David Bowie's 'Blackstar' Trivia Quiz

Answer: An astronaut

Bowie's obsession and reverence for space spanned his entire musical career. 'Life on Mars', 'Moonage Daydream', 'Hello Spaceboy' 'Starman'... the list goes on. However, his most famous space creation, 'Space Oddity' (1969) was his first UK top 5 hit.
In 2013, the song was covered in space! Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sang his own version whilst on the International Space Station, making 'Space Oddity' the first video to be shot outside planet Earth!

Answer: Dude

'Tis a Pity She Was a Whore' takes its name from John Ford's Jacobean dark tragedy first performed in 1629 at London's Cockpit Theatre. Bowie's take is a nod to the bleakness of World War One, and he described the song as "If Vorticists [followers of a British Cubist movement 1914-15] wrote rock music it might have sounded like this."

Answer: Lazarus

With its opening line of "Look up here, I'm in heaven", and the lyrics, "This way or no way, you know I'll be free" in one of the verses, 'Lazarus' is full of lyrical imagery, apparently alluding to Bowie's impending death.

Answer: Maria Schneider

Maria Schneider won a Grammy award for Best Arrangement, Instruments and Vocals for her work on Bowie's 'Sue (or In a Season of Crime)'. The multi-talented Schneider and her orchestra also won a 2016 Grammy for 'The Thompson Fields' - a jazz collection named after a Minnesota farm where she used to play as a child.

Answer: Nadsat

Bowie has used Burgess' Nadsat before - the fictional, hybrid Russian-American argot can be heard in 'Suffragette City' (1972) when he sings, "Oh droogie don't crash here!"

'Droog' is Nadsat for 'Friend'.

Answer: Jazz

Blackstar features a backing band of jazz musicians led by the American saxophonist Donny McCaslin. The group recorded their parts in a studio in New York City between January and March 2015, with McCaslin saying of the experience, "It was in many ways a dream come true, although I'm not sure I could have dreamed of such a thing."

Answer: 138

Although 'Dollar Days' didn't make a huge impact on the UK singles chart, this ballad is beautiful. Written in the studio near his New York home, Bowie wistfully reflects on his self-imposed exile from his roots, singing, "If I never see the English evergreens I'm running to," and ends with a message to his friends, fans and family: "I'm falling down. Don't believe for just one second I'm forgetting you."

Answer: Tony Visconti

Bowie and Visconti's creative relationship spanned almost five decades - Visconti first collaborated with Bowie on his 1969 masterpiece 'Space Oddity' and went on to work on eleven of his friend's studio albums.

Tony Visconti described the death of Bowie as, "Just about the worst day of my life."

Answer: I Can't Give Everything Away

Whilst recording Blackstar, Bowie was also secretly working on a musical production entitled 'Lazarus'. First performed in December, 2015, at the small 200-seat New York Theatre Workshop in Manhattan, tickets sold out within hours of going on sale.

Bowie's last public appearance was at the opening night of the production.

Answer: It does not feature Bowie's image.

The artwork on Blackstar was designed by Jonathan Barnbrook - another long-time friend of Bowie's. This British graphic designer also created the covers for the 2002 album Heathen and 2003's Reality, as well as designing the graphics for the Victoria & Albert Museum's highly successful exhibition, 'David Bowie Is' in 2013.