With the release of Blackstar on his 69th birthday, the enigmatic singer shows he has rediscovered his gift for strangeness 
 
 It was a horribly mundane way for such an otherworldly figure to vanish from public view. While performing at a festival in Scheeßel, Germany, on 25 June 2004, David Bowie began to experience pains in his arm and shoulder. What the singer thought was a trapped nerve turned out to be an acutely blocked artery requiring emergency angioplasty. What was dismaying was not so much that this beloved figure – the totem for generations of social, sexual and psychic outsiders – could fall so seriously ill but that Bowie could be human at all. 
 
 His subsequent disappearance from live performance has since evolved into one of the most fascinating vanishing acts in pop music. Bowie has not toured since his illness – his final performance to date was a three-song set at New York’s Hammerstein Ballroom in 2006 – and, predictably, conjecture has filled the vacuum of absence. Depending on who you listened to Bowie was either dying of lung cancer or he was healthy and happily watching SpongeBob SquarePants at home with Alexandria, his young daughter, and wife, the model Iman. There was simply no way to know. 
 
 Unsurprisingly, Bowie managed to parlay this enforced sabbatical into a uniquely effective career move. His stock rose hugely while he was away, turning anything he did into an event in its own right. The unexpected release of Where Are We Now? – his first new song in a decade, on his 66th birthday on 8 January 2013 – was such a surprise that reportedly even Bowie’s own PRs had not heard it until they were called upon to write a press release in the small hours of that very morning. Bowie has created a world where, just as in his 1970s pomp, everything he does is a news story. The exhaustive retrospective exhibition that followed, David Bowie Is …, at the V&A burnished his reputation further. 
 
 Now on Friday, the day he turns 69 comes Blackstar, his 26th album, which is as startling as anything he has done,taking in hip hop, Brechtian theatre and abstract jazz. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Bowie on stage at the Bercy in Paris in October 2003. Photograph: Bertrand Guay/AFP/Getty Images 
 
 “The layoff was a necessity that he turned into a benefit; it became part of the Bowie mystique,” says Paul Trynka, author of the acclaimed Bowie biography Starman and a former editor of Mojo magazine. “I actually think he’d been privately longing to go away for some time. Julian Temple [who directed Bowie in the movie Absolute Beginners] told me that even in the 80s Bowie wanted to perform a magnificent disappearing act – a magician’s trick. The heart attack forced that upon him, but it completely changed his fortunes. By not being as needy as the average pop star, that puts you on a hell of a pedestal.” 
 
 Bowie has plenty of past to escape. Born in Brixton in 1947 and raised in suburban Bromley – the son of waitress Peggy and nightclub owner turned Dr Barnardo’s promotions officer Haywood Jones – young David Jones attempted to insert himself into every one of post-rock’n’roll Britain’s ever-changing scenes before succeeding on his own terms. In today’s parlance, he was a try-hard. He adopted and discarded styles, musicians, managers and lovers with regularity. 
 
 When he finally broke through in 1972, it was as the shock-haired, rail-thin, androgynous alter-ego Ziggy Stardust, who remade rock’n’roll for the era. Henceforth pop would become a rallying point for the weird and the marginalised, a permanent outrage and – especially – succour to young people whose sexuality did not conform. 
 
 As Bowie discarded Ziggy for a succession of personae – the cadaverous, cocaine-addled soul boy of Young Americans, the austere European man-machine of his trilogy of Berlin albums – it became a cliche to describe him as a chameleon of pop. But this was to miss the point. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest David Bowie performs as Ziggy Stardust in Los Angeles in 1973. Photograph: Michael Ochs Archives/ Getty Images 
 
 “The idea that he puts on a mask simply to market what he’s done is mistaken,” says Trynka. “Actually, he creates the mask in order to make the art. A chameleon changes to mimic its background. Bowie forces the background to change to mimic him. His great achievement is not to market himself with a persona, it’s to create a persona with which to make art.” 
 
 His most globally successful album, 1983’s Let’s Dance, appeared to expose the “real” David Bowie, but it left Bowie the artist with nowhere to go. He subsequently fell into a steep creative decline. Whether trying to court an audience with the gauche stadium noise of Never Let Me Down or provoke it with his garage band Tin Machine, nothing seemed to work. 
 
