10 Amazing Final Albums From Legendary Artists
6. David Bowie - Blackstar
It would be easier to compile a list of contemporary artists that haven't been impacted by David Bowie than to try to make a full assessment of his incomprehensible effect on the creative world around us.
Hiding his battle with liver cancer from everyone outside his inner circle, the man that seamlessly morphed from a simple folk singer to Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and The Thin White Duke throughout an unparalleled career even turned his impending death into a magnificent piece of work.
In hindsight, the writing was on the wall from the very start. the video for the album's title track depicting the corpse of Major Tom and its bejewelled skull stranded in a faraway land, Bowie writhing in a hospital bed and wistfully casting his mind to the days before he had 'scars that can't be seen' in 'Lazarus'; perhaps none of us wished to register that a man who seemed so far removed from mere flesh and bone could truly be departing from the ranks of the living.
A fusion of jazz, post-punk and typically forward-thinking electronic beats, the 'nadsat' based 'Girl Loves Me' and its telling closer 'I Can't Give Everything Away' stand out as the highlights within a fitting end to his years of innovation.