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Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie's ambitious last works: his surprise 'comeback' project
The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical
Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist's death in 2016 by two days,
Blackstar. The book explores the swirl of themes that orbit and entangle these projects from a starting point in musical analysis and features new interviews with key collaborators from the period: producer Tony Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon.
These works tackle the biggest of ideas: identity, creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. They enact a process of individuation for the Bowie meta-persona and invite us to consider what happens when a star dies. In our universe, dying stars do not disappear - they transform into new stellar objects, remnants and gravitational forces. The radical potential of the Blackstar is demonstrated in the rock star supernova that creates a singularity resulting in cultural iconicity. It is how a man approaching his own death can create art that illuminates the immortal potential of all matter in the known universe.
List of contents
List of musical figuresList of track analysesPrefacePart 1:
Last Act1. Lateness
2. Remystification
3.The Next Day
4. Assemblage
Part 2:
Per Ardua ad Astra5. Icarus Takes His Pratfall
6. Lazarus
7. The Next Bardo
Part 3: Black Star
8. Black Holes, Black Music, Black Arts, Black Hearts and Button Eyes
9. Chaos and Chemistry
10. Prodigal Sons
11. Blackstar Theory
Epilogue: Legacies and Voids
Reference list and bibliographyIndex
About the author
Leah Kardos
Summary
Blackstar Theory takes a close look at David Bowie’s ambitious last works: his surprise ‘comeback’ project The Next Day (2013), the off-Broadway musical Lazarus (2015) and the album that preceded the artist’s death in 2016 by two days, Blackstar. The book explores the swirl of themes that orbit and entangle these projects from a starting point in musical analysis and features new interviews with key collaborators from the period: producer Tony Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon.
These works tackle the biggest of ideas: identity, creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. They enact a process of individuation for the Bowie meta-persona and invite us to consider what happens when a star dies. In our universe, dying stars do not disappear - they transform into new stellar objects, remnants and gravitational forces. The radical potential of the Blackstar is demonstrated in the rock star supernova that creates a singularity resulting in cultural iconicity. It is how a man approaching his own death can create art that illuminates the immortal potential of all matter in the known universe.
Foreword
This book considers David Bowie’s ambitious late works – 2013’s The Next Day, the science fiction musical Lazarus (2015) and the Blackstar album (2016) – which were shortly followed by the artist’s death in early 2016, a final transformative gesture that turns popular music into death art, expanding contemporary secular prospects of human potential and immortality.
Additional text
Leah Kardos’s book is a lovely theoretical company. She notes how music is only a small part of a huge cycle that leads us on to other music, to art and literature via fashion, film, philosophy and form and back to the work in question.
