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Released

It wasn’t quite David Bowie’s final work — his musical Lazarus debuted after the sessions, and even in the days before his death he’d demoed some new songs. But Blackstar, recorded in the shadow of his secret cancer diagnosis and released just a couple of days before his passing, was a moving, striking meditation on the end, recorded with a strong creative team of New York jazz musicians. Songs like “Lazarus,” the title track and especially the concluding “I Can’t Give Everything Away” served as a hail and farewell, a last example of his stunning artistic range.

Ned Raggett

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