Blackstar

A deeper look at the grooves pressed into the blackstar LP by David Bowie It’s amazing how outside factors can affect the qualities of the music on an album and change its focus. Any number of stimuli could play an active roll in the change – the medium through which the music is presented (be it vinyl record, compact disc, cassette or mp3 – whatever), the players who contributed to the recording or even unforeseen events which occurred completely outside...

It was one of those moments that I can say I remember perfectly – in spite of the ungodly hour. It was 4:30 AM Eastern Standard Time; I had just come back to bed after attempting to get my youngest daughter back to sleep (it would work for about an hour, before the whole process needed to be undertaken again). My wife, who had been awakened by the baby too, turned to me and said, “I just read it on...

It has been said so often now that most fans (even the newest, least tested ones) can take this as a fact: David Bowie always rocks hardest and best when he’s making a grand artistic statement. The years have proven that as factual but, as Station To Station, Tin Machine, Earthling and, now, Blackstar illustrate, the singer goes that ever-so-important extra step and ascends to a whole other creative echelon when even his biggest supporters are left pretty sure that...