 “All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience,” Bowie admitted to Paul du Noyer of The Word magazine in 2003, in one of his last interviews before disappearing. “My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.” 
 
 The Bowie that Du Noyer met had largely repaired his reputation with a landmark performance at Glastonbury in 2000 and a series of well-received albums. He was also well into his life as health-conscious New York homebody, rising at 6.30am, boxing three times a week and warding off cigarette pangs with minty herbal toothpicks. He talked of writing a novel about female trade unionists in the 1890s and of his love for his young daughter. “It’s not that work doesn’t seem a priority, but it puts it in perspective,” Bowie told Du Noyer, adding with ironic foresight, “You realise that working in front of a crowd is not a life-threatening situation.” 
 
 “He was as charming and polite as the best stage Englishman you could ever hope to meet in New York,” Du Noyer recalls. “The tragedy of David Bowie is that he’s spent his life adopting personae with the result that nobody quite believes him when he tries to do normal. Nowadays he might be every bit as ordinary as he wants us to think he is.” 
 
 His collaborators observe an impenetrable omertà backed up by strict non-disclosure agreements. This can be painful. “I was on the cover of the Christmas issue of Guitar Player magazine,” the long-time Bowie guitarist Earl Slick told Alexis Petridis in January 2013. “I’m making a new Bowie album and I can’t tell them anything.” 
 
 Even Bowie’s finest producer, Tony Visconti, who returned for The Next Day and Blackstar, works on a need-to-know basis. “Whenever he calls me it’s always a surprise because there’s no leading up to it, there’s no hint,” he told Mojo magazine this month. “It’s just ‘I’m ready’.” 
 
 David Bowie: Blackstar review – 'As a taster for the forthcoming album, it works perfectly' Read more 
 
 Which leaves us with only the music to go on. “There’s usually an inexorable drift to the centre as time goes on,” says Du Noyer. “Bob Dylan makes Christmas albums nowadays. Not so David Bowie. He’s rediscovered his gift for strangeness.” 
 
 In an overmediated time where social media robs everything of its mystery, Bowie’s obstinate refusal to play along is almost a work of art in itself. Sphinx-like, he may infuriate. But at least he’s consistent. “When I’m really famous,” he told a colleague in the 1960s, when the notion of young Davey Jones as a star of any importance seemed absurd, “I’m not going to talk to anyone. Not even the band.” Today, he is as good as his word. 
 
 David Bowie: fact file 
 
 Born: David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947 in Brixton 
 
 Career: Studied art and design at Bromley Technical high school (“a complete exhibitionist,” said his fifth year report. “If he were capable of continuous effort his ability would have been put to better use.”) Trainee commercial artist at advertising agency Nevin D Hirst in New Bond Street. Subsequently full-time musician, actor, dancer and househusband. 
 
 High point: Creating the single Heroes with Brian Eno in 1977. Inspired by the sight of producer Tony Visconti kissing his German girlfriend Antonia Maass by the Berlin Wall, the song became an anthem of individual freedom. Bowie performed the song at the wall in 1987: “We heard that a few East Berliners might get the chance to hear the thing, but we didn’t realise in what numbers,” he recalled. “It was one of the most emotional performances I’ve ever done. I was in tears.” He would later play the song at Paul McCartney’s post-9/11 Concert for New York in 2001. 
 
 Low point: A toe-curling version of Martha & The Vandellas’ Dancing in the Street, recorded with Mick Jagger for Live Aid. “The band started playing it and it sounded fucking awful,” lamented the record producer Alan Winstanley to Bowie biographer David Buckley. “I had my head in my hands thinking what the fuck is this?” 
 
 What he says: “The source of all my frustrations is hammering away at the same questions I’ve had since I was 19, this daunting spiritual search,” he told The Word magazine in 2003. “They’re continual questions and they seem to be the essence of what I’ve written over time. And I’m not going to stop.” 
 
 What they say: “Without David Bowie, popular music as we know it pretty much wouldn’t exist.” – Moby. ||||| A book of condolence for David Bowie has opened at Groningen’s museum following the shock news of the singer’s death from cancer. 
 
 The Groninger Museum is hosting a special David Bowie exhibition until March 13 as the last leg of the show’s European tour. Its website was temporarily unavailable on Monday morning because of the surge of interest in news about the artist. 
 
