has just left us something so special that I have chills. And I realize that I have a unique perspective, not one I wanted. But the composition of these songs is something, spectacular in my most humble opinion. From the Sax Solos and Runs to the Tempo & Key changes which were unique on this album so far, my ear is tickling me with something very Rare. Ear Candy.Dollar DaysGeez, all of sudden I hear David Bowie flipping through his pages, it is so intimate, this sound of a musician and his paper and his pages. Cash Girls Suffer Me, and I'm crying again. There is nothing to See. I remember walking all the way to the mall after school when Diamond Dogs was released. Had to have it. Had to learn every word and I'm starting to feel that urge that I have to learn this. I'm starting to feel that this is a body of work, that is Album of the Year, Grammy Worthy and I'm not even finished with the Album yet! The Sax solo's and runs are fantastic. The Lyrics are crushing my Heart.It's all Gone Wrong. I can't bear it really because he had to leave his wife and his daughter. I wonder where Michael C Hall is and how he is. Then I realize what I saw when I saw a clip of his performance. He couldn't even smile. Then the song ends and so does this riff, that I want more of instantly…I Can't Give Everything AwayI see the title of the song on in HD on my TV, as I listen. I know something's very wrong. And I'm crying again, silent tears throughout as I realize, this is a Grammy. It's the best David Bowie ever, it's the hardest ever to hear, but I am so grateful for this Gift. When I paid for it I felt, it wasn't enough. Before I even heard it. And I expected nothing, set everything aside. The wonderful uplifting jazz riffs with these dizzying runs on the sax….He Has Given Us Everything for Forty Years. As a Fan, but also as someone who plays and loves music, I'm left extremely grateful for all of his Influence and for writing up to the very bitter end.This Album Blackstar, is a Modern Day Masterpiece. It is Grammy Worthy, and Moving but written so well & produced brilliantly. I don’t want to put him in a category, I cannot. His music Transcends in this piece of work. The Cabaret touched him early in life and He Is, A Black Star. He's not a White Star. Little Richard lived inside this man. This was Funk at it's best, Jazz at it's best Blues and Rock and Roll and so much more. All infused. I don’t think I have ever heard an album that was Jazz Soul Techno Electronic Funk Blues Rock and Roll, all rolled up tightly with a bow, In One. Each song was like a Play.I grieve the rest of the week for a voice we will never hear again; for his Wife and his Daughter, & Friends, His Gift, His Art and for the Man who is David Bowie. Always Daring, Never Backing Down, He exuded sex appeal in so many of his songs and performances, which I loved & was never apologetic, just brutally honest.K J Ruperthttps://onedrive.live.com/edit.aspx/Documents/Kathleen^4s%20Notebook?cid=b1943e3dbd3676ee&id=documents&wd=target%28Quick%20Notes.one%7C0422F11D-38F9-4472-8474-4AFA7E3D417F%2FPosthumous%20Review%20of%20BlackStar%20%3D%20Masterpiece%20Grammy%7C07D2FC6A-6615-4168-B0C7-1F3D93154932%2F%29onenote:https://d.docs.live.net/b1943e3dbd3676ee/Documents/Kathleen's%20Notebook/Quick%20Notes.one#Posthumous%20Review%20of%20BlackStar%20=%20Masterpiece%20Grammy&section-id={0422F11D-38F9-4472-8474-4AFA7E3D417F}&page-id={07D2FC6A-6615-4168-B0C7-1F3D93154932}&end

Lately, classic rock artists (Paul McCartney NEW, Paul Simon SURPRISE+, Robert Plant and Alisson Krauss KICKING SAND, Dylan All of his recent stuff, etc.) have been indulging in "sonic soundscapes" in their music. With producers like David Lanois and Brian Eno adding textures and the artists themselves experimenting with new melodic riffs and time signatures. All of this has been happening for the better part of a decade, and then came David Bowie and BLACKSTAR. This one not only out-did them all, it became a prophetic masterpiece on the last three days of his life. Quite purposefully he made this in the full knowledge of his ultimate departure. We all cried on another day that "the music died" because Bowie was one of the most prolific artists of the latter 20th century and frankly, the 21st Century will absorb his art much more easily than our generation did. BLACKSTAR is simply the best album that David Bowie ever made, so talk about a Swan Song! I've been listening to this man and purchasing his albums ever since The Spiders From Mars attacked the airwaves. While each incarnation and album wielded a new brush stroke and turned heads on their ears, David Bowie made a body of art that will live forever in history so long as the human race continues. Davie Bowie, along with a handful of "artists" from this generation will become the "classical music" of future generations. As another review already said, this album defies categorization. It is sonic textures and jazz fusion and avant garde and all the other things we always try to pin down but in Bowie's case that always seems impossible anyway and what you end up with is just absorbing the feeling of something that the master wished to paint upon our palettes and his pigments are always elusive anyways but the heart hears his music and the soul feels his rhythm and this is just the best David Bowie album I have ever heard and owned, if all his others were five star reviews this one should be held aloft above the dinning crowd and worshipped as the venus de milo or mona lisa or the starry night or maybe the sistine chapel with God reaching his finger out to touch David on the day of his next creation as a bodhisattva. See you next time around Aladdin Sane...