Mark Kozelek – “Win” (Feat. Mike Patton) (David Bowie Cover)

Mark Kozelek has announced an all-covers album called Mark Kozelek Sings Favorites, which will be out this spring. The LP features Kozelek singing songs by artists including Modest Mouse, Bob Seger, and Waylon Jennings, accompanied solely by piano and a few guest singers like Faith No More’s Mike Patton and Low’s Mimi Parker. As a first taste, he’s shared his version of David Bowie’s Young Americans track “Win” with backing vocals from Patton, who also sings on 10CC’s “I’m Not In Love.” Listen over on Kozelek’s official website here (or below) and check out the rest of the tracklist below.

Greg Dulli – “Modern Love” (David Bowie Cover)

The Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli is getting ready to embark on a solo tour of Europe and North America, playing songs from across his career in smaller venues. The recent passing of David Bowie moved him to shared a wizened, mostly-acoustic take on “Modern Love,” Bowie’s classic 1983 new-wave soul single. Dulli’s take on the song is scorched and intense, with a few strings there to lift things up on the chorus. Use the widget below to stream or download it.

Watch Chris Stapleton Perform & Fred Armisen’s David Bowie Tribute On SNL

Mountain-man country star Chris Stapleton was the musical guest on past weekend’s Adam Driver-hosted episode of Saturday Night Live, where he performed “Parachute” and “Nobody To Blame” off of his debut album Traveller. The episode also featured a tribute to the late David Bowie, with former cast member Fred Armisen appearing to introduce footage of Bowie’s 1979 SNL performance of “The Man Who Sold The World.” Armisen spoke of how the performance impacted him personally. “When I was in high school and living in Long Island, I stayed up to see David Bowie play on Saturday Night Live. Watching him, for me, was a life-changing experience. David Bowie transformed whatever space he was in, whatever medium he was using, and that night for me, he transformed live television.” Watch below.

Doveman – “Lazarus” (Feat. Glen Hansard) (David Bowie Cover)

A whole lot of musicians are having a whole lot of feelings about David Bowie’s passing right about now, We’ve already gotten Bowie covers from the likes of EL VY and Britt Daniel, and now pianist/singer Thomas Bartlett, aka Doveman, has given us another. While most of the tributes we’ve heard have been covers of Bowie’s older work, artists honoring their all-time favorite songs, Bartlett instead chose to take on “Lazarus,” the smoky, haunting Blackstar lead single. Frequent collaborator Glen Hansard provides “harmony + moral support,” and Alec Bemis produces. Listen below.

Britt Daniel – “Never Let Me Down” (David Bowie Cover)

Spoon frontman Britt Daniel shared an acoustic cover of “Never Let Me Down,” off of David Bowie’s 1987 album of the same name. Daniel’s changed the lyrics a bit in this version to serve as an ode to the artist, subbing in “You never let me down” for the usual refrain. Listen below.

Watch EL VY Cover David Bowie’s “Let’s Dance” On Stephen Colbert

EL VY, the side project from the National’s Matt Berninger and Menomena’s Brent Knopf, stopped by the Late Show With Stephen Colbert Monday. They performed a nice version of the title track from their debut album Return To The Moon. They were not just done yet as they teamed up with Jon Batiste And Stay Human, Colbert’s house band, to cover David Bowie’s 1983 dance-rock megahit “Let’s Dance,” as a tribute to Bowie’s passing yesterday. Watch below.

The Final Album: David Bowie ★ (Blackstar)

David Bowie has passed away in mere days after celebrating his 69th birthday and releasing his 25th and his final album ★ (Blackstar). “The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock and roll.” That’s how Tony Visconti, Bowie’s longtime producer, describes the thought process behind Blackstar, Bowie’s new album. Over a five-decade career, Bowie has played around with genre more than maybe any other musician of his caliber. But he is still one of the foundational voices of rock and roll — not one of the first to do it, of course, but one of the voices to show new directions in which the music could drift. Every singer trying to find space for operatic theatricality in rock music is, in some sense or another, a Bowie acolyte; it doesn’t matter if they’re in of Montreal or in Evanescence. And every Bowie album is a rock album — including the soul album, the early-’80s dance-pop album, the drum-and-bass album, and all the various way-out experimental albums. So hearing that a Bowie album is trying to avoid rock and roll is like hearing that there’s a new Star Wars movie and it’s trying to avoid sci-fi. And somehow, Bowie did it. I’m not exactly sure what Blackstar is, but it doesn’t feel like a rock album.

In that same quote, Visconti mentions an unexpected precedent for what Bowie is doing here: Kendrick Lamar’s To Pimp A Butterfly: “We wound up with nothing like that, but we loved the fact 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.” Actually, what Bowie does on Blackstar is, in a lot of ways, remarkably similar to what Kendrick did on TPAB. He’s found ways to break the mold by bringing in a battalion of expressive jazz musicians to help him with these expansive meditations, these wild and all-over-the-place tracks that could be about everything and nothing. These albums don’t mute the voices of their primary vocalists, but they do find new ways to cast those voices, new contexts for them.

