More experimental than its predecessor The Next Day (2013), Blackstar combines atmospheric art rock with various styles of jazz. Bowie took inspiration from artists including Kendrick Lamar and Death Grips, listening to them during the album's production. The album's lyrics feature themes of death, with many songs being told from the perspective of the dead or dying. The cover art, designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, features a large black star with five star segments at the bottom that spell out the word Bowie.
The album was preceded by the singles "Blackstar" and "Lazarus", both of which were supported by music videos. Two days after its release, Bowie died following a private 18-month battle with liver cancer; Visconti described the album as a parting gift for his fans after his death. Upon release, the album was met with commercial success, topping charts in many countries, including the United Kingdom, following Bowie's death, and became his only album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States. It was the fifth-best-selling album of the year worldwide.
David Bowie released his twenty-fifth studio album The Next Day in March 2013. It was his first studio release in ten years after retreating from the public view in 2004. A critical and commercial success, it topped the album charts in twenty countries, including the United Kingdom, and gave Bowie his highest chart placement ever in the United States at number two. The successes of The Next Day and the David Bowie Is exhibition, which opened in London the same year, prompted Bowie to be more active in the studio throughout 2014. Between May and July 2014, Bowie collaborated with the bandleader and composer Maria Schneider on the experimental jazz song "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)". It features Schneider's orchestra and an ensemble including the saxophonist Donny McCaslin and the drummer Mark Guiliana.
In June 2014, Bowie demoed new songs with his longtime producer Tony Visconti, the drummer Zachary Alford and the pianist Jack Spann at the Magic Shop in New York City, where The Next Day was recorded. Throughout the summer, Bowie worked on the demos alone for several months. During this time, he recorded "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" as a home demo, which appeared as the B-side of "Sue" in November. The same year, Bowie began writing a musical, Lazarus, with the Irish playwright Enda Walsh, composing new songs for it such as "No Plan", "When I Met You", "Killing a Little Time" and "The Hunger" (later titled "Lazarus").
Apart from Visconti, Blackstar was the first time since Tin Machine (1989) that Bowie used a completely new set of musicians from the previous album. Visconti told Mojo: "If we'd used Bowie's former musicians they would be rock people playing jazz ... Having jazz guys play rock music turns it upside down." In December, the musicians received demos from Bowie in preparation for the recording sessions at the start of the new year.
Recording began at the Magic Shop in the first week of 2015. Tracks for both Blackstar and the Lazarus musical were recorded: "Lazarus", "No Plan", a re-recording of "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" and "When I Met You". Most of the rhythm tracks were recorded in one or two takes. During the week, Bowie celebrated his 68th birthday. Following the January sessions, further recording commenced in blocks; according to the biographer Nicholas Pegg, they lasted four to six days each, taking place in the first week of February and the third week of March. Bowie emailed the musicians demos before each session.
The February sessions yielded "Dollar Days", "Girl Loves Me", "Someday" and a re-recording of "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)", "Dollar Days" was created without a preliminary demo, instead being devised on the spot in the studio based on a guitar idea from Bowie. Visconti said Bowie wanted to remake "Sue" to "make a different version of it, with a completely different flavour". For the March sessions, the band were joined by the jazz guitarist Ben Monder, who played on the original recording of "Sue". Monder found the environment to be positive, saying that Bowie respected their ideas and contributions. Songs recorded included "Blackstar", "I Can't Give Everything Away", "Killing a Little Time" and a remake of "Someday" (now titled "Blaze"). Bowie performed his vocals live while the band played during the Magic Shop sessions, but moved to Human Worldwide Studios in April for proper recording. The majority of his vocals were recorded from scratch between April and May, although some vocals from the Magic Shop sessions were kept, including part of "I Can't Give Everything Away" and the full vocal for "No Plan". Visconti's assistant at Human Worldwide, Erin Tonkon, contributed backing vocals to "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore". The album was finished by June, after which Bowie continued preparations for the Lazarus musical.
Bowie recorded Blackstar while suffering from liver cancer. He had been diagnosed in the summer of 2014 and was undergoing chemotherapy treatments by the time the sessions began in January 2015. He kept the illness private, only discussing it when it affected his work; Visconti did not learn of it until Bowie arrived at the studio immediately following a chemo session. Visconti recalled that despite his illness, Bowie was in high spirits throughout the sessions: "He was so brave and courageous ... and his energy was still incredible for a man who had cancer. He never showed any fear. He was just all business about making the album." Visconti reportedly told the backing band that Bowie was unwell, although Lefebvre said that he never appeared sick. According to Pegg, Bowie's illness showed signs of remission as the sessions continued. By March, his hair had grown back, and he looked well. Monder, during his time in the studio, recalled that Bowie looked healthy and showed no signs of illness. He recalled Bowie being "really enthusiastic" and "very excited" to be making an album again. Throughout 2015, Bowie was optimistic as he continued chemotherapy and, by that summer, was in remission. By November, however, shortly after completing the "Lazarus" music video, Bowie told Visconti the cancer had returned, and his condition was terminal.
