Where the #?$% did Monday go? (A Bowie fans' lament)

    99.9% of the time, a celebrity death is just that: someone who seemed eternally young, fresh and vibrant (either through the magic of television...or a good surgeon) meeting the great equalizer. The shock that these people are actually just flesh and blood is a sobering experience, a reminder that we are all running on borrowed time. As I lay here in front of my laptop, listening to David Bowie's last album, Blackstar, things don't seem as melancholy as you'd expect.
   The new album, magnificent in orchestration and execution, would have been a classic whether or not he died, but lyrically, knowing that this was the last cry of a man who knew his time was up... it's beyond description.

    'Cry' is probably not the right word, because Blackstar isn't the sound of a man weeping for days gone by, it's the sound of someone staring into oblivion,,,and turning it into gold.
     "I'm a blackstar, way up, oh honey, I've got game...I see right so white, so open heart it's pain." As much as I dislike inserting myself into a review, this one is different. I've had this short album (by Bowie standards) on repeat for a while, and in a strange way, its made me feel a little more alive with every play through. How can I ever complain about anything in my life when someone as seemingly untouchable as Bowie can face his own mortality - and choose to write a soundtrack to it?
    Musically, the album is a puree of acid jazz, hip-hop, prog-rock... and David Bowie. To categorize it as this, that, or the other is a waste of time. It just is. Just like death, it must simply be accepted.
    The flutes and saxophone that weave in and out of songs like Lazarus and Dollar Days are only outdone by the percussion, which I'd argue is the star of this album, especially on the title track.
Even with the cancer in his body, Bowie sounds as good as ever. His voice cracks on a track or two, but it works.
    With mainstream music forever looking for some hot, young, fresh thing to parade in front of a clever camera, the most vital sounds I've heard this year seem to be coming ... from a dead man.

*****