David Bowie - Blackstar ★

ISO / Columbia / Sony

2016 was home to a few rather large farewells of the music world. None necessarily of greater or lesser importance than the other. But the way in which Mr. David Jones took his final step will go down, or rather has gone down, as a thing of sheer artistic beauty.

Blackstar, Bowie's final statement and one of the finest albums of the last decade, was released on this day, the 8th of January, in 2016. Bowie's 69th birthday to be precise. He would pass away two days later on the 10th. This album out of context still packs power but within said context it acts as a premonition of sorts. A knowing of ones fate and fully embracing it. Staring down the barrel of mortality and producing a work of great weight and worth.

Bowie has more life in him while knocking on deaths door than most in their prime. If there was ever a way to do it, this is it. These sort of things cant be planned, only destined. There hasn't been a more fitting curtain call as this as far as I am aware.

January 8th, 2016.