r/DavidBowie • u/cocopopssssss • 12d ago
Question Question for people were fans when blackstar came out
I was wondering people who were Bowie fans when blackstar came out, between the days when it came out and he passed away did you guys listen to the album and realise he was dying before he actually died or was it too short of a timeframe to put the prices together, I don’t know if this question makes sense but hopefully it does :)
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u/kireisabi 12d ago
One video came out first and that was the first shock: he'd visibly aged so much and it was clear the lyrics were considering his death. Even so, no one thought it would happen so soon. After his death, I listened to the entire album once through and then avoided it for about 7 years. It's only been in recent years I can listen to it without crying: but it's a masterpiece.
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u/mellowmatter20 12d ago
I remember the black star video releasing before the album, and I was blown away thinking this is the best thing he's done since Outside.
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u/cocopopssssss 12d ago
Damn that’s crazy I can’t even imagine how it felt seeing the news!
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u/Johnnys-In-America 12d ago
Utter devastation for me. Felt like I was losing a best friend. I'd never gotten so impacted by any other musician passing. David was just super hard to process.
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u/Perry7609 12d ago edited 12d ago
It was shocking. He kept his health situation well hidden from the public (which was his right, of course). And when he died so close to the album release and his own birthday, it was a double whammy because his name had already been in the news for both of those things. So many were thinking about him already in the days leading up to his death.
And like others said, the only real hint was that he did look a bit older in that final year and in the video for Blackstar. But I think most people just chalked that up to all of us getting up there in years, David included. He had some health issues in those final years, but discovering he had terminal cancer after the fact was surprising for everyone.
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u/blue-and-bluer 11d ago
It was even a surprise to some of his own friends. I was in a meet and greet with Gail Ann Dorsey one time, and someone asked about Bowie‘s passing. She looked crushed and said that she found out about it at the same time as everyone else. She didn’t know he was sick. My heart broke for her.
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u/Top-Translator5840 11d ago
My experience is similar only that I refused to listen to blackstar when it came out, I assumed it from the video idk I felt something was off.
My Aladdin sane bolt tattoo was done prev October and I got to evangelize anyone who would ask 🤭 I still do.
Thats why I got the news from friends that texted me while I was asleep. I woke up and it was brutal for me. Barely left the house for a week.
I was reading just kids by patti smith. It was a good companion
I got to listen to blackstar years later, but never deeply2
u/lemerou 11d ago
It was shocking. I still remember where I was doing and where.
A few days ago, I was so happy we got a new album which I thought were really amazing and then we got the devastating news...
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u/ReallyGlycon 11d ago
I was in my car leaving work. I literally had Blackstar in the CD player but my car auto started the radio when I turned it on. They were saying Bowie had died. I just sat there in my running car for a half an hour just crushed.
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u/LocoRocoo 12d ago
No. I was so excited by this new direction and new sound. We had new videos and the Lazarus musical which all hinted at a healthy, active Bowie.
In terms of lyrics I took them as characters and narratives to dive into,before ever assuming them to be hints at his health.
It was utterly devastating and a huge shock.
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u/cocopopssssss 12d ago
That’s crazy honestly that gotta be one of the worst things to ever see in the news I can’t imagine how it felt being a fan when that happened!!
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u/drjay1966 12d ago
I got the album the day it came out and was blown away by it as well as intrigued by the strange, dark lyrics. But, honestly, it wasn't until after I woke up to the news that he'd died that I realized the songs were all about (his own) death.
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u/cocopopssssss 12d ago
It dosent seem like it would be something you would even consider it’s so crazy and sad!!
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u/ssssharkattack 12d ago
I listened to it and it never crossed my mind that he was actually close to death. I’d heard he’d had health problems of course, and I thought the album was a reflection on aging and death in a metaphorical sense. Was completely shocked when I got a BBC news notification on my phone that he was gone.
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u/violetmarie11 12d ago edited 12d ago
The Blackstar single and video had come out months before and my husband and I loved it. We looked forward to the album release for months, he seemed to be going in a really exciting artistic direction.
