We lost quite a few great musicians in 2016. Prince. Leonard Cohen. Sharon Jones. Phife Dawg. And Bowie. David fucking Bowie. I can’t say his death was the hardest to take. They were all difficult. But it wasn’t easy, that’s for sure.

He presented himself to us as a pure entertainer, his life for the stage, and Bowie orchestrated his death in exactly that same way. He released ★ (aka Blackstar), his 25th album, on his 69th birthday, January 8, 2016. Two days later he died of complications from liver cancer, something he’d been secretly battling for a year and a half. From Tony Visconti, the coproducer of the album:

“He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different from his life — a work of art. He made ★ for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn’t, however, prepared for it. He was an extraordinary man, full of love and life. He will always be with us. For now, it is appropriate to cry.”

This is a sad, exhausting album. The sadness comes from the overt lyrics, which Bowie wrote about the experience of cancer treatment and impending death. The exhaustion comes from knowing what Bowie must have been feeling, himself, as he wrote it, which comes through in every slow tempo, every bass beat. It’s the perfect counter to the previous album on the countdown, Farewell, Starlite! Sure, there are many albums I’d reach for to memorialize Bowie by before reaching for this one, but ★ is still the perfect swan song, and I can’t recommend it enough.

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21. Farewell, Starlite! by Francis and the Lights
22. This Unruly Mess I’ve Made by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
23. LNZNDRF by LNZNDRF
24. Puberty 2 by Mitski
25. Light Upon the Lake by Whitney
26. A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise
27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations

My love of electronic music has waned since its heyday in the mid-90s (back when we called it “techno”), but there are a few acts from that time that still get me excited when they release a new album. The Chemical Brothers are one such act, and they’ve just released their eigth studio album, Born in the Echoes.

I’m only just now listening to it for the first time, but if the rest of the album is as good as “Go” (don’t judge a song by its video), then it’s definitely going to be one of the year’s best. In addition to Q-Tip (from A Tribe Called Quest), Beck and Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent) make notable appearances on the album.

In the 90s (when I was a poor college student) I would have had to wait until I found this album in the used-CD bins at the local record shop, to which every trip meant leaving with a stack of new music in my hot little hands. Nowadays the equivalent is a flurry of album purchases on a single day, monthly or so. It’s not the same, and I long for the days of rifling through the used sections, but who has room or need for all that plastic? Not me. But a new Chemical Brothers album? Hell yes.

#20 on the 2016 Bacon Top 31

The Chemical Brothers — Go