I feel unease about both the album itself, and listening to it nine years on from release.

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I am aware of no other major musical composer ( popular or classical) who composed and recorded his own epitaph, and then died. I am listening to it now as I write. The music and lyric is intensely personal. I do not see it as a gift. I see it as an unique valediction, unfettered by what others think, or might think. The music had no  critical context, it is unsullied by the opinions of others. There is no edit, or 2017 remix.

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The title track soars like a spirit leaving the body while accompanied by a choir of mourners.

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It is not a collection that I listen to for pleasure  or fun but from morbid, prurient, curiosity.

We all have our own personal tastes, and I respect those of others. Greatness is in the ear and eye of the beholder. For me David’s last great album  was “Scary Monsters”. Blackstar the album is not in the same musical stratosphere. We are approaching  the end of the great Pop and Rock era, great albums are in short supply. Frankly, much of what there is to be said through  ther pop and rock medium has been said.

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There are some wonderful valedictions in the artistic world from authors,  Orwells’ 1984, Hesses “Glass bead game and Wilde’s “Dorian Gray” spring to mind. In theu pop and rock era we are running out of heroes, and time. Maybe Gilmour, McCartney, Springsteen, Dylan, Young, Costello  or more recently Taylor Swift will deliver?

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The tracks “Blackstar” and “Lazarus” are outstanding, the rest are not. The album is a dish served hot, cooked, and then to be consumed, not reflected upon. Not to be                    a allowed to go cold.

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For me the missing chapter from the Bowie story is what might have come- a completed 1984 ( with copy right restrictions now lapsed), or maybe something entirely new, an original musical perhaps?

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As a time served Bowiephile I have never felt obliged to like all of David’s output. Not even he liked all his own output!

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This is the sound of a man on his death bed, doing what he could with what he had, not the culmination of some great musical project, tinged with desperation and despair.

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Where the **** did Monday go?

Its nothing to me, there’s nothing to see. As he rushed to return to the English evergreens.

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Its honesty leaves me feeling ghoulish