Ten Years Without David Bowie

The career of David Bowie, who passed away ten years ago (January 10, 2016), was a spectacular slalom between genres, a constant work of metamorphosis, with his gaze (almost) always fixed on the future. To honor his memory, we've tried to retrace it through ten fundamental turning points that defined it.

1. The first hit: “Space Oddity”

The young David Jones aka Bowie of the debut LP is a talented but still-green songwriter, one who nonetheless keeps soaking up experiences of every kind like a sponge. Among the things that strike him is a cinematic vision: Stanley Kubrick's Stanley Kubrick film “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968). The film's sense of estrangement fuses with his fascination for science-fiction, at the height of that neo-positivist climate which, a year later, would put man on the Moon. A virtuous short-circuit for the future Starman. “It was the sense of isolation I was feeling at that moment,” he would recall, “it really was a revelation. It wrote the song in my mind.” And what a song. Space Oddity is the single that, on July 11, 1969, catapulted the young London artist into the orbit of the charts. It's the first great turning point of his career.

After an initial, provisional demo, Mercury gives him the chance to record the final version of the track. Bowie tries in vain to bring in his friend Tony Visconti, who would assist him behind the mixing desk for much of his career. But the producer passes on it, leaving a young colleague, Gus Dudgeon, to get his hands on the experiment. Years later, Visconti would regret his stubbornness: “I thought the song was a cash-in to cash in on the first Moon landing. I've kicked myself many times since then, because I was completely wrong.” And indeed, the majestic “Space Oddity” would remain one of Bowie's peaks, with its seven distinct sections, Paul Buckmaster's symphonic-psychedelic arrangements, and a structure that mimics the sound of a rocket taking off.

Recorded on June 20, 1969 at Trident Studios in London, the song is conceived with surgical precision: from its eerie opening, marked by Bowie's voice lost in space, to the sudden jolt of the stylophone, from the timely entrance of Herbie Flowers' bass and Rick Wakeman's (Yes) Mellotron to an epic, heart-wrenching chorus, all the way to a dissonant instrumental coda.

Centered on the saga of the fictional astronaut Major Tom, “Space Oddity” is the forerunner of that science-fiction strand that would become one of the cornerstones of Bowie's catalogue. The infinite Cosmos as a metaphor for an inner space: “Those themes and characters had the metaphysical function of expressing how alienated I felt,” Bowie would explain in 1997, “of communicating that I felt like a stranger to society and that I was searching for some form of connection.” These are contents that also reflect his existential anxiety, his dread of mortality and oblivion, the permanent conflict between reason and esotericism, secularism and spirituality. With that memorable command from Ground Control (“Chek ignition and may God’s love be with you”) serving almost as an ideal synthesis of these opposing sides of his personality.

The song is released on July 11, 1969, nine days before the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and the BBC uses it as the soundtrack for its coverage of the event. Its success (No. 5 in the UK) is such that Bowie even goes on to record versions in other languages, including the unlikely “Ragazzo solo, ragazza sola,” with lyrics by Mogol, for the Italian market. (Claudio Fabretti)

2. The Glam Turn and the Ziggy Stardust Era

If Ziggy Stardust is the character who would come to physically embody Bowie’s glam era, the signs of the turning point were already present within the grooves of “Hunky Dory” (1971), the first masterpiece of the London dandy's golden decade. Starting with that definitive ballad called “Life On Mars?”. Sumptuous arrangements, cutting guitars, strings, theatrical vocals and melodramatic atmospheres had already sealed the embrace with the movement that had exploded in England on the wave of Marc Bolan's T. Rex, in a flood of glitter and sequins, feathers and mascara, boots and space-age jumpsuits. “Rock’n’roll with lipstick”, as John Lennon would call it. In this carnival of vanities, Bowie looks at himself in his dressing-room mirror, searching for the right mask to enchant the public. The answer will come from the impossible combination of an interstellar being and a Japanese Kabuki theatre actor: the first, great character in his gallery.

When the alien named Ziggy Stardust falls to Earth, the effect is disorienting, to the point of raising suspicions that this time, perhaps, things had gone a bit too far. Who would have bet a penny on this extraterrestrial in tights, with carrot-coloured hair and drag-queen makeup? And yet, it is precisely in this guise that David Bowie will achieve, for the first time, the worldwide fame he had long chased and would never again relinquish. From the name alone, one can sense the influence of Iggy Pop, embodiment of the outrageous, animalistic frontman, but the creation of the mask also draws on the lesson of rock's noble fathers – from Little Richard to Gene Vincent, from Mick Jagger to Lou Reed – while other unlikely patron saints add the indispensable touch of madness, such as Vince Taylor, a Sixties rocker who died insane and by suicide, and the bizarre American bluesman The Legendary Stardust Cowboy.

