David Bowie ‎– ★ (Blackstar)

I would buy the record if there was one great song on it. One great song is all it takes!

I bought this album a day or two before the release date at a local shop and have owned it since. Recently had to re-catalog it because I had picked the wrong version to add to my collection. I don't put it on too often because I really have to be in the mood to play it.

In any case, I played my copy again today to refresh my memory of the sound quality. There is some compression built into the recording itself - probably an artistic choice. The LP is cut at Sterling which is a legendary mastering house, and I think it sounds pretty good overall. Maybe not the best sounding record I own but very good sounding compared to a lot of recent albums.

I hear no IGD on my system and never have since I owned this record. I should mention I'm very sensitive to IGD in general. Then again I use decent equipment, mainly vintage Japanese direct drive turntables over the past few years and cartridges with advanced stylus profiles. My current rig is a Technics 1200MK7 with some minor modifications and an Audio Technica VM95ML for the cartridge. Phono preamp is a Graham Slee Reflex M with PSU-1.

If you are playing this record on one of those cheapo plastic junkboxes, you likely will hear some IGD. Likewise, if your cartridge is a crappy tracker/tracer and has a cheap bonded elliptical or conical diamond, do not expect perfect playback. IGD in these cases is the fault of your gear, NOT the record itself.

I suppose there are people out there that would have mastering engineers cut every record to sound good on the cheapest all-in-one turntables out there but it's not what many of us want. I'd rather the engineer cut the record to sound as good as possible on decent gear of reasonable quality.

I own a CD copy of this album and the year printed on the disc surface is 2015, so my release is missing among the known ones.

I heard this first on a train to Leeds the day after he died and spent the time trying (and failing) to hide my tears, both for the loss and for the incredible life force that runs through this record. Listen to the end of 'Ti's Pity She's A Whore and tell me it doesn't make your hairs stand on end. Talk about raging against the dying of the light. Just, wow.

This is a pretty decent pressing of Bowie's wonderful swan song album. The provided booklet is made of very nice material, and while hard to read has some excellent printing quality. The pressing quality itself sounds pretty average unfortunately. It gets the job done, but it definitely could've been made more dynamic.

Did anyone get this version and not get the booklet?