Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre then stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
I’m a blackstar
How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?
He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd
I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster…
- singer/songwriter: David Bowie
AND moi was in Starbucks one lazy afternoon chatting with the coffee shop habitués and the political pundits on the latest issues happening in “I Am Iloilo City” seems like a slow day. Nothing interesting to write about in my column.
Just to make it interesting, making small talk and flirting with the pretty baristas might bring out some inspiration and it actually did something about, “Why all the lady baristas in Starbucks are pretty?” But not today, some other time perhaps.
Out comes the iPad. There’s the usual boring news on “not former but never was” Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno and Sen. Kiko Pangilinan reduced to a bumbling idiot by Sen. Ping Lacson.
So moi decided to check out “BlackStar”, David Bowie’s last album, on YouTube.
To say that moi is “blown away” is an understatement and definitely it’s not the double espresso.
Here are excerpts from that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
Blackstar is the 25th and final studio album by the English musician David Bowie. It was released worldwide through ISO, RCA, Columbia, and Sony on Jan. 8, 2016 coinciding with Bowie’s 69th birthday. The album was largely recorded in secret between The Magic Shop and Human Worldwide Studios in New York City with Bowie’s long-time co-producer Visconti and a group of local jazz musicians.
Two days after its release, Bowie died of liver cancer; his illness had not been revealed to the public until then.
Co-producer Visconti described the album as Bowie’s intended swan song and a “parting gift” for his fans before his death. Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, topping charts in a number of countries in the wake of Bowie’s death, and becoming Bowie’s only album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States.
The album remained at the No. 1 position in the UK charts for three weeks. It was the fifth bestselling album of the entire year, worldwide.
It was also the best-selling album worldwide for two consecutive weeks, having sold more than 969,000 copies as of Jan. 31, 2016. It has sold more than 1,900,000 copies as of April 2017 and received Gold and Platinum certifications in the US and the UK, respectively.
At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, the album won awards for Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package, and the title single won Best Rock Performance, and Best Rock Song. The album was also awarded the British Album of the Year award at the 2017 Brit Awards, and Metacritic named it the most critically acclaimed album of the year by music publications.
From “Major Tom”, “Ziggy Stardust”, Aladdin Sane” to the “The Thin White Duke” David Bowie the rock star who invented “Glam Rock” saved the best for last with “BlackStar”.
Billboard and CNN wrote that Bowie’s lyrics seem to address his impending death, with CNN noting that the album “reveals a man who appears to be grappling with his own mortality.” “Lazarus”, the third track on the album, was notable for the lines “Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got scars that can’t be seen”; this specific part of the lyrics appeared in many publications following Bowie’s death on Jan. 10.
“BlackStar” is perhaps Bowie’s most experimental work since his album Low released in 1977. It contains several total shifts in instrumentation, but whilst images of death crop up repeatedly, the lyrics are abstruse and there are no obvious clues to any story unifying the fragments.
Other than “blown away” moi is at a loss for words on how to describe David Bowie’s BlackStar Aabum. It is Jazz, Rock, Rhythm and Blues with elements of Hip Hop. Simply put, the epitome of fusion music.
And it came to pass that the seemingly illusive topic to write about was just there under my nose well not literally but in my iPad in the form of David Bowie’s last album his swan song.
It would be fitting that we end with these words from David Bowie …
I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