Ziggy is “a cross between Nijinsky and Woolworths”, as his creator would define him, entrusting him with the role of messiah of a rock revolution lasting a single season: the time that elapses between his rise and his fall (“The rise and fall”). And in this parable lies the whole representation of Bowie's art: the staging of the Warholian “fifteen minutes of fame”, Dorian Gray's morbid hedonism, the parody of stardom and the fleeting myths of consumer society and, not least, the omens of a bleak Orwellian future. “Extraterrestrial”, and therefore free from the sexual taboos that chain humanity, Ziggy is the quintessence of the glam spirit, but also a caricature of the star, destined to be idolised by the public and crushed by the star-system. The stage fiction, however, soon overtakes reality, and Bowie will embody his alter ego to the point of sacrificing him on stage, granting him immortality.

The love-at-first-sight moment with the British public officially strikes on 5 July 1972, when Bowie's white fingertips appear on the screens of Top of the Pops (BBC), strumming a blue guitar, before the close-up reveals the red-haired rocker, squeezed into a shimmering multicoloured jumpsuit, surrounded by the Spiders from Mars as he sings the lines of his new anthem “Starman”. The message delivered by the Starman strikes an entire generation of young Britons like lightning, including plenty of musicians (from the Cure to Siouxsie and The Banshees”). An entire album will then be dedicated to the alien's saga, opened by the apocalyptic prophecy of the dystopian “Five Years” and projected into a waking dream: “Moonage Daydream”, the Lunar Age has arrived, and with it its messiah, with many thanks to glam pioneer Marc Bolan, to whom the languid “Lady Stardust” is dedicated, and a cruel fate lying in wait: a “Rock And Roll Suicide”, the album's farewell, and also the song with which, on 3 July 1973, at the end of a London concert, Bowie would announce Ziggy's death.

Across the 11 tracks of the LP, the whole glam arsenal shines through: from emphatic, effeminate vocals to razor-sharp guitars, from pompous string arrangements to aching melodies, alternating romantic ballads with breakneck, electrified rock'n'roll that anticipates the punk to come: “We were all bastard children of Ziggy Stardust”, Gavin Friday of the Virgin Prunes would say of the punk generation.

Ziggy's saga rages across the whole world and helps launch glam rock as a universal fashion. So, with a multicoloured lightning bolt striking right across the face, a touch of white greasepaint, a slight makeup retouch, the glam epic can continue a year later with “Aladdin Sane”, another precious container of theatrical ballads (from “Time” to “Lady Grinning Soul”) and raw Stones-like sounds (“Watch That Man”, “Cracked Actor”, “Panic In Detroit”), with the avant-garde jazz of the syncopated title track adding fresh suggestions. “Ziggy in America”, Bowie would rename it, stressing the rock'n'roll soul running through it, but also the lyrics, in which the reality of the States is transfigured into a series of sonic panels, at times futuristic and hallucinated, at times parodic or melancholically dreamlike. But with “Aladdin Sane” (1973), the requiem for the glam era also begins to be celebrated: Bowie has sensed that the music scene has become stale, unable to renew the freshness of its early days. So on 3 July 1973, at the Hammersmith Odeon in London, he rids himself of his cumbersome alter ego, making it “die” on stage and disbanding the Spiders From Mars. From that historic show, director D.A. Pennebaker would make a celebrated concert film, shot on 16mm.

But it is anything but a rock'n'roll suicide. Soon enough, the glam epic itself will also dissolve into its hero's stardust. And Bowie already has other projects ready, from the covers on “Pin-Ups” to the bleak Orwellian staging of “Diamond Dogs” (1974). Right up to the new, sensational “plastic soul” turn of “Young Americans” (1975), which would bury “rock'n'roll with lipstick” for good. (Claudio Fabretti)

3. America and Plastic Soul

After burying Ziggy, Bowie is ready to recreate his own sound from scratch, starting from his obsession with black music and his restless fascination with the United States, moving first to New York and then to Los Angeles. He absorbs every note around him, especially at the many concerts at Harlem's Apollo Theater to which he is introduced by singer Ava Cherry. There he meets the brilliant musicians with whom he starts playing and preparing his ninth album, in particular Carlos Alomar on guitar and Luther Vandross on backing vocals, for whom he becomes arranger. The manifesto of this musical passion turned into blue-eyed soul is the album “Young Americans” (1975), starting with the title track that opens it: a mix of razor-sharp funk riffs, warm brass, gospel choirs and a special tribute to the Beatles' “A Day In The Life” .