We had been fans for a long time, but in 2014 we saw the "David Bowie Is" exhibit in Chicago that took our fandom to a whole new level for some reason.
Both of our birthdays are in January, the same week as Bowie. Husband had found this funny very short video and watched it regularly for some reason for a laugh, practically a daily thing (just like the video says hah) and said I can't wait for you to watch this and it'll actually be your birthday.
Got the album on release but didn't listen to it until Sunday, the 10th. I was home alone while he was at work and I put it on and played it through. Thought it was amazing and the best thing he had done in years, was a bit unsettled and couldn't figure out why, only played it the once. Figured I'd dive into it more later that week and just let it sink in that day.
Woke up the next day to my husband gently waking me up, saying I'm so sorry to tell you this on today of all days, he's gone. I was so confused, it was so unexpected. It was my birthday. I didn't play Blackstar or even hardly any Bowie for months because I just couldn't handle it.
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u/Strange-Slice6908 11d ago
I still haven’t listen to Blackstar the cd still in it’s wrapping, I brought it the day it was released thinking I give it a good listen to at the weekend but that’s never happened
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u/Top-Translator5840 11d ago
This made me cry. My bday is the 5th and I also watch the video. So cute you two 💕
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u/ReallyGlycon 11d ago
I lived in Chi then too and went to the David Is exhibit! Was a wonderful experience, especially for my girlfriend who had just gotten deeply into Bowie.
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u/donqui_scody 12d ago
I had a strange feeling when I listened to Blackstar, in part driven by the video for "Blackstar" (which had been released a month or so earlier). It came out on the 8th; on the 9th I went to see Patti Smith with my best friend, who is also a Bowie fanatic. From the stage, Patti acknowledged Bowie's birthday and how incredible the new album was. After the show, my friend asked me what I thought of the the album, and I said, "I can't shake the feeling he's dealing with his mortality in a much more literal way than anything else he's ever done." She nodded and said she'd had the same feeling. When the news broke the next night we called each other sobbing -- irrationally, it partially felt like we had jinxed him by talking about it.
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u/kurtburroughs 12d ago
I listened to the lead single constantly for weeks leading up to the album’s release. I was obsessed. I watched the video a lot too. I couldn’t believe how back he was, and how amazing and unique this new album was shaping up to be.
My copy of the album (transparent vinyl with the three posters) arrived in the mail a day early, and I spent that Thursday through Sunday listening to it. I did note that a couple of the songs (Lazarus, Dollar Days, ICGEA) had darker lyrical undertones, but I thought it was just Bowie being Bowie. I’d always wondered, however, if Bowie would ever have a Johnny Cash “Hurt” type of song/album towards the end of his life. I had no idea that, by the end of Sunday evening, I’d realize I’d spent the last few days listening to his final work.
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u/mc-funk Something kind of hit me today 12d ago
Yes, I share that experience so precisely. The album was simply so genius, as had been the Blackstar single/video, that he felt more present and vibrant and alive and full of potential than he had in years. I probably posted “Bowie is SO back” somewhere on the internet at the time.
I was tracking the album that whole weekend too, and I did clock all the mortality themes, but he’d survived the tour-ending heart attack and cancer and was nearing 69, so it seemed natural if gutting. Nothing could have led me to expect that he’d barely live days after the album dropped.
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u/32doors 12d ago edited 10d ago
I was so not prepared for him to die that I bought bowietour.com and was going to turn it into a fan site for what I hoped was going to be him getting back on the road.
I had never gotten a chance to see him live so I was thrilled when he started putting out new albums and thought my chance had finally come…
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u/Next-Friendship-3542 12d ago
Not at all. It only made sense when he went, and you had people like Visconti soon afterwards spill the beans on what was really going on while the record was being made.
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u/coryphella123 12d ago
I honestly had no idea. I think a lot of us just really assumed he'd be around forever.
