Friday, November 20, 2015

blackstar

hey there

so, there was a big music release today. no, not that Adele and her 25 business, look you see. we had, for some reason, a new Derek Bowie single come out. yes, i saw the mistake there. i used the word "single". sadly, alas, it was only made available as one of them "digital download" things.

i was very much looking forward to going to HMV and handing over £3 or £4 to buy the CD single, but alas no, not to be. instead, i had to do this :



the only positive thing i can say about having to buy this as a digital download is that it is at least the case that it wasn't an "Apple exclusive", and thus i was not compelled or obliged to throw money at the wretched iTunes store. no, Google probably are not much better, but at least they're a bit more honest about it.

anyway, enough of digital stores. if you are reading this then for some reason you are quite interested in hearing about the new Derek Bowie single off of me rather than listening to it for yourself, possibly by watching the bonkers video for it.  cheers for the vote of confidence, i will do my best.

is this song any good? yes and no. in the past when Derek Bowie has done a song north of 7 minutes it has been all brilliant. i'm thinking Width Of A Circle and Station To Station. this time, with a tune clocking in at just over nine minutes, not so much.

the first half is what some would have you believe as being "experimental" in nature, and a "challenge" to his conventional audience. alas, no. it's just dull, monotonous, unimaginative stuff, featuring Derek altering his voice so it's all tinny, squeaky and frankly crap.

a sample of all of that, if you dare.......



hugely disappointing. i believe in part this was inspired or done for a TV show. the last time he did this (if we pretend that little diddy he did for that unfunny, rude twat Gervais does not exist) was for The Buddha Of Suburbia, and it delivered one of his all time greatest albums of all time. fingers crossed, then, that the rest of the album sounds better than this does.

in fairness, Where Are We Now was very much the dullest, weakest track on The Next Day, and that's what he put out as a single first. we can but hope the same happens again.

a picture of the song "playing" on the "stereo"? sure.



after some four minutes of the above sample i was getting very, very bored. i was very much on the stage of switching it off and avoiding critics telling me how brilliant and iconoclastic it was when the second half came in. the far better, very impressive and frankly excellent second half. a sample? surely.



now why couldn't the whole song have been mixed and sounded like that? i don't particularly care if you think it means i am not a "proper fan", i just think he has an amazing voice and there's no reason for him not to have shown it off at its beautiful best across the whole song.

hey ho, bought, downloaded and now to work out how to edit out the first 4 or so minutes of it before i put it on a cd to play in the car.

the album is out on the day of the birthday of The King, Elvis Presley. and Derek's birthday, but i am sure it is being done on that day as a tribute to Him. yes, i will be going to HMV that day to buy it, even if it sounds worse than the first four minutes of this lead single.

did i buy the Adele album? no.




be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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