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David Bowie clearly likes to keep busy on his birthday. On 8 January 2013, the day he turned 66, the singer released a surprise single and announced the existence of a new album, The Next Day. Now he has announced that when he turns 69 he will release his latest album, Blackstar. A single of the same name precedes it on 20 November.
Bowie’s terse website statement brushes aside “inaccurate reporting on the sound and content of the album” so it’s unclear whether Blackstar will, as one report has suggested, combine jazz, electronica, Krautrock and Gregorian chants, or qualify as his “oddest work yet”.
The only taster so far is the eerie, Scott Walker-esque snippet of the single that functions as the title theme for Sky Atlantic’s forthcoming drama The Last Panthers, Bowie’s first soundtrack work since the 1990s.
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Bowie’s current modus operandi, low-key and enigmatic, is the latest twist in a career full of them. Few musicians have pursued pop stardom as doggedly as Bowie. David Jones from Bromley had already reinvented himself several times over before striking gold in 1972 with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
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Informed by a deep understanding of fashion, cinema, visual art and advertising as well as music, he continued to shapeshift thereafter, from glam-rocker to icy soul man to brooding Berliner to 1980s stadium-filler and beyond, before seeming to retire due to ill-health in 2006. His vast influence extends to such recent chameleonic performers as Lady Gaga and St Vincent but since his unexpected return the singer seems to have exhausted his own interest in fame.
Bowie gave no interviews to promote The Next Day and has declined to book any live shows despite the staggering sums that must be on the table. He could headline any festival and sell out arenas for nights on end, but his former booking agent John Giddings recently told Music Week that the star would never tour again and there is no evidence to the contrary.
Instead, Bowie has popped up in unexpected places. In 2013 he sang backing vocals on Arcade Fire’s Reflektor and accepted the Brit award for best British male solo artist in 2014 via a speech read by Kate Moss, causing a minor online fuss by asking Scots to vote no in the independence referendum.
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This year he has been working with playwright Enda Walsh on the musical stage show Lazarus, which premieres in New York next month. It is inspired by Walter Tevis’s novel The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie having previously starred in Nicolas Roeg’s 1976 screen adaptation. By way of contrast, he is also said to be contributing to a stage musical based on the aquatic cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
Much though fans would love to see Bowie on stage again, the artist is exploring his creativity in less obvious ways. Instead of performing old songs, he is writing new music in a range of formats. Anyone who admires him for the unpredictability and forward momentum of his classic work can’t really complain about that decision.
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RIP 1947-2016 David Bowie