He did it again. After a more rocking, traditional "The Next Day", Bowie is back to experimental ground in "Blackstar". This is his most He did it again. After a more rocking, traditional "The Next Day", Bowie is back to experimental ground in "Blackstar". This is his most ambitious album since "Outside" - I'm not saying that his most rocking albums were bad, they were just most conventional than this.



Bowie always experimented with jazz. We all remember Aladdin Sane, Jump They Say, Seven Years In Tibet, the Berlin Trilogy. It's the first music genre he fell in love with when a child. But he never released a entire album of jazz music.



Blackstar is the closer he gets, but it's not simply a "jazz album": it's dark, experimental, electronic and remiscent of his Berlin trilogy and of his underated masterpiece "Outside". Two songs are immediatly absolute masterpieces: the 10 min "Blackstar", spiritual sucessor at least in structure to "Station to Station"; and the dramatic, melancholic "Lazarus", wrote for his play of same name.



The whole album is groundbreaking. Even the two songs that we already knew from 2014, "Sue" and "Tis a Pity" are reworked and in much superior versions here. It's a short album, but much like Station to Station and Earthling, it's immediate and without a single bad song. Without even a regular song; every song is damn good, ambitious and different in every way.



The three final tracks are some of his finest ballads, the atmospheric "Girl Loves Me", the beautiful "Dollar Days" and the message to the fans in the final track: "I can't give everything away". And Bowie is once again right: we don't need everything away. We can cople with the mystery, wait, worry, and then he gifts us with such a treasure like Blackstar



This album will grow, and grow, and grow on us. Happy birthday, master! … Expand