But Visconti is right, of course, that Blackstar sounds nothing like To Pimp A Butterfly (an album that actually has way more right to the title Blackstar). As awesome as it might be to hear what Bowie could do with Thundercat and Kamasi Washington, those aren’t the kind of jazz musicians he’s working with here. Instead, Bowie’s sidemen on Blackstar are New York guys like Donny McCaslin and Ben Monder. I know precisely jack shit about contemporary jazz, but the work these guys do on Blackstar isn’t the sort of bold expressionist honking you hear on TPAB. Instead, the Blackstar band broods cinematically, droning evocatively in the background and coming up with all these weird little countermelodies. They’re about churn, not explosiveness.

And Bowie is about churn, too. He’s not trying to write catchy vocal melodies this time, even though he showed on his 2013’s The Next Day, that he’s still plenty capable of pulling that off. He does bring the occasional big hook, as on “Lazarus,” “Look up here, I’m in heaven,” he sings over the forlorn wail of a saxophone. “I’ve got scars that can't be seen.” “I’m in danger / I’ve got nothing left to lose,” he sings in “Lazarus.” “This way or no way / You know, I’ll be free.” In the video for the song, Bowie lies in what looks like a shabby hospital bed, bandages over his eyes, straining his frail body upward. For fans, listening to the song or watching the video is a surreal experience. It’s hard not to wonder: Was this Bowie saying goodbye?.

You need that charisma for something like “‘Tis A Pity She Was A Whore,” a song that doesn’t even qualify as problematic because who in the fuck even knows what it’s about. Lyrically as well as musically, Bowie is in full-on elder-god enigma mode throughout the album. The title track is maybe possibly about ISIS or maybe not; nobody seems to agree. It does, however, contain maybe the best diss line Bowie has ever written: “You’re a flash in the pan / I’m the Great I Am.” Meanwhile, on “Lazarus,” Bowie sings about being so high he drops his phone in the toilet, an image so concrete and relatable that it feels deeply weird to hear this shadow-master singing it. (The exact line is “dropped my cell phone down below,” but we all know what that means.) Then, a verse later, it’s “By the time I got to New York, I was living like a king / I used up all my money / I was looking for your ass.” No further context means we’re forced to confront the question of whose ass he’s talking about.

But then, maybe it’s beside the point what the album is about. It could be a drawn-out look at aging and death, or it could merely be an old trickster relishing his power to confuse us. Blackstar isn’t one of Bowie’s best albums — he’s got too many great ones for us to consider giving it that distinction — but the mere fact that it exists feels like some kind of miracle. They sound nothing alike, and they’re not even close in quality, but Blackstar is a gooey, head-blown freakout on the level of the second half of Low. Some parts sound like the score to Lawrence Of Arabia, and other parts have brittle electro drums that presumably come from James Murphy. The album isn’t remotely self-referential, but “Sue (Or Is A Season Of Crime)” does bring back the drum-and-bass percussion of Bowie’s not-all-that-well-remembered mid-’90s era, even if a flesh-and-blood human is playing those rushing breakbeats this time. The whole album is messily expansive and compact at the same time. The songs are long and decentered and structure-free. But there are only seven of them, and the album is over in 40 minutes. Within those 40 minutes, there is so much happening. I’ve only been living with Blackstar a few days, but it’s already a grand puzzle, and I can’t imagine I’ll figure it out anytime soon. It’s a rare case: An artist giving us that instant “what the fuck?” reaction and then convincing us to stay around long enough to learn that there’s no answer.

★ is out now via ISO/Columbia. Buy it on iTunes/Amazon.

David Bowie: Website | Facebook | Twitter

R.I.P. David Bowie

Photo Credit: Michael Ochs/Getty Images

Iconic rock legends David Bowie died yesterday. Bowie’s Facebook page made the announcement this morning: Bowie had been fighting cancer for 18 months, and he died “peacefully” while surrounded by family. He turned 69 on Friday, the same day that he released his final album, ★ (Blackstar). Bowie’s son, the film director Duncan Jones, confirmed Bowie’s death on Twitter this morning, posting a photo of his infant self with Bowie and writing, “very sorry and sad to say it’s true.”

Album Stream: David Bowie ★ (Blackstar)

Today is David Bowie’s 69th Birthday and he gave us a present: his stunning new album ★ (Blackstar) is out today. It’s Bowie’s 25th full-length album and one of Bowie’s most aggressively experimental records ever. Cut with a small combo of jazz musicians whose sound is wreathed in arctic electronics, Blackstar ricochets with textural eccentricity, but above all remains, like the singer himself, clear, elegant and emphatic. Listen to all the track of the album below.

David Bowie – “Lazarus” Music Video

After a few teased of his upcoming video, David Bowie shared a full official video for “Lazarus,” a follow-up to lead single “Blackstar” off his tomorrow release ★ (pronounced as Blackstar) album. The video directed by Johan Renck, who also directed the 10-minute short film for the album’s title track, commented on the experience of visually interpreting both songs:

“One could only dream about collaborating with a mind like that; let alone twice. Intuitive, playful, mysterious and profound... I have no desire to do any more videos knowing the process never ever gets as formidable and fulfilling as this was. I’ve basically touched the sun.”

