David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’ Scores Five Grammy Wins

David Bowie’s passing last year broke the hearts of millions of fans, so it’s understandable that music lovers would want to ensure they had their last piece of Bowie’s discography, his final album, Blackstar. As might have been expected of an artist like Bowie, someone who has rarely failed to deliver quality music, Blackstar has become a creative and financial success. Proving that Bowie gave us one final opus, Blackstar has topped financial success by earning five nominations and five wins in this year’s Grammy Awards.

The Grammys Honor David Bowie In The Best Way Possible

USA Today reports that David Bowie and his album, Blackstar, were excluded from the major categories at this year’s Grammy awards, but, in spite of that, Mr. Bowie was still a prominent winner in five categories. To receive five nominations is significant in itself, but David Bowie proved himself a true artist by claiming wins in all five of those categories, earning posthumous awards for the music on Blackstar.

Bowie won in four categories for the Grammy pre-show: best rock performance, best alternative music album, best engineered album, non-classical and best recording package. During the Grammy awards show, Bowie also won best rock song.

For best rock performance and best rock song, Bowie received the awards for the title song on his Blackstar album.

Bowie’s next most recent Grammy win was 32 years earlier. In 1985, David won in the category of best short-form video for Jazzin’ for Blue Jean.

In total, Mr. Bowie has received 12 Grammy nominations, spread across his 50-year career.

“This is his first music Grammy of any of his projects, so it’s kind of shocking” for someone who “had such an amazing presence in the business,” said sound engineer Kevin Killen. “But these things happen and I’m sure most of us that work in the business don’t necessarily think about getting awards. It’s just about the joy of making music and I’m sure it was for him, too.”

Mastering engineer Joe LaPorta adds that it has been a long time coming for David Bowie, echoing the sentiments of the Blackstar artist’s millions of fans and followers.

Lazarus Cast Honors David Bowie

One of David Bowie’s final projects was to create a musical, based on the song “Lazarus,” which debuted on his Blackstar album. Now, NME reports that in preparing a posthumous CD release of the songs created for that musical, the Lazarus cast opens up about working with the Blackstar artist on his final labor of love. The new LP, No Plan, will feature a small collection of songs from the Lazarus musical, which are “No Plan,” “When I Met You,” “Killing A Little Time,” and “Lazarus.”

Looking back on her experience with Bowie, Lazarus actress Sophia Anne Caruso says no one on the cast knew David’s health was deteriorating, though she admits she was concerned about his frequent absences. Additionally, Caruso says their Lazarus boss had grown thin and pale, having to spend much of his time sitting down.

Lazarus has run for two years on London stages, but it has now come to an end, leaving Caruso and others feeling bittersweet about closing out the successful run.

“After David died we had only one week left, then we finished the run before they offered me the chance to come over to London and do it,” recalls Ms. Caruso of extending her Lazarus run. “I had to come here to honour David and do it in his memory.”

As for the musical itself, the cast shares that it’s not a musical in the truest form and even the story is rather enigmatic with hidden meanings woven into the tale in true Bowie fashion.

“It was a big loss, and in doing the show there was a weight,” concludes Sophia. “I was looking for answers when we came back, and there were a lot of things in the show that suddenly became really clear to me. There were things that I’d never even noticed.”

David Bowie’s posthumous album, No Plan, is set to hit stores in CD format on February 24 with a vinyl format following on April 21. Pre-sale purchases for No Plan can be made on the official David Bowie website.

[Featured Image by Bryan Bedder/Getty Images]