The music on Blackstar has been characterised as incorporating art rock, experimental jazz, free jazz, progressive rock and experimental rock, with elements of industrial rock, folk-pop and hip-hop.Several critics acknowledged the album as Bowie's most experimental in years. Blackstar was not the first time Bowie experimented with jazz. He was an avid jazz listener in his youth, having been exposed to the genre by his older half-brother Terry Burns, and had occasionally worked with jazz musicians in the past. Monder said that there were many musical references to Bowie's past on Blackstar, albeit "presented in a fresh context".
According to Visconti, he and Bowie deliberately attempted "to avoid rock'n'roll" while making the album. They listened to the rapper Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, released midway through the Blackstar recording sessions, and cited it as an influence. Visconti said, "We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact that Kendrick was so open-minded and he didn't do a straight-up hip-hop record. He threw everything on there, and that's exactly what we wanted to do." Another record that influenced Bowie was D'Angelo's Black Messiah (2014). According to Pegg, it featured a fusion of soul, jazz and funk that was reminiscent of Bowie's work on "Sue". The electronic duo Boards of Canada and experimental hip hop trio Death Grips have also been cited as influences.
Blackstar featured themes of death throughout. The songs contain narrators and characters who offer different perspectives, and many of the songs are told from the perspective of the dead or dying. The album's title track incorporates nu jazz and free jazz, while progressing through a drum and bass-style rhythm, an acid house-inspired portion of the instrumental, a saxophone solo and a lower-tempo blues-like section. At ten minutes in length, it originally began as two separate melodies before being merged to one single piece. The re-recording of "'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore" features a hip hop beat and free-form sax, unlike the original recording, Bowie's vocals are also less subdued and more sociable.
"Lazarus" was described by Pegg as "an intense, brooding threnody", with a groove compared to latter-day Massive Attack. Sung from the perspective of Thomas Jerome Newton, the alien played by Bowie in the 1976 film The Man Who Fell to Earth, the narrator is living in solitude in New York City reflecting on a lifetime of lavish living. Compared to the original version of "Sue (Or in a Season of Crime)", which featured brass-heavy instrumentation and a bebop-jazz arrangement, the remake has a heavier, denser and "edgier groove", with added funk rock guitar lines and "percussive shudders". The lyrics are ambiguous as to whether it is a farewell or a murder confession.
"Girl Loves Me" featured synthesisers, "acrobatic" drumming, strings and "bouncing" bass. The song includes Nadsat, a fictional language created by Anthony Burgess for his novel A Clockwork Orange (1962), and Polari, a type of slang used commonly by British gay men during the mid-20th century. The refrain, "Where the fuck did Monday go?", was interpreted by Pegg as the kind of desperation from a man who knows his time is running out. Bonner compared the fragmented lyrics to the cut-up techniques Bowie utilised on the albums Diamond Dogs (1974) and Outside (1995).
"Dollar Days" was a ballad that contained a sax solo and a lush arrangement; The lyrics suggested a desire to challenge expectations and possibly deceive ("I'm dying to / Push their backs against the grain / And fool them all again and again"). Pareles noted the deceptive way Bowie challenges his listeners by either adopting a new persona or being genuine. The final track, "I Can't Give Everything Away", is built on "pulsing synthesisers" and "tightly-wound percussion". Bowie plays a harmonica solo similar to the one from Low's "A New Career in a New Town" (1977). he scholar Leah Kardos believed that the harmonica motif signified "transition and frontiersmanship". Another scholar, Alice Masterson, noted that both "I Can't Give Everything Away" and "A New Career in a New Town" contain themes of "moving from one state of being to another".
The artwork for Blackstar was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook, who filled the same role on Heathen (2002), Reality (2003) and The Next Day. The cover depicts a five-pointed star: black on white for the CD edition and all-black with a cut-out star on the vinyl release, which revealed the grooves of the record beneath. The cover's star image is credited to NASA in the CD booklet. The sleeve was the only Bowie sleeve not to feature an image of the artist himself.
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