★ Blackstar

Very smart clean vinyl with a very nice crisp gatefold cover.

★^[1] (pronounced and stylised as Blackstar) is the twenty-fifth and final studio album by the English musician David Bowie. It was released worldwide through ISO, RCA, Columbia, and Sony on 8 January 2016, coinciding with Bowie's 69th birthday. The album was largely recorded in secret between The Magic Shop and Human Worldwide Studios in New York City with Bowie's longtime co-producer Tony Visconti and a group of local jazz musicians.^[2][3]

Two days after its release, Bowie died of liver cancer; his illness had not been revealed to the public until then. Co-producer Visconti described the album as Bowie's intended swan song and a "parting gift" for his fans before his death.^[4] Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim and commercial success, topping charts in a number of countries in the wake of Bowie's death, and becoming Bowie's only album to top the Billboard 200 in the United States.^[5] The album remained at the number-one position in the UK charts for three weeks.^[6]

At the 59th Annual Grammy Awards, the album won awards for Best Alternative Music Album; Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical; Best Recording Package, and the title single won Best Rock Performance, and Best Rock Song.^[7] The album was also awarded the British Album of the Year award at the 2017 Brit Awards, and Metacritic named it the most critically acclaimed album of the year by music publications.^[8]