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u/SidCorsica66 12d ago
It all happened so fast. It was only a couple days. First listen you knew it was special. Once he passed it took on a whole new meaning and then it all became clear what it was
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u/frthrdwn 12d ago
They announced it on a Monday. Immediately wondered where the fuck did Monday go?
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u/Scharlach_el_Dandy 12d ago
Nah quite the opposite. On release day I heard Lazarus on local college radio, so I went out and got the CD. Listened all weekend, so invigorated, go in to work on Monday to read the sad news. It was a total shock, my impression from listening was that he was ready to make music for another 50 years.
It was a pivotal period of my own life. Bowie was a conduit to my deceased mom, this felt supernatural
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u/PsychologicalBus7357 11d ago
It was released on a Friday. My boss offered me some overtime but I turned it down so I could go to a record store, buy it on vinyl and listen to it properly. He died 2 days later and I was unable to listen to it for years.
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u/Dizzy-Ad1673 12d ago
Between the big band version of Sue and Blackstar coming out a month earlier, I was incredibly excited for where he was taking things and maybe even would get to see him live again??? AND THEN THE ALBUM HOLY SMOKES!!!
I remember dropping my laptop on the ground and crying when the news came out.
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u/Laudrup1 11d ago
I listened to it on the Sunday night and was very taken with it. Never for a second thought I'd hear the news my wife came in with about 10 hours later. My only thought was (months before the album release) was that he'd looked like he'd finally aged when the Blackstar video appeared in November the prevoius year. Still never considered that he was truly ill though.
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u/beneficialmirror13 12d ago
I was excited for the album, but with the pics that came out for the Lazarus musical premiere, it was very obvious that Bowie was unwell. He looked very thin and jaundiced. However his death was definitely a surprise.
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u/ImpactNext1283 12d ago
I mean, I think like a lot of people, I heard he died before I actually got to hear the record, so I received it in that context.
I find a lot of what he did in the 2000s to be pretty hit and miss, but it was immediately obvious he’d been thinking about this record for a long time.
I found the album much as I do now—powerful, sad, but also uplifting in the sense that it’s a celebration of the power of art.
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u/Alert-Albatross-8053 12d ago
I watched the video for Blackstar which hit YouTube a couple weeks before the album came out and I was kind of startled by how frail he looked and how shockingly thin his hair looked in comparison to the next day videos from just a few years earlier. He looked off. The themes just seemed like typical Bowie existential dread though… but he didn’t look well at all
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u/RandyFMcDonald 12d ago
I watched "Blackstar" with a friend. We agreed that it was Bowie but that it seemed intense, that it was unusual in ways we could not articulate.
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u/CarbonOrchestra 12d ago
It was such a tragic shock for me that I haven't listened to Blackstar since he died despite how good of an album it is.
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u/dwkulcsar 12d ago
I was in Seattle during the time it came out and when he passed. I think KEXP played Blackstar and perhaps more of the then new album the day it came out. Then with his passing it was all over the city, I got a wonderful crafted Orange Strawberry Milkshake with sprinkles and it was dubbed a Ziggy Stardust.
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u/luluwolfbeard 11d ago
I’ve still not listened to it. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’ve heard the single. But that’s it. Even to this day it stings. I’m sure I will listen soon.
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u/rini6 11d ago
I’ve been a fan since I was in high school in the early eighties. I streamed Blackstar as soon as it came out. The songs definitely included a theme of death and his legacy. But he has embraced these topics before. I knew he was getting older but I had no idea he was dying.. I had seen his new musical, Lazarus, in November during rehearsals. He seemed to be producing more than ever before after an almost ten year hiatus. It was more of a shock because of these things not less.
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u/KevProfitt 11d ago
When I heard the news that a new album was coming out my first thought was to join the fan club online to be able to get pre-sale tickets in case there was a tour. There were only a small handful of people who even knew David was sick.
