David Bowie’s ★ Closes Strong After a Stellar Opening Run

David Bowie’s ★ is a farewell record dressed as an experiment. It is his final studio album, released just two days before his death in January 2016, and it plays like a man who knows what comes next and wants to leave something strange behind. The record runs seven tracks and 41 minutes, and it splits cleanly between two modes: the theatrical and the abstract.

The album opens with “Blackstar,” a nine-minute instrumental that sets the terms immediately. It is a jazz-funk funeral march, all horns and percussion, and it sounds less like a pop song than a statement of intent. Bowie sings over it, but the vocal is a whisper, a presence more than a melody. The track is the record’s thesis: this is not a nostalgia trip, and it is not a comfort. It is a goodbye that refuses to be easy.

Blackstar and the Opening Run

The title track is the strongest thing here. Its structure is loose, built around a repeating riff and a shifting rhythm, and it moves through several distinct sections without ever losing momentum. The lyrics are oblique, but the feeling is direct: this is a man facing mortality and refusing to soften the blow. It is a great song, and it sets a standard the rest of the record cannot quite match.

“Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” follows, and it is a different beast entirely. The track is a slow, brooding ballad with a piano-led arrangement, and it is the most conventional moment on the record. Bowie’s vocal is tender, almost fragile, and the lyrics deal with loss and memory in a way that feels personal rather than abstract. It is a good song, but it is also the first sign that the album’s ambitions are not uniformly matched by its execution.

“Lazarus” is the third track, and it is the song that gave the album its subtitle. The track is a piano-led meditation, with Bowie singing about resurrection and rebirth, and it is the most explicitly autobiographical moment on the record. The lyrics reference the singer’s own mortality, and the music is sparse and direct. It is a strong song, but it leans on repetition rather than development, and it feels like a bridge rather than a destination.

Sue Through Dollar Days

“Sue (or In a Season of Crime)” is the shortest track on the record, a four-minute pop song that arrives after two long instrumentals. It is the most immediate thing here, a simple chord progression with a driving beat, and it sounds like a throwback to Bowie’s glam-era hooks. The lyrics are cryptic, but the melody is unmistakable, and it is the most accessible track on the record. It is a good song, but it is also the most obvious, and it sits oddly between the two longer pieces that surround it.

“Girl Loves Me” follows, and it is another short pop track, though it is darker than “Sue.” The song is built around a slow, heavy bassline and a vocal that shifts between croon and growl, and it deals with themes of love and betrayal. It is competent, but it is also slight, and it feels like filler rather than a statement. The track is not bad, but it is forgettable, and it does not justify its place in the running order.

“Dollar Days” closes the middle stretch of the record, and it is the most abstract piece here. The track is a slow, atmospheric instrumental, with Bowie playing saxophone and the rest of the band locked into a hypnotic groove. It is the most purely experimental moment on the record, and it is also the most challenging. It rewards patience, but it demands it. It is a good track, but it is not for everyone.

I Can’t Give Everything Away

The final track is “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” a five-minute closer that functions as a summary of everything that came before it. The song is a slow, piano-led ballad, with Bowie singing about the limits of his own resources and the weight of his legacy. It is the most emotional moment on the record, and it is also the most direct. The lyrics are plainspoken, and the delivery is unguarded. It is a strong song, and it lands as a fitting end to a career that had spent decades building toward this moment.

The album’s second half is weaker than its first, but that weakness is a matter of degree, not kind. The three tracks that follow “Lazarus” — “Sue,” “Girl Loves Me,” and “Dollar Days” — are all decent songs, but none of them rises to the level of the opener. They are competent, professional, and forgettable. They do not embarrass the record, but they do not elevate it either.

The Track List

The Critical Divide

Critics were divided on ★. Some saw it as Bowie’s most striking work since Ziggy, while others found the second side weak or too experimental. The record earned a mixed reception, with reviewers split between those who praised its ambition and those who found it uneven.

The divide is audible in the listening itself. The first three tracks are the ones that demand attention, while the last four are the ones that invite background play. That is not necessarily a flaw — a farewell record can be a collection of moments rather than a unified statement — but it does mean the album’s strengths are concentrated in its first half.

Final Word

★ is a good record, and it is a great one in stretches. The opening run — “Blackstar,” “Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” “Lazarus” — is as strong as anything Bowie released in his later years, and the closer, “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” is a fitting coda to a career that spanned five decades. But the middle section drags, and the album’s ambition exceeds its consistency.

The record is best heard as a document of a man at the end of his life, not as a statement of artistic peak. It is a farewell, and it treats the occasion with the gravity it deserves. It is not a perfect record, but it is a necessary one, and it stands as a fitting final chapter to a career that reshaped popular music more than once.

8 of 10.

album review · Blackstar · David Bowie · farewell record · jazz fusion