The production is done at Philadelphia's Sigma Sound Studios by Tony Visconti at the console, the city of Philadelphia International Records and Philly Soul, a type of soul charged with funk and rich in orchestration. Bowie calls this stylistic shift plastic soul, a synthetic form of soul, altered by his robotic voice and partly stripped of the warmth of the African-American sound. The track that best represents plastic soul is the closing number, “Fame”, made with John Lennon, who christens Bowie's first single to reach the top of the US Billboard Chart. Bowie's life in California takes on the shape of a mad rush, between cocaine, sleeplessness and hallucinations. In short order he produces “Station To Station” (1976), announcing “The Return of the Thin White Duke” and paying tribute to Nina Simone with “Wild Is The Wind”, before returning to Europe. (Maria Teresa Soldani)

4. The Berlin Trilogy

It is in West Berlin that Bowie rises from his own ashes, the city-emblem of the Iron Curtain where he moves with Iggy Pop frequenting its intense nightlife. Again with Visconti and his American band, he begins production of the so-called “Berlin trilogy”, first at Château d'Hérouville and then at Hansa Studio By The Wall, inviting various musicians to play, such as Iggy Pop himself, but also to collaborate on songwriting, as in the case of Brian Eno, the latter engaged at the time with the kraut-rock supergroup Harmonia. Since the early 1970s Bowie and Eno had had occasions to meet and nurture a desire to work together, from Philip Glass's concert at London's Royal College of Art to the dates on which Roxy Music had backed the Thin White Duke. The trilogy thus merges two sides of Bowie: the rhythm'n'blues he had loved so much in the United States, with the electronic music that was fascinating him in Europe, above all the techno-pop utopia of Kraftwerk, a source of inspiration visually as well. These influences can be traced above all in the first two chapters of the trilogy, split between a Side A rich in songs and a Side B dense with experimentation, in which one can hear the influence of Eno's “Another Green World” (1975) and “Discreet Music” (1975): in “Low” (1977) we find new wave paradigms (“Sound And Vision”) and ambient reflections (“Warszawa”); in “Heroes” (1977) we recover traces of plastic soul (“The Beauty And The Beast”) and kraut trance (“V-2 Schneider”), theatrical epics (“Sons of The Silent Age”) and dark interludes (“Neuköln”). “Lodger” (1979) comes out after a year spent touring to present the two previous albums and, in its eclectic orientalist art-rock, reveals a certain impatience with the more rarefied solutions previously explored, evident in a pop-tune like “D.J.”.

The trilogy holds one of Bowie's most iconic songs, “Heroes”, an open-ended composition born of studio sessions, in which the initial blues spirit is soon transmuted into avant-garde through the sparse sounds created by Robert Fripp's feedback and Eno's synthesizers, skilfully stitched together and mixed with Visconti's mastery. Above the dense texture, bubbling like magma, the voice of the Thin White Duke stands firm and eternal: “I, I wish you could swim/ Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim/ Nothing, nothing will keep us together/ We can beat them, forever and ever/ We can be heroes / Just for one day”. Years later, it would be Glass himself – an author Bowie loved – who pays homage to the Berlin experience, creating the symphonies “Low: Symphony” (1993) and “Heroes: Symphony” (1997). (Maria Teresa Soldani)

Sound and vision. Music and image. Two inseparable components in David Bowie's art. Ever since the Seventies, the English artist had developed a pioneering approach to the video clip, but it was in the following decade, the MTV era, that he would fully master it, putting himself at the forefront (also) of the glittering age of music video. A decisive turning point comes with the new single "Ashes To Ashes", with which Bowie bursts into the Eighties, backed by a futuristic film directed by David Mallet. For the occasion, Bowie unveils a new character: a hallucinated Pierrot, created by costume designer Natasha Korniloff. He is the protagonist of the video's procession, set on a beach near Hastings, England. Almost a funeral cortege, led by the clown, with a priest, two nuns and a girl dressed up for a party, followed by a menacing digger. In a dreamlike sequence, images alternate of an astronaut hanging from a monstrous machine straight out of "Alien", trapped in an exploding kitchen, then in a padded room, before cutting back once more to the beach, where the Pierrot, already warned by an elderly woman (David's mother?), sinks into the sea as a funeral pyre burns away images and outlines. Ashes to ashes. Between Chuck Hammer's catchy guitar synth refrain, off-beat rhythms and synthetic strings, punctuated by Bowie's powerful funky bass and layered vocals, "Ashes To Ashes" would already be a masterpiece on musical terms alone. But what truly bewitched the public, sending it to the top of the UK Chart, was also its video, a visionary expression of complex intertextual references. Starting with the return of Major Tom, now transformed into a "junkie", an addict lost in a bottomless depression.