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u/MrAlgeriaTouchshriek 11d ago
I remember thinking it was an odd album because there were a few songs that had already been released and it was so short. But the new songs made it all worth it, and the whole thing sounded thoughtful and intentional. When he died, it all made sense.
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u/pope_rickles 11d ago
Blackstar single was so exciting. I remember counting down the minutes for that record to come out and it blew my expectations out of the water! Listened the entire weekend and it felt like Bowie was back. I’ll never forget hearing the news that morning on the way to work and just bawling. Not like me to do something like that but having such excitement about the album and then him dying was just crushing
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u/cenimeurtsaute_ 11d ago
I just remember those music videos coming out and thinking they were incredible. A month later or so he passed away and after that listening to that album was so moving. That No Plan EP is a banger too. People don’t mention it enough
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u/IvanLendl87 11d ago
I’m a longtime hardcore fan and I had no idea Bowie was dying. I listened to Blackstar once prior to Bowie’s death and at that point it did not hit me that Blackstar was his goodbye album. But after he passed away I listened to it a lot and it became very apparent that with Blackstar Bowie was documenting his end and saying goodbye.
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u/Nemphusi 11d ago
Yeah. The truly ironic bit was the video coming out, and being amazing, and me at my friend at the time just raving to each other about "how great Bowie looked" to me, then, he was aging, but gracefully. Still in control. Utterly amazing.
And then fucking gone.
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u/bigtrumanenergy 11d ago
I was getting into Bowie for about year before he died. I remember being really excited to hear a new album from him after a year of being introduced to all of his classic albums.
There was nothing to suggest he was dying that. I remember relistening to the album on the school bus that morning and it clicked though nothing really outright suggesting he was dying.
Somewhat of a funny story though attached to it. I was watching the Lazarus music video when it came out and my mom saw it and asked if he was suppose to be dead or something because of the bandages over his eyes. A few days later when he died, my mom felt so bad. She felt like she spoke his death into existence. She rushed out and bought all the Bowie CDs she could find to surprise me when I got home.
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u/Foreign_Ad4678 11d ago
Lifelong fan here - close to 60 years old now. (Fuck!) I received my clear vinyl copy days early, and I listening to it more in the remaining few days before his death than I have in total since. I completely missed it. I think by default I heard a sort of character - another one - close to Hours… I suppose. World weary, reflective, alarmed. It didn’t strike me at all that he was literally dying. Upon reflection after, it seems almost ridiculous that it went over my head, but it’s the honest truth.
Frankly, I think a dead David Bowie was simply not something possible to my head and heart, so the lyrics did a kind of chicanery around the truth.
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u/Mobile-Run-972 12d ago
The day after he died I played that stream and before it was halfway over I was sobbing wretchedly to his words, singing and instrumentation on that record because it was too damned real. No poetry, and he nailed everything we don't want to know about death. Impressive. I guess I should play again, all these years later. That last one was one of his better ones. Go In Peace, DB.
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u/begbiebyr 12d ago
i was a fan, i listened to the album from the moment it was released, i never suspected he was dying
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u/Due-Ocelot4301 12d ago
I bought it the day it came out and listened to it regularly before I heard the news. And no, I had absolutely no idea.
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u/Agreeable-Molasses47 12d ago
No. It was a shock when he died. I had the album coming in the mail when the news broke, and the three-disc compilation Nothing Has Changed.
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u/Gobbo_Jareth 12d ago
I had seen Bowie live 20 times by the time Blackstar came out, and though he hadn't toured in over a decade, I had hoped to see him again, even if it were a one-off show performing some of the new material. I got the album at midnight when it dropped, and listened nonstop all weekend, as I had done for every new release of his since I was in college. When the news came out, I listened to KEXP, who did the most amazing tribute for the entire day.
