[Commlist] Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie

Leah Kardos's new book is out this week - /Blackstar Theory/ takes a 
close look at Bowie’s ambitious last works: his surprise ‘comeback’ 
project /The Next Day /(2013), the off-Broadway musical /Lazarus /(2015) 
and the album that preceded the artist’s death in 2016 by two days, 
★ (pronounced /Blackstar/). It explores the emergent themes, 
philosophies and meaning-making affordances contained in these works 
from a starting point in musical analysis. It also features interviews 
with a number of key collaborators from the period: co producer Tony 
Visconti, graphic designer Jonathan Barnbrook, musical director Henry 
Hey, saxophonist Donny McCaslin and assistant sound engineer Erin Tonkon.

This book defines Bowie’s /‘/late style’ and positions the last works 
within his chronology, and other relevant contexts: post-war arts 
practices, celebrity, late-capitalism, existentialism, the subconscious 
self, science/fiction. The work tackles the biggest ideas: identity, 
creativity, chaos, transience and immortality. Its knotted themes 
entangle realities and fictions across space and time; a catalogue of 
sound, vision, music and myth spanning more than 50 years is subjected 
to the cut-up; we get to the end only to find signposts directing us 
back to the very start.

The subject of death appears repeatedly throughout Bowie’s catalogue, 
but here in the last works it is a much closer presence - the finishing 
move. The last works articulate philosophical framework(s) for 
immortality, which this book explores, using Nietzsche’s concepts of the 
‘dancing star’ and the /Übermensch,/ C.G. Jung’s process of 
individuation and becoming,//and Dyer’s updated /Star Theory./
*
*
*Keywords: *popular musicology, David Bowie, death studies, celebrity 
studies, musical analysis, music and culture.

For more info, TOC and endorsements: 
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/blackstar-theory-9781501365386/


Here is a long interview I had with Chris O’Leary about the book: 
https://bowiesongs.wordpress.com/2021/12/20/leah-kardos-and-blackstar-theory-the-interview/ 


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