Jerk Music Critic: David Bowie, ★ (Blackstar)

What album would you write knowing it would be your last? That, posthumously, you could rest in the grave, the recording done, your sensibilities preserved and your artistic vision unfettered? Every musician should hope God grants them a last word on their own terms, and David Bowie got one: no compromises, no concessions to the pop charts, an eccentric, eclectic self-elegy shipped under the noses of a public unaware he was even ill. And, two days after its release, we have this album yet we have not him. Eternity suffuses the unfiltered emotions in the lyrics, from a man saved from his own execution by another ("★") to Lazarus in heaven against us collective Divëses below ("Lazarus"), even as he reassures Sue — or maybe us — that the clinic called and the X-ray's fine ("Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)"). Was he telling us all along he was "dying to[o]" ("Dollar Days")? Was he trying to? Every style he wanted he played: there's Nadsat and Polari ("Girl Loves Me"), earthy baroque ("'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore") and symphonic pop along with classic Bowie at the end with "Dollar Days" and the album's heartfelt closer "I Can't Give Everything Away" — a presumably deliberate irony as he gave us this very treasure to remember him by, its brilliance and unyielding intransigence even extending to the unreadable black on black of the liner notes. Everything about this masterpiece is sumptuous and unsullied, daring you to take him as he was and rewarding you with its sophistication when you do. Even a jerk music critic like me can't pierce the grave with my sharp wit nor effusive praise, but for an album as incredible as this one, let this summary be my attempt to try. (Content: sexual themes in "'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore," F-bombs in "Girl Loves Me," mild language in "Lazarus" and "Dollar Days.")

★★★★★

Express Yourself

The Jerk Music Critic is a collection of amateur music reviews I wrote largely non-professionally between the 1990s and today. Some of these reviews are contemporary and some are retrospective, and a few are rather dated, but all are intended to be free-standing and permanent records of my completely worthless musical opinion. They are presented in no particular order and "new" reviews that occur may actually be simply prior ones I've only now transcribed. Older reviews have been edited to hopefully remove inaccuracies later revealed, as well as add brief content advisories (see "Smash the PMRC") and, where reissues exist with different tracks, brief commentaries on these later additions (the actual star review was not altered).

If you're looking for a specific artist, or just interested to see what I really liked (or really didn't), "When I Break Down" indexes reviews by artist and by number of stars awarded (see "Star Chart" for an explanation).

As we move deeper into the Internet music age where the album format might seem hopelessly antiquated, there is still some artistic value in the LP to those artists who still take advantage of it, and some of these recordings can only be properly appreciated in that context. I hope you enjoy these reviews and recommendations, and don't take them too seriously. — Cameron Kaiser

Star Chart

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
An instant classic. Substantially advances/d the state of the art, either technologically, stylistically, or (preferentially) both, and is outstanding music besides. Buy it.

🌟🌟🌟🌟
A excellent album. Nearly every song is a gem; nearly every piece is a winner. Falls short of 5 stars for want of that certain special something, but the difference is in impact, not in musical quality. Buy it.

🌟🌟🌟
Solid. Mostly good songs with a few clinkers. Salvageable with a good playlist. Buy it cheap.

🌟🌟
Mixed. Some good songs stand out, but not enough to make it listenable as a whole. Buy the good songs on iTunes.

🌟
Bad. One or two tracks of even decent quality. Buy the good songs cheap on iTunes.

💩
How did this get released?

Smash the PMRC

I don't advocate for censorship or unnuanced black and white stickers, but I do advocate for parents being able to raise kids in the way they see fit, which might include introducing albums of controversial yet artistic merit at a point in their child's life when they can better appreciate it. The content summaries are intended to be a very general guide, reflective of only my own personal sensibilities and mine alone, and do not substitute in any way for a parent actually sitting down and listening to the album themselves. If you excessively rely on my content advisories, then I'm the one raising your kid, and you really don't want that.