Watch the video below.

Watch A Teaser For David Bowie’s “Lazarus” Video

Later this week, David Bowie will release his new album ★ (pronounced as Blackstar). A couple months ago, Bowie released a video for the title track and now he’s got another one on deck. Few weeks ago, Bowie teased it by shared a photo outtake from the upcoming video “Lazarus” that will premiere later this week. On his Facebook page, Bowie shared a short teaser for the video show Bowie, in bed in a tiled hospital room, wearing a blindfold with eyeholes in it. Watch the teaser below.

See Photo From Upcoming David Bowie’s “Lazarus” Video

Last week, David Bowie released “Lazarus,” a second single from his upcoming new next year release album ★ (known as Blackstar,). The song also performed live on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert shortly after it released by Michael C. Hall, a lead actor of Bowie’s new Off Broadway musical Lazarus since Bowie himself appears determined to never perform live again. Today, Bowie teased a photo outtake from the upcoming music video for “Lazarus.” Check it out below.

Watch Michael C. Hall Sing David Bowie’s “Lazarus” On Stephen Colbert

David Bowie has shared a second song off his forthcoming new album ★, “Lazarus.” The song also appears in Bowie’s new Off Broadway musical Lazarus. In the play, the former Dexter star Michael C. Hall plays the lead. And last night, Hall appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Thursday to sing “Lazarus.” Since Bowie himself appears determined to never perform live again, this is probably the closest thing to a Bowie performance on late-night TV. Watch the performance below.

David Bowie – “Lazarus”

A month ago, David Bowie shared the video for the title track of his forthcoming new next year release album ★ (known as Blackstar,) Bowie took us to a majestic six-minute song “Lazarus.”  The official video for the song will be premiere on Jan 7th next year. First, listen “Lazarus” in the video below.

David Bowie – “Blackstar”

In very early next year, David Bowie is releasing a follow up to his 2013 album The Next Day with the new full-length album, ★ (or pronounced as Blackstar.) We’ve already heard a snippet of its first track “Blackstar” which featured in the opening title credits for new TV series The Last Panthers. And now, Bowie shared an official full version of the track accompanied by a short film shot by Johan Renck, the director of the series. Listen “Blackstar” in its short film below.

Hear Two-Minute Preview Of David Bowie’s “Blackstar” From The Last Panthers TV Series

By The Audio Mug | November 10, 2015

Last month, David Bowie shared an extract from “Blackstar,” the title track of his forthcoming album. The snippet will soundtrack the opening credits of a six-part crime thriller produced by Canal+/Sky Atlantic TV show The Last Panthers. Now, to mark the show’s launch this week, Sky Atlantic has shared an extended, two-minute preview of the track. Listen below.

Hear A Snippet Of David Bowie New Song From The Last Panthers TV Series

By The Audio Mug | October 6, 2015

David Bowie has recorded new original music for an upcoming TV series, with the theme song now airing online. Bowie has provided the title-track for The Last Panthers, a six-part crime thriller co-produced by Sky and France’s Canal+. The song will serve as the show’s theme music, soundtracking the opening credits of each episode. Listen in the video below.

[WATCH] David Bowie – “I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix)” Music Video

Music video by David Bowie performing “I’d Rather Be High (Venetian Mix)” from the expanded edition of his recent album The Next Day, The Next Day Extra which contained 3-disc collector’s edition includes 2 CDs and a DVD. The video directed by Tom Hingston, and contained a raw footage taken from World War I. Watch the video below:

The Next Day Extra is out now via ISO/Columbia. Buy on iTunes/Amazon

David Bowie: Website | Facebook | Twitter

[WATCH] David Bowie – “Love Is Lost” (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy) 10 Minutes Version

Music video by David Bowie performing “Love Is Lost” from his expanded edition of his recent album The Next Day. The 10-minute remix song remixed by LCD Soundsystem’s man James Murphy this time get the 10-minutes video too after released the first version before. Directed by Barnaby Jones, watch the video below:

The Next Day Extra is out now via ISO/Columbia. Buy on iTunes/Amazon

David Bowie: Website | Facebook | Twitter

[WATCH] David Bowie – “Love Is Lost” (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy) Music Video

Music video by David Bowie performing “Love Is Lost” from forthcoming expanded edition of his recent album The Next Day, The Next Day Extra. The expanded edition contained 3-disc collector’s edition includes 2 CDs and a DVD. The first disc is the original 14-track album while second is a 10-track CD comprising the deluxe edition bonus tracks. The DVD includes the four promotional music videos (“Where Are We Now?,” “The Stars (Are Out Tonight),” “The Next Day,” and “Valentine’s Day.”) “Love Is Lost” remixed by LCD Soundsystem’s man James Murphy, watch the video below:

The Next Day Extra is out on 11/5/2013 via ISO/Columbia. Buy on iTunes/Amazon

David Bowie: Website | Facebook | Twitter