For many people around the world the stars look very different today (Ed. note: Monday). That’s because the Man Who Fell to Earth has left the earth. Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke, Major Tom...David Bowie is gone and like his music, life and art, it was completely unexpected.
Brixton-born David Jones, later David Bowie, was one of the handful of old school rock royalty whose albums and life were beyond predictability. Much has been made of the man’s chameleon-like changes but as Bowie himself reflected, chameleons try to fit in.
He didn’t and that’s why his passing has left an emotional void in those who knew his music.
Superstar status aside, Bowie created an ultra-cool secret club where outsiders were the status quo but all were welcome. In a weird but fitting anomaly, he cut through the mask of his current character and called out.
There was a street party in Brixton/South London on Monday night but people will remember him with sadness and longing for awhile. He’s a huge artistic loss.
For kids schooled on Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple, David Bowie was a bolt out of the blue. Not macho but cool; not catchy but hypnotizing. Most of all, the guy was real and sophisticated but incredibly relatable.
In the early ‘70s while waiting for Nightmare Theatre to come on, my friends and I were watching the news in North Vancouver.
On came Bill Good who stuck a microphone in the face of David Bowie, wearing a funky leather hat that shaded his face. The reporter asked Bowie a blunt question about his private life, which he deflected nonchalantly...it was a polite and better response than the question deserved. Even at that young age, we were all impressed, and never forgot.
That’s the thing with Bowie, when you dropped the needle, you never knew what to expect. From 1969 until 2016, that didn’t change. It was never going to be verse, chorus, verse, chorus with his music. So it is with Blackstar, released with no fanfare last Friday on his birthday, and two days before his death.
Bowie was loyal to his muse until the end. Blackstar is a jazzy recording that is cut through with haunted vocals and a crying saxophone. The title track is a dark slew of Gregorian-type chants, restless percussion and a mid- song segue into pop-soul melodicism. Bowie combines a free-form spirit with strong structure and evocative singing. His voice is strong, and blends richly with the band.
The album has a dual personality: dark beatnik jazz mashed against a cinematic vocal performance that’s up to the expressive Bowie standard. You can only compare his music with his own releases, as he is in his own genre.
So where does Blackstar fit— perhaps somewhere between the Berlin trilogy and Another Day, with modal jazz elements. The album hosts some of the most melodic outside horn playing heard in rock music.
Lyrics like, “If I never see the English evergreens I am running to, Its nothing to me, Its nothing to see on the swooning Silver Dollar Days,” take on a resigned meaning.
Bowie was a rare breed, a singular artist who ran along the fringes of pop culture and rock music, picking up sparks from the light and reflecting them through his characters. That was a smart but risky path for such a revealing musician to travel.
He was real, and people felt he spoke for them. He has left a cultural void, and will be deeply missed.