By: Declan Hertel
Entertainment Editor

There is no one else in the world I could think of who could be so deeply abnormal as to turn their own death into a piece of art. But David Bowie certainly was and it puts an impossibly perfect cap onto an excellent and diverse career.

I listened to the first half of “★” (pronounced “Blackstar”) when it came out, and was very impressed by it. The spacey, dark electronic sounds of the title track were a surprise to me, but much like the other weird parts of Bowie’s repertoire, it scratched an itch I didn’t know I had before I heard it.

The third track, “Lazarus,” stood out as another gem, not least because of the music video that accompanied it. The song’s first lyrics are “Look up here, I’m in heaven / I’ve got stars that can’t be seen / I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen / Everybody knows me now.”

In retrospect, it should have been painfully obvious. But there are some people who are so iconic, so ubiquitous, so seemingly immortal that we all begin to believe that they’re immortal.
Upon hearing the news of his death, I immediately set to listening to “★” again. It was as obvious as it should have been at first: David Bowie had, absolutely and intentionally, given us a parting gift: one last hurrah. And it was glorious in the purest form of the word.

Bowie created a piece of performance art out of his death, one that I will be forever thankful I was able to experience. He released an album, gave us two days to process it, and then died, revealing its true genius and meaning. While I think the album is great purely on musical merit, it had a higher, ethereal level of greatness that only became clear after he passed, and will never be experienced again in the same way. It’s a work of art that existed to those who heard the album before he died, and only to them. It lasted for a short time and now is just a memory. I’m still kind of reeling from the whole thing.

David Bowie, you were a great artist who inspired many, including myself, and told us all that it’s totally cool to be an oddity, because he knew what it was like to be one. I’ll leave you with my favorite of his lyrics:

“These children that you spit on / As they try to change their world / Are immune to your consultations / They’re quite aware what they’re going through.”
Goodbye, David Bowie. The stars look very different today.