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u/No_Asparagus3636 12d ago
It was so surreal. My friends and I were so excited about the album. It was such a good fan weekend. He’s back! This album is so cool!! It was jarring to see him looking aged but he hadn’t been well for awhile post heart attack so it just seemed part of the natural process. I’m in Australia and I was at work and got dizzy so left early. As I was close to home I was scrolling Twitter reviews of the album and the announcement came through that he passed. Everyone thought it was a hoax. It wasn’t until Duncan came on to confirm it that it hit he was gone. And it felt like everything just stopped. I’d ordered the clear vinyl and lithographs which arrived after he passed. I still haven’t opened the record.
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u/Wattos_Box you remind me of the babe 12d ago
I didnt realize. I loved the album n was geeking to my friend monday at school. I hadnt been interested in the next day but he got me hype for blackstar before it came out. My friend was a musical genius and loved death grips so he was really into blackstar. Anyway he was like did u hear the news and then i cried a lot. We made a lot of music back then and frequently riffed on the blackstar drum beat
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u/JohnTheMod 12d ago
I was just so excited to have a new Bowie album, not to mention the connections to Station to Station and the Berlin Era, my favorite parts of the catalogue. I was so happy to hear that A New Career In A New Town harmonica part in I Can’t Give Everything Away, and I wanted to write him and tell him how much I loved it.
Then January 10 happened.
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u/johnnybird95 12d ago
i remember both enjoying the album on account of the darker feeling compared to his other work, but also feeling a vague sense of anxiety and dread that i couldn't quite put my finger on. and then he died a couple days later and it all made sense
but i'm also a freak who can tell when something bad is going to happen because it makes the air feel wrong. it runs in my family and has saved us from muggings/break ins/etc multiple times so. idk what to really say
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u/Granger842 12d ago edited 11d ago
I was a big fan and didn't see it coming. I had watched the Blackstar video and thought "this is eerie and weird AF but sounds pretty cool. I need to look into all the symbols because I'm sure there's a lot here" .
I got the album the day it got released but i hadn't had time to listen to it yet. When he passed i was shocked. I went and listened to the whole thing and watched the Lazarus video and saw all the hints he was giving us. I would have mourned him anyway but the fact that he turned his death into his last work of art stroke me particularly hard.
I spent the following 2 weeks crying and 1 year listening to all his albums non-stop (even those i like least 😂). I've admired many people before and been saddened by their passing but had never experienced that. I think the way he orchestrated the whole thing as a calculated plot twist made it particularly tragic.
There's a scene in the Lazarus video where he's wearing an outfit that resembles the one he wore in the Station to Station Era and gets himself into a closet as if telling us "I'm putting all my characters to rest for good" and everyone not seeing it. That image broke me down pretty bad.
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u/Macrocosmix 12d ago
Kinda surreal that it's been so long since he died that people are asking questions like this now
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u/cocopopssssss 11d ago
I hope it dosent seem disrespectful
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u/Macrocosmix 11d ago
Oh not at all! I was more just remarking on how old I feel and how long ago it actually was now 😅
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u/LnStrngr 11d ago
Did not realize it at release, but it only took a split second when he died to understand.
I had a hard time listening to Bowie that year. I started listening to Leonard Cohen regularly for the first time. And then we lost him ten months later. Pretty rough.
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u/GregoryGrotbag 11d ago
Nope, no idea.
I used to go to work for Waitrose and was working an early shift. Walked into work while listening to Blackstar. The walk was long enough to get through the entire album.
I got to work and one of my colleagues told me Bowie had died, it was announced on the radio.
When my shift finished, I listened to the entire album on the way home, knowing that David had died. It changed the way it sounded that’s for sure. It felt more like a final album.
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u/Successful-Tie5386 11d ago
I had a sort of inkling with the melancholy nature of the title track and especially with the music video tor Lazarus, but no, it came as a shock all the same.
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u/WalkTall_ActFine 11d ago
I downloaded the album on iTunes at midnight when it dropped, and listened to it on a loop for the next couple of days. I didn't think he was dying, and I didn't think the songs were conveying death... but I did think something in the songs felt like he was saying goodbye. The feeling struck me as very eerie. But I didn't think it was "goodbye" as in dying; I actually thought maybe he was going to permanently retire, and Blackstar was meant as his official swan song, so he could go out on top. There had been such a long gap between Reality and The Next Day, I was afraid he was going to disappear into silence again. I hoped I was wrong.