But the Bowie of "Ashes To Ashes" also becomes a pioneer of a new subculture taking hold in Britain in those days. A sort of new glamorous epic uniting punk's degenerate offspring, irredeemably corrupted by decadent, narcissistic taste. This is the new romantic season, which would translate the anti-conformist ideology of glam rock into a fresh intoxication of gaudy looks and cultural provocations. Enter pirates with stylized makeup, effeminate chic, kids decked out in geometric outfits, and neo-aristocrats with backcombed hair. Leading them was the Welshman Steve Strange, agitator of London's nightlife with his Blitz Club and founder of Visage, one of the key groups of the new scene, alongside Ultravox, Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Adam & The Ants, Human League and co. It's precisely the White Duke's Berlin-era songs — alongside the classics of Moroder, Kraftwerk and Roxy Music — that dominate the Blitz's turntables, spun by DJ Rusty Egan. Intrigued, Bowie decides to go down the steps of the Covent Garden basement to recruit the extras for the "Ashes To Ashes" video right from among the devotees who threw wild parties in his honor. That messianic event, on 1 July 1980, would later be recounted with undimmed emotion by its protagonists in the definitive documentary of that scene, "Blitzed!" (2020). The four lucky ones who would appear in eccentric outfits amid the solarized effects of the famous short film were Strange himself, designer Judith Frankland, fashion designer Darla-Jane Gilroy and future model Elise Brazier. In one stroke, with the "Ashes To Ashes" clip, Bowie had placed himself at the head of the nascent music-video era and of a new new-wave variant in new romantic guise.

Not the whole of the Eighties would go on so inspired for him, but the start was truly electrifying. Also because a new, gripping album was on the way, "Scary Monsters" (1980), on which Bowie would confront his inner demons in a sort of controlled exorcism. A record fully immersed in that new wave era he had helped pioneer, and marked by another disorienting Mallet video for the other single, "Fashion". With the new alter ego Pierrot featured on Edward Bell's cover artwork. And the results showed, with the top of the UK Chart conquered once again. (Claudio Fabretti)

6. The world star of "Let's Dance"

If Bowie's memorable (and unrepeatable) Seventies were the years of a thousand transformations, of chameleon-like shape-shifting as an art form applied to rock operetta, of sudden escapes between New York, Kyoto and Berlin, and above all of endless rebirths, the Eighties, by contrast — though opened by a thoroughly successful new wave masterpiece such as "Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)" (1980) — would be anything but straightforward. 1983 nonetheless remains a bold year for Bowie, certainly the one marking his fateful commercial breakthrough, which arrives with "Let's Dance" and propels the Duke onto dancefloors across half the world, sealing a never-quite-hidden urge to finally immerse himself in the synthetic sounds and beats that would soon sweep through the entire decade.

Lending weight to the idea of actually being part of the epoch-making change underway, rather than simply watching it from the sidelines as a figure now belonging to the past, is one of the high priests of disco music, namely Nile Rodgers (formerly of Chic), who for the occasion joins Bowie on two new (and unexpected) marvels: the deeply shadowy (and utterly compelling) "Cat People (Putting Out Fire)", co-written with the other deity of the dancefloor, Giorgio Moroder, and destined for the soundtrack of the film of the same name, and an equally apt, noir-tinged cover of "Criminal World" by Metro. The album would remain in the British charts for a full 56 weeks, confirming the soundness of Bowie's idea of walking through the front door into clubs the world over, thanks in particular to the irresistible title track, a declared manifesto of the English musician's new intentions, to the funky stride of "Modern Love" and to the hugely successful cover of his close friend Iggy Pop's "China Girl", accompanied moreover by a sexy video (unfortunately censored by TV networks almost instantly) that shows the former gay icon openly flirting with an Asian model by the seaside. What also marks the glossiest turn of Bowie's career is the presence of instrumentation as dense as it is shamelessly crowd-pleasing, with r'n'b-style horns, a constantly virtuosic, front-and-center bass, and inevitable guitar solos courtesy of star player Stevie Ray Vaughan. (Giuliano Delli Paoli)

