When David Bowie’s forthcoming LP Blackstar was announced last month, my colleague Sharan Shetty suggested that the jazz-infused album might turn out to be the legendary rocker’s strangest work yet (which is saying something): It’s rumored to be inspired by ’70s German bands Can and Kraftwerk, and to feature Gregorian chants.
The video for the title song has now arrived, and it is indeed incredibly strange—shirtless men eerily convulse over a pulsing beat and haunting saxophone; a young woman with a tail peeking out from under her long white dress carries a bejeweled skull on a dark set that may call the world of Labyrinth; human scarecrows writhe on their stands. Along with the track, in which Bowie sings that he’s not a gangster, not a pop star, not a film star (he’s a blackstar), the video takes you on a weird, visual journey you won’t soon forget. The album will be released on Jan. 8.