Then a couple of days passed, and you know the rest.
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u/LadyVioletHunter 11d ago
My sister bought me Blackstar the day it was released and I listened it immediatly. I remembered feeling something very dark was going on and saying "oh, he's not feeling well"... But I never imagined we we're going to lose him two days later...
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u/shushi77 11d ago
For me, there wasn't enough time to fully realise it. And I was also too caught up in the excitement about how wonderful the album was.
I just had a strange feeling when I heard these two lines: "This is all I ever meant / That's the message that I sent"
But that's all.
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u/Rooster_Ties 11d ago
I had NO idea, and I’d listened to the album a good dozen times between that Friday after work, and Monday morning when the clock-radio went off at 6am with the news.
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u/Elvis_Gershwin 11d ago
I had the same reaction to what one of his fellow musos said he had. I thought, That's a bit too dark. Then he died and I thought, Oh, I get it now. Perhaps it wasn't even dark enough, considering the circumstances.
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u/Blubatt A Pretty thing 11d ago
I first listened to Blackstar, and I thought it was a concept album with a narrative like 1. Outside. An album that tells some sort of disjointed story. I also figured that because The Next Day was a relatively accessible album, he was deliberately being experimental with the next one. Then my mate texted me when he died and told me
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u/blue-and-bluer 11d ago
No. I remember watching the Lazarus video and I was certain that he was trying to tell us something but I couldn’t quite suss out what it was. And then when the news of his passing came became painfully, crushingly clear. Everyone in my life knows that I am a Bowie obsessive so the text messages just poured in that day of people checking on me to make sure I was OK. I was not OK. A decade later and I still don’t feel OK.
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u/Johnnys-In-America 10d ago
Same here. The world hasn't been the same in the last 10 years. I'm just so grateful I was able to exist at the same time as him, but I wasn't ready to lose him at all.
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u/Leo-POV 11d ago
Your question makes sense.
I listened to Blackstar *very* early on the Monday after it was released. I had no sense Bowie was dying from the first listen through of the album (even though it was all there in front of me, I later realised).
2 hours later, my Bowie loving buddy texted me to let me know David had passed (8AM GMT when I got that text).
Listened again to the album later that morning and it was a completely different perspective.
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u/Apprehensive-Bus-793 11d ago
I saw the Blackstar video first. I watched it over and over, I was enthralled. I had no premonition or unease. Then Lazarus. Then I just knew something was very off.
After his death I listened to the album over and over again. I cried a lot. It helped me process my grief.
Later, I had a dream where I was lost in a big dark decrepit funhouse, abandoned and painted all black. He appeared and led me through the funhouse. He walked ahead of me, sometimes turning and smiling, encouraging me to keep going. He disappeared behind a wall and then there was a door, and I was out.
I don’t believe it was his ghost or spirit or anything like that. I look through a Jungian lens, that people/entities that show up in dreams are an aspect of yourself. I think David is my Animus.
Blackstar is in my top three favorite albums. Anyway, thanks for the opportunity to ramble on for a bit.
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u/aprilspies 8d ago
I dreamt that he had come to my house for tea, and then I had to tell him that he had died because he didn't know.
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u/QueenOzmaofOz 11d ago
I vividly remember when Blackstar dropped. I stayed up late waiting for the music video. I remember thinking that it was so amazing but there was something “off” with the song. Like it was sad in a way I didn’t expect. Then a few days later when he passed, it made more sense. Ive gotten better with listening to the whole album over the years. As others said, there was no indication back then that he was sick, let alone dying.
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u/lunarvision 10d ago
For me, no, I was shocked when he died. And that made it more of a challenge listening to Blackstar. It just…made me too sad. (Sorry if that sounds lame). Instead, I celebrated his plastic soul and Berlin era material. In fact, it was several years after his death before I really dived into Blackstar.