7. The Tin Machine adventure

David Bowie's Eighties were the enormous success of "Let's Dance" but also a couple of objectively less successful albums, "Tonight" (1984) and "Never Let Me Down" (1987), which the White Duke himself later admitted to having more or less disowned. In 1989, to prove he wasn't prematurely heading down the road to twilight, Bowie decides, for the umpteenth time, to completely change face, taking on the guise of an urban rocker and forming a brand-new rock band in which he would be "merely" the frontman. With impeccable timing, right in the midst of the grunge explosion, Tin Machine are born, for which David recruits the thirty-one-year-old guitarist Reeves Gabrels and a rhythm section made up of brothers Tony (bass) and Hunt (drums) Sales. The four play raw, direct, unfiltered rock'n'roll, sounds that carry the flavor of a return to lost integrity after the hedonism and disengagement that followed the success of "Let's Dance". The man who had become one of the supreme deities of world rock (and pop) goes back to playing small clubs, in search of renewed anonymity and greater closeness with his audience.

On 22 May 1989 "Tin Machine" is released, and from the opening "Heaven's In Here" the band's intent is clear: to rework blues and hard rock into a raw, noisy, at times savage sound. A radical and courageous turn that gives fans some of the best songs Bowie had written since "Scary Monsters" ("Prisoner Of Love" and "I Can't Read" are among the unmissable ones, though it's genuinely hard to find a weak moment on this album), along with a vigorous tribute to the memory of John Lennon (the cover of "Working Class Hero"). A true, total regeneration that two years later leads to the second chapter, "Tin Machine II" (1991), smoother than its predecessor ("Amlapura", the poignant "Sorry") and dotted with tracks aimed at radio airplay (chief among them "You Belong In Rock'n'Roll").

In 1992 the project would reach its epilogue with the non-essential live album "Tin Machine Live: Oy Vey Baby" (followed by other recordings that can be found on the main streaming platforms), certifying that jolt capable of reactivating Bowie's energy and ferrying him toward the experiments that would define his Nineties. (Claudio Lancia)

The Nineties were the most underrated period of Bowie's career. Records that were all different from one another, with experimental sounds, cutting-edge iconography, major collaborations and the reverent bow of several generations of musicians to his figure — yet none of what he produced managed to capture the mainstream audience, and even critics proved wary. The result is that his work from that decade is, to this day, practically forgotten even among his own fanbase, which is unfortunate given its quality.

Once the Tin Machine experience was over, Bowie returned as a solo artist with "Black Tie White Noise" (1993), featuring Nile Rodgers (guitar) and jazz musician Lester Bowie (trumpet). The arrangements move between acid jazz and downtempo, showing themselves to be fully in step with the times. Even though the tracklist is weighed down by four covers and a couple of superfluous remixes, the original material is quite interesting, and "Jump They Say" is an excellent lead single. That same year he releases the soundtrack for the BBC television series "The Buddha Of Suburbia".

In 1995 comes "1. Outside", with Brian Eno by his side (it's the only Bowie album actually co-produced by Eno, contrary to what many believe), which veers toward industrial and leads to a natural convergence with Nine Inch Nails, with whom the artist tours together. It's Bowie's longest studio album: 19 tracks for over 74 minutes of music. "Hallo Spaceboy" is remixed by Pet Shop Boys into a brilliant dance version aimed at radio, which nonetheless fails to break through.

"Earthling" (1997) is even more extreme: it keeps the harsh industrial guitars of its predecessor and adds the fractured rhythms typical of drum and bass. The sound is dense, forward-looking, packed with samples, the tracks polymorphic and frenetic: it's his masterpiece of the decade and one of the best records of his career, for those who manage to notice it. On bass and backing vocals appears the brilliant Gail Ann Dorsey, who would return for the next four albums, while on piano Mike Garson is confirmed once again — the veteran session player with a free jazz background who had already returned full-time on "1. Outside", after having played for Bowie two decades earlier.

"Hours..." (1999) closes this period of creative enthusiasm with a calmer approach and melancholic songwriting, built on webs of electric and acoustic guitars, but also on string and keyboard textures: it will effectively serve as a blueprint for the subsequent "Heathen" (2002) and "Reality" (2003), both less brilliant. Critics tore it apart with unwarranted ferocity, but "Thursday's Child", in the songbook of many other artists, would rank among the best tracks of a career.

