Blackstars

The death of David Bowie opens up new scenarios for interpreting his final work. Scenarios no one had foreseen. The last videos, macabre as they were, showed him apparently in better shape than many people on the verge of turning seventy. The speculation about his health, fuelled by his long period of isolation, was just that - idle chatter - so much so that "The Next Day" itself was recorded by a Bowie in good health, as confirmed by Visconti and all his other collaborators. And the clues scattered throughout the lyrics of "Blackstar" and "Lazarus" didn't set off any alarm bells simply because Bowie's lyrics have always been steeped in death ("The Width Of A Circle", "Quicksand", "Five Years", the second side of "Diamond Dogs", "My Death" from the repertoire of Jacques Brel, more recently "Dead Man Walking", and ultimately even "Where Are We Now?").

Now that the game is over, the reviews of "Blackstar" - nearly all published before the news broke - look completely off the mark, including this writer's own. Looking back through the major international outlets, it's hard to find a single one that read this record as the elegy the artist had dedicated to himself. And yet that's how the work will go down in history.

This article was conceived as a look back, with the aim of tracking down some of the most symbolic and significant albums recorded under similar circumstances, with the artist already gravely ill and the looming presence of death visibly bearing down on the creative process.

Please note that the list is presented in strict chronological order and limited to the pop-rock sphere alone. Without claiming to include every possible candidate, we've tried to strike the best possible balance between the writer's own taste and the historical weight of the albums in question, aiming to paint as culturally broad a picture as possible. Albums by artists who died by suicide have not been included, as that represents a different condition from that of someone who, understandably, was not yet ready to take the final step.

Pekka Streng - "Kesämaa" (1972)

A Finnish singer-songwriter who found little success in his lifetime, he has become over the years a fairly celebrated figure locally, at least among enthusiasts. For the calmness of his voice, the sweet metaphors of his lyrics, the care put into the arrangements, and the sense of melancholy pervading his music, he's regarded more or less as Finland's answer to Nick Drake. The similarities lie more in the atmosphere than in the music itself, though, since Streng doesn't shy away from blending in psychedelia and jazz (on the upbeat "Puutarhassa" he even allows himself the luxury of anticipating the sound of Steely Dan). By the time he recorded this second studio effort, he had already been diagnosed with cancer a couple of years earlier, and it would take another three before it finally took him. Doctors, however, had made clear from the start that its spread could not be stopped, and by all accounts this deeply shaped the artist's outlook.

Jacques Brel - "Brel" (aka "Les marquises", 1977)

Nine years after his last album of new material, and three years after deciding to leave France to go live on the Marquesas Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Jacques Brel returns to Paris for a month and records his final album. His health is growing ever more fragile, he knows he doesn't have much time left, and he cuts some of his most intense songs. Standouts include "La ville s'endormait", with its suffocating noir atmosphere, "Les remparts de Varsovie", an old-fashioned chanson with a grotesque lyric about a woman of loose morals, "Les F...", a broadside against Flemish nationalists set to a disco-funk groove borrowed from Brazilian pianist João Donato, and the hugely famous "Voir un ami pleurer", a moving ballad on the meaning of friendship. Eight weeks at number 1 testified to France's love for the Belgian songwriter. No one imagined it would be his final release. A pulmonary embolism, following a long battle with cancer, would claim his life in October '78.

Virus – “Superficies de placer” (1987)

Perhaps the greatest band to emerge from Argentina's thriving new wave scene, Virus had already enjoyed a couple of years of huge success when frontman Federico Moura discovered he had contracted Aids. The music didn't change drastically, but the melancholy streak that had already been peeking through on earlier records grew more pronounced. "Superficies de placer" didn't get the reception it deserved at the time, but it has become a classic over the years. It's hard, after all, not to fall for this vaguely decadent brand of pop and its delicate arrangements, thick with electro-acoustic interplay, funk rhythms and crystalline synths. But what makes songs like "Rumbos secretos" and "Transeúnte sin identidad" truly unrepeatable is Moura's voice, a velvet of rare elegance that wraps every instrument in its atmosphere, at times romantic, at times more resigned. He would die a year later, explicitly asking the rest of the band to carry on without him.

Cazuza – “Burguesia” (1989)

At the peak of his arc, Cazuza was hailed by Caetano Veloso as "the greatest poet in the nation". His lyrics were indeed capable of blending social critique, intimacy and refined metaphor. His voice, equally at home with cutting new wave sounds and softer acoustic passages, did the rest. Since testing HIV-positive, he had already released two hugely successful albums, the dazzling "Ideologia" and the live "O tempo não pára", but it's "Burguesia" that was recorded once his condition worsened. Understanding that his time was running out, he put together a double LP of twenty songs, nearly seventy minutes of music. With his voice by then compromised, he moved between spoken declamations, whispers and passages sung in a hoarse, frayed timbre. As one might expect given its scale, the record contains a bit of everything, from the sweetest ballad to the most abrasive funk, and while it doesn't always hit the mark, it stands as an imposing, admirable achievement overall.

Queen – “Innuendo” (1991)

Freddie Mercury's final recordings are those on "Made In Heaven", released several years after his death, but that album is a messy, shapeless affair, hard to defend even for the most die-hard Queen fans. The choice therefore falls on the last album released while the singer was still alive, and one plausibly meant by him as a farewell to his fans. The evidence lies in the tone, noticeably darker than that of the preceding "The Miracle". Sure, there's no shortage of the excesses and lapses in judgment typical of any Queen record, but at least three songs rank among the best of their career: the epic march of the title track (with its famous flamenco interlude played by Steve Howe of Yes), the short-circuit of irony and sorrow in "I'm Going Slightly Mad", and the funereal manifesto "The Show Must Go On", whose title has since become proverbial. As is well known, Mercury passed away toward the end of 1991, from complications related to Aids.

