Released on his 69th birthday in 2016 – just two days before his death – Blackstar is one of the most incredible parting gifts in the history of music. Bowie had spent years in silence before his surprise return with The Next Day, but Blackstar was something else entirely. It wasn’t a nostalgic trip; it was a bold, challenging, and deeply moving piece of avant-garde art that showed he was still light-years ahead of everyone else.

The sound is a heavy, intoxicating blend of art-rock and experimental jazz. Bowie recruited a group of New York jazz musicians to give the album a fluid, unpredictable feel. It’s full of skittering drums, wailing saxophones, and eerie, atmospheric synths. It doesn’t sound like a “rock” album – it sounds like something timeless and slightly otherworldly. It’s dense and dark, but there’s a strange beauty to the complexity that keeps you coming back.

The title track, “Blackstar,” is a ten-minute epic that shifts through several different moods, while “Lazarus” is a haunting, direct message from a man who knew his time was short. “I can’t give everything away” serves as a perfect, melodic finale. It’s an album that is still fascinating to revisit because of the layers of meaning hidden in its lyrics and arrangements. It’s a masterpiece of “finality” that manages to be both heartbreaking and incredibly inspiring.