 A spokesman said later the Bowie exhibition would open specially from 12 noon until 6pm on Monday, but the rest of the museum is closed as usual. Visitors without tickets will be able to sign the book of condolence. 
 
 Train operator NS said a special Bowie carriage, redecorated for the exhibition, would continue to run on the line between Zwolle and Groningen in tribute. ‘We think this will allow us to offer something more to fans who want to remember Bowie in a good and respectful way.’ 
 
 Theatre 
 
 Distraught fans around the world flocked to social media following the announcement that Bowie had died at the age of 69, 18 months after being diagnosed with cancer. His illness had not previously been made public. 
 
 Belgian theatre director Ivo van Hove worked with the British musician on his last stage musical, Lazarus, in New York. ‘Bowie was still writing on his deathbed, you could say,’ Van Hove told NPO Radio 4. ‘I saw a man fighting. He fought like a lion and kept working like a lion through it all. I had incredible respect for that.’ 
 
 Van Hove, who says Bowie was suffering from liver cancer, was one of the few people who knew about the singer’s illness, after Bowie explained to him why he would not always be able to attend rehearsals. He was with Bowie at the premiere of Lazarus last month, one of the singer’s last public appearances. 
 
 Very sorry and sad to say it’s true. I’ll be offline for a while. Love to all. pic.twitter.com/Kh2fq3tf9m — Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 11, 2016 
 
 Bowie’s death was announced by his son, Duncan Jones, on Sunday, two days after the singer marked his 69th birthday with the release of his latest album, Blackstar. ‘David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer,’ Jones wrote on Twitter. ||||| In the video for David Bowie’s “Lazarus,” released last week, the mythic singer and rock ’n’ roll shape-shifter, ever thin but bordering on gaunt, is blindfolded and writhing in a hospital bed. “Look up here, I’m in heaven,” he sings. “I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.” In the end, a shaking Mr. Bowie retreats backward into a darkened armoire. 
 
 Mr. Bowie, who in his 50-year career reimagined the worlds of pop music, art and fashion, told very few people about the cancer that preceded his death on Sunday, at 69, a year and a half after his diagnosis. Even those working closely with him on a sudden burst of new projects were surprised to learn he had been dying. 
 
 At the same time, it turns out, he was telling everyone through his art. 
 
 In recent months, after years of relative silence, Mr. Bowie went on a prodigious streak, inspired in part by his fading health, according to the few people who knew. His formidable artistic output included a musical featuring new and revamped songs; “Blackstar,” a vibrant jazz-inspired album (his 25th over all); and two epic music videos that addressed death head-on. 
 
 Only now, with hindsight, does the scope of Mr. Bowie’s oracular farewell become clear: His latest works were haunting, conflicted and not entirely subtle — both the Off Broadway show he co-wrote and a new song are named “Lazarus,” for the biblical figure brought back from the dead. ||||| Music 
 
 Replay Video Icon Bowie fans bring flowers to Brixton Fans gather in Brixton, London, the birth place of iconic rock star David Bowie, to mourn his passing and celebrate his life. PT1M45S http://www.smh.com.au/action/externalEmbeddedPlayer?id=d-48wb4 620 349 January 12, 2016 
 
 Of course no one knew he was dying. No one outside his close circle anyway. And of course it all makes sense now. 
 
 That's how David Bowie has operated for the past three years, since his "return" with the powerful, elegiac single about memory and farewell, Where Are We Now?, then the album The Next Day, and now his final statement, Blackstar. 
 
 David Bowie wall, Brixton, London. 
 
 In 2012, his record company didn't know he had a new album - his first in a decade – until he handed The Next Day over. His producer Tony Visconti, who had worked on many of Bowie's key albums of the 1970s and '80s, and the musicians on it were sworn to secrecy. No one blabbed, caught him on a camera phone or dropped a hint in an online post – astonishing in a gossip-filled world. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 The label, the industry, everyone, had assumed Bowie retired after his heart attack and the cancellation of his world tour in 2004. He never spoke about it. He didn't do interviews any more. 
 
 Then on his birthday, January 8, he released Where Are We Now?, its filmclip amplifying the song's recollection of Bowie's life in Berlin in the late 1970s where he recovered and rebuilt after a wild, brilliant and damaging ride. 
 
