In another topic a poster mentioned being disappointed with this album and finding it depressing, and I thought it might be good to discuss and explore our ideas and feelings on this album in a dedicated topic.  For me the album is more bittersweet than depressing per se, but there is sadness and regret.  It's poignant, sentimental in a moving way, and an amazing swansong as I perceive it.   I do think that it's a remarkable achievement, and the sad circumstances that relate to it and inform music on it makes it all the more moving to me, but also, I find it life-affirming in its way.  I appreciate the variety on display in the music as well as the way certain subject matter was handled.

So what are your thoughts on the album?  I hope this turns into some vibrant discussion.

I think it fits well with the context of which it was released.

To me it is his ultimate work, and the culmination of his musical work, and an enduring testament to the man. It is the one that most resonates with emotionally.  I can't imagine that many long-time Bowie fans would think, "Meh, great career over all but a pretty lame conclusion. I think most Bowie fans should skip this."  

It's an album I found intriguing, exiting, moving and I "loved" at first listen. But I haven't really relistened to the album in full after that. I sometimes - or maybe quite often really... I protect myself from my own emotional reactions to certain art. For years I couldn't listen to early Joni Mitchell + Leonard Cohen and Roy Harper, the two first Joanna Newsom-albums, Peter Hammill's Over, Pearls Before Swine - Use of Ashes, Nick Drake, various Brahms/Mahler/Bach performed by Kathleen Ferrier... mm... Its just too much - and it simply destroys me.

That's probably why I haven't allowed myself to let Blackstar under my skin. Rock Bottom has a soothing effect though. And I'm back to listening to Joni. All the time. But its easier to play some jazz. I'm not always ready for He Loved Him Madly, but in general. 

EDIT: Perhaps I should note that I did this topic as sort of an extension to what was being discussed in  http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=127183&PID=5928067#5928067" rel="nofollow - What does music do for you on an emotional level?  where I brought up David Bowie's Blackstar and its impact on me, which resulted in some response, but I felt it better to focus that conversation here and also to make it more generally about the album and its impact on people.  

Cannot say that I'm an unconditional Bowie fan: I like much of his work but I consider him more a radio artist than an album artist. To explain myself: I love most of his music, his songs - hits or not - are overall wonderful, but since I am very much an album listener, his albums never completely convinced me. Mostly because I think that the music on them is too dense... My gripe with his music is mainly that he filled up his songs to the brim: no place for an extra note or sound, everything was full. This makes it for me difficult to listen to a complete album of him: after two or three songs I have to breathe.

My preferred album would be Space Oddity and the experimental sides of the Berlin albums, but Blackstar is for me one of his better albums. Maybe not as dense as most of his other albums, but definitely an intense album. I would give it four stars (also because I'm very sparse in calling something a masterpiece...).

I still have a Maxell XL-IIS compilation of his better tracks, but never bothered replicating it into a CD-r compilation

Umeda wrote: Psychedelic Paul wrote: I know it's only a minority opinion here (and I AM a Bowie fan), but I think an album "for collectors/fans only" sums up the depressing Blackstar album rather succinctly, so it's a measly rating of only two black stars from me I'm afraid.  I think it fits well with the context of which it was released.

Absolutely (the only Bowie album I've ever owned), and in some ways, it reminds me of Jacques Brel's Brel album (AKA Les Marquises), a stunning and profound musical epitaph, one that really sets it apart from the rest from his œuvre and yet closes it in a grand manner. 

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1. Ziggy Stardust

2. Let's Dance

3. Space Oddity

4. Hunky Dory

5. The Man Who Sold the World

6. Aladdin Sane

7. Pin Ups

^ I am with you on the second track actually, and that is the one track that I sometimes skip. Regarding an earlier comment, I find the second half altogether excellent.  I guess if I had to choose just four songs off it (In order) then they would be Blackstar, Lazarus, Girl Loves Me, and Dollar Days.

For me Blackstar is Bowie's ultimate album, and not just because it was the last.  I think that it's a brilliant culmination of a long an illustrious career, has pathos, vulnerability while being life-affirming to me in its way.  It reflects a moment in time of Bowie's life while reflecting on his life generally.  It can feel appropriately nostalgic, and the melancholy is hardly something I could fault Bowie for and it would be much less poignant to me without it.  For any who may be disappointed due to nay depressing qualities, like Paul, I wonder how they would rather Bowie had approached the album?  It's a personal album that speaks to me on a personal level, but one's appreciation will depend on the individual psyche.  Of course it's fine not to enjoy it, but I would hope that most would still be able to appreciate it.

When it was voted Collab Album of the year, there was one poster who complained that it wasn't a very good album and the only reason people ranked it so highly is because of the circumstance surrounding it.  I responded that that made it more poignant to me and may be a factor, but even had Bowie not been dying and say, had recovered (actually I don't think I quite said that but will put it that way now),  that would have been my favourite album of the year.  I found it be an unfair and uncharitable comment re the assumptions made about others.

While I would want to view it in the context of his whole career (as well as take into consideration the state he was in when he made it), in a way just comparing it to his early classic period and saying this is better than that, or this is more satisfying than that feels too superficial to me.   That said, Blackstar is to me Bowie's most poignant and moving album.  While I respected and rated the album highly right from the first time I listened through it all soon after it was released, over the subsequent years my appreciation has grown.  Especially over the last couple of years I have listened to it many, many times and come to appreciate it all the more.  Blackstar resonates with me hugely on different levels.

That said, ten of my favourite Bowie album include (In chronological order):

The Man Who Sold the World

Hunky Dory

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Aladdin Sane

Station to Station

Low

"Heroes"

Lodger

Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps)

Blackstar

So Blackstar is the only one there post 1980.  That said, I have not heard quite a few of his post 1980 albums, at least in full or in the right situations where I could give it my full attention (and I like to listen more than once at different times and when I am experiencing different states of mind -- what resonates at one time might not at another time, and sometimes I am looking for the wrong things and have the wrong expectations).  I do like Just Dance more than many (still have it on cassette), especially for the B side.  Of his more modern ones, I di like Heathen, but it has been about 15 years since I last listened to it, and even then I did not listen that attentively as I had borrowed it from the library and played it while driving down the Oregon coast with my first born two year old aboard who was making Dora the Explorer based knock knock jokes.