I’ll admit, it took me a minute to work up the nerve to listen to ★ (pronounced “Blackstar”).

I love David Bowie. He was an icon, an artist beyond compare and revolutionary for his time. In the 70s, he exploded onto the scene, this strange, androgynous figure who went on stage wearing makeup and women’s clothes some nights, other nights more subdued, more “normal.” He released a whopping 26 albums over the course of his life, all the way up until the weekend he died. The fact that this is his last album makes me choke up, just a little bit, with the sort of grief that any musician would feel for the passing of a great artist.

This is starting to sound like an obituary—that’s not my intent. I’m here to talk about ★, not about Bowie’s life.

The two are undeniably interconnected, however. Any final album is the lasting impression a musician will leave on the world, and with this album releasing so close to his death, I can’t listen to the music without thinking about what an incredible man Bowie was.

According to Rolling Stone, Bowie put everything he had into recording this album. He would sing for hours on end for tough, long recording sessions, and, according to drummer Mark Guiliana, “his vocal performances were always just stunning, amazing.”

They also listened exclusively to the widely acclaimed Kendrick Lamar album “To Pimp a Butterfly” in the studio. In the same Rolling Stone article, they said they did this because they wanted to avoid being too rock-and-roll.

This work shows. The hip-hop and rap fusion influence from Lamar’s equally incredible album is evident in the mind-blowing tracks that make up ★. The album is endlessly dizzying, Bowie’s unmistakable voice filtering over a ghostly jazz-hip-hop-rock fusion that I really can’t put into one genre.

For the album, Bowie re-recorded two tracks, “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore,” originally a non-album single, and “Sue (Or In a Season of Crime)” from the 2014 compilation album “Nothing has Changed.”

Both tracks received a face lift, with new saxophone tracks and remastered vocals. I had never heard the songs before, so my first time listening to them was listening to ★, but I have to say, I fell in love. After going back and listening to the old versions, they were both good in both incarnations, but I can understand why they were re-recorded—now, they are undeniably a part of ★.

I’ll admit, Bowie can be an acquired taste. If you aren’t interested in a trance-like listening experience, or if you’re looking for an album to listen to casually, ★ might not be the one for you. It definitely took up my whole mind when I was listening to it, fully engrossed in the heavy layering, smooth synthesizer chords backed up with a heavy bass line and a seemingly random drum groove, all complimenting Bowie’s airy voice floating above.

All I can say is that for music lovers, especially those who love the classics from the 60s and 70s, listening to ★ is a spiritual experience—a must-do pilgrimage for all those brave enough to fall into the odyssey that is ★. Hearing it is an experience for which I’ll forever be thanking David Bowie.