Producer Tony Visconti has revealed that David Bowie was inspired by Kendrick Lamar while recording his 25th album, ★ (Blackstar), which is set to be released on January 8, 2016 — Bowie’s 69th birthday.
“We were listening to a lot of Kendrick Lamar,” Visconti told Rolling Stone. “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,” the producer said, explaining that, “The goal, in many, many ways, was to avoid rock & roll”.
Visconti revealed that the first track to be released from ★ — the 10-minute epic Blackstar that arrived with a dark and mysterious video last week — was originally two songs that became one. He explains that the original cut was 11 minutes long, but once Bowie discovered that Apple will not post tracks over 10 minutes on iTunes, they cut it down to 9:57. “It’s total bullshit,” says Visconti, “But David was adamant it be the single, and he didn’t want both an album version and a single version, since that gets confusing”.
Visconti also revealed that James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem fame has contributed to the record, and cleared up rumors about Bowie’s health, saying, “He’s in fine health. He’s just made a very rigorous album”.