Back to Blackstar: Finding Consolation, Complexity and Catharsis in Bowie’s Final Work

Join musician and writer Leah Kardos on Friday 16 October to revisit David Bowie’s Blackstar — by hearing it together, in full, and reflecting on how it strikes us a decade on. 

Blackstar has become inseparable from the idea of grief and mourning: it was released on Bowie’s 69th birthday in January 2016, just two days before his death. But it’s not a sombre record – far from it, says Leah, author of Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie. 

‘When I spent more time with Blackstar, I experienced it differently from how I did in 2016, when the sense of loss was so fresh,’ she explains. ‘It’s much more about life, and impermanence, and the potential of both’. 

Music and art can offer powerful ways of living with grief and mortality, something Leah knows first-hand. On the very day Blackstar Theory was published, her father died. ‘I had to put my ideas and insights to the test immediately’, she recalls. In the aftermath of this loss, Bowie’s final work was unexpectedly sustaining: ‘It gave me a vocabulary and a perspective on death that has helped me to embrace life’s impermanence and cherish its individual moments.’ 

But as so often with Bowie, there’s another side to the worldview of Blackstar, and it has to do with the science of stars. We now know that photons are ancient – possibly infinite – and, as Leah puts it, ‘We’re just temporary gatherings of stardust’. One day we will return to it, just as Bowie has, and just as our loved ones have. ‘That did console me in my grieving,’ says Leah. ‘It made me really think about my own death and my connection to the universe.’ 

The death of a pop star we love can hit us hard, Leah explains, ‘because any relationship we have with them is really a relationship with ourselves’. Bowie’s particular power in helping many of us to process grief may lie in the ambiguity and complexity of both his work and public image. Grief is rarely straightforward; it’s messy, contradictory, often leaving us with unanswered questions. Blackstar mirrors this beautifully: it is a deeper and more complicated album than many of us realised at first.

‘You can talk about Blackstar as being dark and atmospheric, but there’s much more to it,’ says Leah. ‘Yes, there’s chaos and violence, but there’s also this strange glee! On one track he’s hooting and hollering over swirling, adrenalized bursts of jazz rock. That chaotic energy can be incredibly cathartic – a real release.’ Towards the end, she adds, ‘there are notes of longing and consolation in “Dollar Days”, and a playful self-awareness in “I Can’t Give Everything Away”, which is just such a beautiful way for his final record to close.’ 

Leah is clear that she doesn’t want to tell people how to listen or respond; we all make our own meanings, and they shift over time. At the Weston event, she’ll set the scene, introducing the album and highlighting a few things to listen out for. ‘Then, after we’ve listened to the whole album together, I want you to share what you hear in Blackstar: what emotions it stirs and how it lands with you now.’ 

Above all, Leah is excited about listening to Blackstar communally. ‘How often do we get to do that nowadays?’ she asks. ‘It’s such an atmospheric record, with so much going on. Hearing it in sequence and experiencing its arc collectively will be beautiful’. 

And afterwards, if the heavens co-operate, we temporary gatherings of stardust will go outside and look at the stars together.

Book your tickets here.