Legião Urbana – “A tempestade” (1996)

The quartet of LGBT icons cut down by Aids closes with Renato Russo, frontman of the most celebrated Brazilian rock band of all time. The album is incomplete and imperfect, since Russo, by then exhausted and disillusioned, refused to fix the flaws in the vocal takes. Some of the arrangements feel a little rushed too, perhaps out of fear the songs wouldn't be recorded in time. In short, Legião Urbana have done better work, yet the record's appeal is undeniable, its lyrics a pit of despair deep enough to make the ghost of Ian Curtis break out in a cold sweat, and the immediacy of some of the melodies plain to hear. If we had to pick three tracks, we'd go with "Natália", a scratchy alt-rock gallop, "Esperando por mim", a gentle jangle-pop tune in the style of their earliest work, and "Música ambiente", with sonics edging close to trip-hop. Russo would die shortly after the album's release, which would go on to sell over half a million copies in just three months.

Fishmans – “98.12.28 男達の別れ” (“98.12.28 otokotachi no wakare”, 1999)

This is admittedly a debatable inclusion. Suffering from heart problems since childhood, Shinji Sato had always lived with the awareness that he'd never reach old age. In other words, the singer wasn't any more unwell than usual during the recording of this live double album. Still, since this was the concert with which the band had decided to end its career, just three months before the frontman's sudden death, it took on a genuine testamentary aura. The setlist features the most significant songs from their catalogue, including the forty-two minutes of the masterpiece "Long Season" (already thirty-five minutes long in its studio version). Of little commercial success at the time, but hailed by critics and enjoying a cult following that grows every year, Fishmans are a landmark name for the local underground. Their music is a kind of art rock that folds in electronic instrumentation, dub pulses and angelic vocals.

Johnny Cash – “American IV: The Man Comes Around” (2002)

This isn't the last album recorded by the Man in Black, who really did keep recording right up to his final days, allowing producer Rick Rubin to release an avalanche of posthumous material. Still, it's the record that has remained symbolic of his final period, when the physical decline, mainly linked to diabetes, had become so evident that it drove him to celebrate his life in a video – the one accompanying his cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt" – steeped in nostalgia and a sense of the end. Perhaps the most intense studio album of an imposing career, this manifesto of gothic country finds its masterpiece in the previously unreleased title track, a triumphant, biblically-toned hymn carried aloft by electric organ and the solemn notes of a piano. "Sento le trombe, sento i pifferi – Un milione di angeli cantano, moltitudini stanno marciando verso il grande timpano – Voci chiamano, voci piangono – Alcuni sono nati e altri stanno morendo – È il regno dell’alfa e dell’omega che arriva”.

Warren Zevon – “The Wind” (2003)

Upon learning of an inoperable case of lung cancer, Warren Zevon decided to devote his remaining energy to a farewell album. To make it, he called in many of the biggest names in American songwriting, aiming to give the record a sense of togetherness, communion and love of life that would strikingly contrast with what awaited him. The guest list is staggering: Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, David Lindley, Emmylou Harris, T Bone Burnett, Mick Fleetwood, Dwight Yoakam, Styx's Tommy Shaw, and Don Henley and Joe Walsh of the Eagles, and many more besides. Produced and largely co-written with lifelong collaborator Jorge Calderón, the eleven songs unfold as honest electric songwriting, at times rhythmically driven, at times more subdued, though far removed from the eclecticism of his 1978 masterpiece "Excitable Boy".

J Dilla – “Donuts” (2006)

J Dilla was a key producer in shaping the abstract hip-hop language of the 2000s. Aware that his days were numbered, due to two conditions as rare as they were incurable (a blood disease and an unusual form of Lupus), Jay Dee threw himself headlong into producing his testament. Confined to a hospital bed, he made use of the sampler that friends and colleagues from Stones Throw had given him to help pass the time during his immobility. Dee elevated sampling to an art form, putting it in service of building extremely short, non-sequential pieces that together form a kind of suite for the new millennium. Thirty-one fragments, twenty-nine of which were composed in hospital and then polished at his mother's house in Los Angeles, where he devoted his final efforts to finding a form that satisfied him. Ten years on, its influence can still be found in countless records, hip-hop and otherwise.

Rowland S. Howard – “Pop Crimes” (2009)

Rowland Stuart Howard was an Australian singer-songwriter, best known as co-founder of cult bands such as Birthday Party, Crime & The City Solution and These Immortal Souls. His second solo album after ten years of silence, "Pop Crimes" was recorded rather hastily just as the artist's liver cirrhosis had degenerated into cancer. The tracklist consists of six originals and two covers ("Life's What You Make It" by Talk Talk and "Nothin'" by Townes Van Zandt), on which he is backed by Mick Harvey of the Bad Seeds on electric organ and drums. His voice, at times catatonic, at times pained, stands out over hypnotic rhythms and jagged post-punk guitar lines. If the result recalls his old projects on one hand, on the other its bare-bones structures and half-declaimed tone edge closer to more recent things, to the point that even Alex Turner of Arctic Monkeys expressed his admiration for the result. Howard died eight days after the album's release.

With contributions from Gioele Sforza, author of the review of "Donuts".

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