David Bowie

A suitably enigmatic video for the late/great David Bowie, created by his longtime visual collaborator and lead Blackstar album designer Jonathan Barnbrook.

Jonathan Barnbrook, designer: “This is really a very simple little video that I wanted to be ultimately positive. We start off in the black and white world of ★, but in the final chorus we move to brilliant colour, I saw it as a celebration of David, to say that despite the adversity we face, the difficult things that happen such as David’s passing, that human beings are naturally positive, they look forward and can take the good from the past and use it as something to help with the present. We are a naturally optimistic species and we celebrate the good that we are given.” [via Facebook]

A man on his deathbed with button eyes, thrashing about as the spirit pulls away and the past comes creeping out of the wardrobe for one last dance.

That video "Lazarus" struck me last week as just a footnote to David Bowie's epic 10 minute "Blackstar" opus, a smaller sidestory with that clip's Button-eyed man. I was wrong. "Lazrus" is the main event, as intimate and direct a film as Bowie ever made — there's no hiding anything in a 1:1 aspect ratio — a perfect parting note from The Man Who Fell To Earth, dead at age 69, after an 18 month battle of cancer, succumbing merely three days after the release of "Lazarus" and his latest, last album, Blackstar.

A shocker, but only because we weren't paying as much attention as we should have been.

You watch and listen to "Lazarus" now and it's all right there.

Look up here, I’m in heaven I’ve got scars that can’t be seen I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen Everybody knows me now

...

This way or no way You know, I’ll be free Just like that bluebird Now ain’t that just like me?

Of course. Ain't that just like him?

Last month I got to produce some behind the scenes coverage of the "Blackstar" video premiere event, where the video aired a few times throughout the day at a Brooklyn cinema. There were fans there from all around the world, taking in the video again and again, poring over every detail and mystery, giving it their time and focus, wondering what it all meant. That's pretty amazing, especially in an age where most artists are lucky if their fans go past their latest tweet or give them even 9 measly seconds to watch a Vine, let alone travel (in the rain) to a theater and repeatedly watch a 10 minute video.

I wish I paid that sort of attention the first time I watched "Lazarus," not because I would have figured it out, but because that's what true art deserves.

Something happened on the day he died Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried (I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar)

RIP, David Bowie.

A stranded astronaut, a black hole sun, a blind man with sight, crucified scarecrows, a betailed woman and a ★ (blackstar) bible are just some of the things to ponder in this absolutely epic new David Bowie video directed by Johan Renck.

An intro of applause becomes rhythmic before becoming rasterized, which is when this masterpiece starts to take shape. Polygons and other digital detritus start to skitter and take shape, eventually hitting a climax and creating something of pure beauty. But technology is never satisfied with perfection, so we march past the human and back into the modern haze.

Content note: The video has nudity. It's been labeled NSFW elsewhere on the web, but that phrase is so associated with shit merely meant to titillate or shock that I don't think it has any business being used to describe this work of art. Also, why are you watching videos at work and worrying about boobs? Don't you have faxes to send? 

The timing of this creepy new David Bowie video on Halloween is no coincindence, but the fact it follows so closely to the loss of his onetime collaborator Lou Reed is a great reminder to appreciate this generation of artists/musicians, because they're irreplaceable.

"Love Is Lost" — or, more accurately a "Hello Steve Reich mix edit" by James "LCD Soundsystem" Murphy — was actually shot last weekend at Bowie's apartment using his own camera and props. The cost? Just $12.99 to buy a thumb drive to store the video.

Not a surprise that the new David Bowie video "The Next Day" has stirred up controversy. We have Bowie as a prophet, Gary Oldman as a Bad Priest and Marion Cotillard as a blood-spurting Mary Magdalene.

But, kudos to the Catholic League President Bill Donohue for rebutting the video with something even more offensive. I bolded the best bits. See below.

The siren song of rock 'n' roll comes calling again for David Bowie, tempting him from his "nice life" with his lovely wife into something filled with more madness and more sex. Can he resist? Well, we already know the answer to that, but director Floria Sigismondi brings the mixed emotions to the surface in this slightly NSFW video starring Bowie alongside Tilda Swinton as his wife.