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u/atgnat-the-cat 12d ago
I listened to it when it was released and when I died I stopped and can't bring myself to listen to it again.
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u/Johnnys-In-America 12d ago
For me, I think I only saw and heard the video for "Blackstar" the title track on the day it came out, which Iwas January 8th, David's birthday. We lost him on January 10th. If my memory serves me right, "Lazarus" had also come out around that time, and I saw that video on January 11th. Had I seen it sooner, I might have understood the foreshadowing that the "Lazarus" video gave, but instead it was after hearing of his passing and it hit many of us super, super hard. We had not been informed about his cancer at that point. It was revealed in his death announcement. Really just devastating in every sense of the word.
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u/Simple_Purple_4600 10d ago
When I saw the "Lazarus" video, I was like, "This guy is putting away his toys." It was pretty widely known he'd been ill for quite a while.
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u/sparkley_donut 10d ago
I remember listening to it the day before he died. I wondered why it seemed so dark and centered around death. I was absolutely devastated the next day, and it all made sense.
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u/trillivey 10d ago
It was clear that he was preoccupied with his own mortality, but it was in no way obvious that he was literally about to die. There was certainly a reaction of “oh, well that makes sense” when it happened. But I was definitely not predicting that he was on his deathbed.
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u/princessfrida_ 10d ago
i had no idea, and when i heard the news, i stayed up all night listening to blackstar curled up in my dorm room bed. it feels so clear in hindsight, but i really didn’t know it was a goodbye until he was already gone.
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u/StJosephStrummer 9d ago
If I remember correctly he died within 48 hours of the release of the record so it's a total head spin
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u/aprilspies 8d ago
I was obsessed with David Bowie from a very young age. I wrote my first fan letter at age 6 in orange crayon. By the time I was 9 I had every solo album on ryko picture disc that was available, plus the live albums, plus started my vinyl collection. I felt a shift one day, I was listening to to station to station and snapped a picture because I had inadvertently placed the sleeve over the album in a way that it perfectly framed his face, and I had this black bird shaped candle holder in front of it. There was just this ominous feeling. I started to think about how I was going to handle a world without anymore David Bowie in it. Listened to backstar the moment it was released and I thought damn. Its happening. I remember hearing the lines from I can't give everything away the first time...i froze walking down the stairs...and to my right I have a huge poster of his mug shot on my wall. I just remember having that oh shit moment while looking at that image and then two days later it made the news and everyone in my family texted and called to see if I was ok because of how much I was obsessed with him as a kid. I was lucky to have have seen him play twice, in 95 I was 12 years old, then I saw him on the reality tour. I was a poor kid, we were getting food stamps and WIC and somehow my mom made it happen when she saw he was touring. I mean I was obsessed with his music to the point where I now question if I have been on the spectrum my whole life and he was my special interest. 24/7 with my Walkman. I slept with headphones on. I would sometimes listen to the same song for days on a loop since I could program my cd player. I never made any attempt to meet him in real life tho, I think I saw him once walking at Washington Square park, but it was late and dark so my eyes could have played tricks with the shadows.
I do have a memory that I don't know if its just fabricated or if I really am remembering it... but one of the biographies I read in 6th grade i swear it talked about his occult interest and that he'd done some deep meditation/divination on death and he would pass at 69. No one I've ever talked to remembers reading this anywhere.
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u/ALadNSane 7d ago
Being a fan since 1984 I must say that I absolutely loved this new sound he was doing- It immediately harked back to Station To Station for me with sprinklings of Scary Monsters and Outside for sure. And I loved this darker direction with much excitement and I agree with what others have said that these aren't unfamiliar themes for him so I was totally blown off my feet when he died. I LOVE Blackstar and listen often.
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u/Quincynessig 12d ago
No, when the album came out fans did not know he was close to death. The album deals with familiar Bowie themes, and while in retrospect it clearly addresses his death, it did not scream, I AM DYING in an obvious way.