 It looked like a farewell and sounded like it, especially when the subsequent album had songs touching stylistically on many parts of his career. Even though The Next Day was about more than reminiscence and regrets – it's there in the title after all: he was always looking to the next thing, the next day - there was a sense that if he was going to stop this was a fine wrap-up of a career. 
 
 But now we know that Visconti and Bowie began work almost straight away on his next project, drafting in musicians Bowie had discovered in his regular visits to the jazz clubs and avant garde rooms of New York. Again the label knew nothing until late in 2015 they were told this new record, Blackstar, a jazz-influenced, art music-shaped and in many ways difficult one, would be released on his birthday once more. He told them which songs would come out when, gave them the filmclips and left them to it. 
 
 There would be no interviews, of course, but this time he approved Visconti and the musicians talking. Yet here again, what they told us was what he wanted. Bowie was healthy and strong; he was looking forward; who knows maybe he would play a concert or two. The intimations of suffering and death in the new songs, like Lazarus? Well, there were complex thoughts in these songs and hadn't Bowie always sung about death? Remember he had sung Jacques Brel's My Death at the "last" gig for Ziggy Stardust in 1973, a piece of conceptual art as much as showbiz. 
 
 Only after the news of his death was announced, to the surprise of his label – certainly in Australia but everywhere really – did Visconti confirm that Blackstar had been conceived as the farewell, a "parting gift". Those lyrics really were about acceptance of his fate and a last exchange of ideas with us about identity and communication and love and loss and change. Everything he'd always sung about, just this time for the last time. 
 
 The type of cancer that ultimately led to Bowie's death is yet unknown, but conflicting reports are beginning to emerge. 
 
 A Facebook post on his official account revealed he died peacefully "surrounded by his family after a courageous 18-month battle with cancer." 
 
 "While many of you will share in this loss, we ask that you respect the family's privacy during their time of grief," the post said. 
 
 Belgian theatre direct Ivo van Hove worked with the singer on Lazarus, his last stage musical in New York. 
 
 
 
 During this period, van Hove told Dutch radio station NPO Radio 4, the British singer was "still writing on his deathbed," as he suffered from liver cancer. 
 
 "I saw a man fighting. He fought like a lion and kept working like a lion through it all. I had incredible respect for that." 
 
 According to DutchNews.nl, van Hove was one of the few people who knew about Bowie's illness. 
 
 However contrasting rumours, like that in The Guardian early this month, suggest the singer was suffering not from liver cancer, but lung cancer. The article noted that the secrecy Bowie maintained meant there was no way to confirm the rumours. 
 
 Former biographer of Bowie, Wendy Leigh said the singer had suffered six heart attacks in the years leading up to his final album. 
 
 "I got this from somebody very close to him," she told BBC News.
– Few details are known about David Bowie's death Sunday—his family has not revealed where he died or even what type of cancer he had, and, as the New York Times reports, even some people who had been working closely with Bowie on his latest projects didn't know he was dying. One of the few collaborators Bowie did tell was Ivo van Hove, the director of Lazarus, a stage musical Bowie co-wrote that's playing at the New York Theatre Workshop until Jan. 20. Van Hove says Bowie told him about his illness during the early stages of working on the show, in November 2014, and asked him to keep the information secret. "It was immediately clear it was very serious," says van Hove, who kept his promise and didn't disclose the information to anyone else before Bowie's death. (Van Hove told a Dutch radio station that Bowie had liver cancer, though rumors floating around before his death suggested lung cancer.) What is clear is that Bowie's "sudden burst of new projects," as the Times puts it, was likely meant as a farewell, as both the Times and the Sydney Morning Herald report. Bowie had basically vanished from public view after a heart attack in 2004, then released a "powerful, elegiac single about memory and farewell" three years ago, the Herald notes; even the video for "Where Are We Now?" "looked like a farewell and sounded like it," the Herald notes. Bowie surprised his record company with both of his final two albums, The Next Day in 2013 and Blackstar this year, in both cases swearing his producer and the musicians he worked with to secrecy until the album was delivered to the label. It wasn't until after Bowie's death that his producer confirmed Blackstar was meant as a "parting gift" from Bowie. Lazarus, the musical, also makes more sense in retrospect: Says the artistic director of the workshop, "What seemed not too long ago intriguingly complicated, ambiguous, and opaque now seems pretty clear: a man who was yearning for immortality."