A special mention goes to the musician who accompanied him most frequently during this decade, Reeves Gabrels, former Tin Machine guitarist and co-writer of much of the material from 1995 to 1999. He would deserve recognition as a major creative force within Bowie's universe: instead, he is almost always treated as a footnote.

There would be much more to say: the Nineties were, for instance, the period with his best music videos overall, many of them shot by the finest directors in the field. However, the general public will remember them more for the events than for the art: the marriage to supermodel Iman in Florence, going public on the stock exchange, being the first rock star to truly grasp the potential of the Internet, the historic fiftieth-birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997, with a host of illustrious guests before him... and in Italy, for what it's worth, a performance at Sanremo 1997 splendidly out of place, followed in 1999 by the spat with an embarrassing Adriano Celentano. (Federico Romagnoli)

9. The 2000s and the 2013 comeback with "The Next Day"

The new millennium opens happily for David Bowie: on August 15, 2000, Alexandria Zahra is born, daughter of David and model Iman Abdulmajid, whom he married in Florence in 1992. In the following months Bowie resumes his fruitful collaboration with producer Tony Visconti, interrupted since 1980 after the "Scary Monsters" sessions. The results of this renewed partnership are contained in two albums released just fifteen months apart: the melancholic "Heathen" in June 2002, the more rhythmic "Reality" in September 2003. Playing alongside David are musicians of the highest caliber, from Carlos Alomar to Pete Townshend, from Dave Grohl to Tony Levin, from Lisa Germano to Matt Chamberlain. Alongside the original songs, some of which finally come together after years of attempts (among them the sumptuous "Bring Me The Disco King"), the Thin White Duke records covers of Pixies, Neil Young, Modern Lovers, and George Harrison, the latter two ("Pablo Picasso" and "Try Some, Buy Some") originally intended for the never-recorded "Pin Ups 2", which Bowie had wanted to record back in the Seventies.

The triumphant tours that follow the two albums attest to a period of dazzling form, but just as Bowie seems unstoppable, gathering unanimous praise everywhere in what amounts to certification of a truly enviable career, on June 25, 2004, following the concert held at the Hurricane Festival in Scheeßel, he is rushed to hospital in Hamburg due to a blocked coronary artery. The remaining dates of the Reality Tour are cancelled. It marks the end of David Bowie's live career. In the years that follow he is in fact forced to stay away from the stage, save for a handful of extremely rare appearances: with Arcade Fire in September 2005, with David Gilmour in May 2006, with Alicia Keys in November of that same year, which would remain his final appearance on stage. David Bowie's recording silence (aside from a few precious features scattered across the years) is broken on January 8, 2013, his 66th birthday, when he announces a new album, "The Next Day", preceded that same day by the single and accompanying video "Where Are We Now?". The album is released on March 12 and becomes another huge success. (Claudio Lancia)

10. The epitaph of "Blackstar"

To understand the last extraordinary (and dramatic) turn in Bowie's career, one must go back to the most beautiful words ever spoken to remember him, uttered shortly after the Thin White Duke's passing by his longtime producer and lifelong friend, Tony Visconti: "He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and the best way. His death was not different from his life — a work of art. He made 'Blackstar' for us, as a parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry". "Blackstar" (2016) undergoes a twofold transformation: on one hand it sounds like a miraculous and utterly one-of-a-kind epitaph for one of the most important artists of the 20th century, and on the other it reveals a state of grace that would have seemed simply unthinkable just a few years earlier — take, for example, the mediocre "Reality" (2003).

Preceded by the title track — already used as the theme for the TV series "The Last Panthers" — and by a handful of singles and videos, the album hits stores and streaming platforms on January 8, 2016, exactly two days before Bowie's death. It offers an unbroken succession of echoes of the darkest, most elusive Scott Walker, surprising electronic flourishes reminiscent of Radiohead's "Amnesiac" (2001), unexpected prog detours, thoroughly successful acoustic ballads and unusual forays into noise-rock dotted with blues phrasing. What will capture attention and stir tears, dismay and utter astonishment, however, is the video for "Lazarus", showing the Thin White Duke visibly frail in what appears to be his own deathbed. These are inevitably devastating images, ending with Bowie shutting himself inside the wardrobe, "almost" as if he wanted to bid his audience farewell forever. It is the last firework launched into the sky, aimed at the infinite universe and beyond. (Giuliano Delli Paoli)

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