Review Summary: The first immortal work by Bowie. One of his most classic.
“The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” is the fifth studio album of David Bowie that was released in 1972. The line up on the album is David Bowie, Dana Gillespie, Mick Ronson, Rick Wakeman, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey.
Bowie was an English singer and songwriter. For many years he has been at the forefront of pop and rock. He earned the nickname chameleon for changes in musical style and for embodying thematic characters on some of his albums. In the 70’s, Bowie created albums that followed the wave of experimental heavy rock, “The Man Who Sold The World” in 1970 and “Hunky Dory” in 1971. In 1972 he released one of the greatest albums in rock history, “The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars”. It was a conceptual album featuring the alter-ego Ziggy Stardust. Here, Bowie exacerbated the glam rock, a music segment that mixed the traditional rock with androgyny and scenic elements.
“The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars” often shortened to “Ziggy Stardust”, is a conceptual album based on a story of a fictional rock star named Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy is the human manifestation of an alien being who is attempting to present humanity with a message of hope in the last five years of the existence of Planet Earth. Ziggy represents the life of a great rock star with the excessive use of drugs and sex, and where in the end, he was able to destroy the message due to his own excesses. Despite Ziggy being an alien, this is a very human thing.
The album’s sound is almost metallic, melodramatic, full of almost cinematographic grand pianos and distorted guitars, sometimes even out of tune. All this represents the ruins of the world that Ziggy finds in front of him. The musical grandeur itself was nothing new to Bowie, but here was the first time that the execution faithfully and fairly reflected his incredible ideas over an entire album. The album is really powerful because more than having an innovative concept, what Bowie really wanted was to show that he knew how to make remarkable pop music. With a theatrical air, the album works as a story where he manages to fit his gift of wandering through various styles with mastery. Somehow, we can say that the character is a representation of young artists who die at their peak and who give themselves body and soul to what they do, like Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix for example. Bowie also killed Ziggy shortly after the album’s tour.
“Five Years” begins with a simple musical idea that gradually changes in a great crescendo. It’s a fantastic opener well orchestrated. “Soul Love” is a good glam rock song. The guitar and saxophone are played wonderfully. Here we can hear the great and powerful voice of Bowie. “Moonage Daydream” is an excellent pure hard rock song with symphonic arrangements. It’s a true classic rock song, the heaviest song on the album. “Starman” is a gentle pop rock song featuring great and beautiful acoustic guitar work and string arrangements. “It Ain’t Easy” is a cover of a Ron Davies’ song. It sounds like southern country American rock. It seems to be a bit out of place here. It’s my least favourite and probably the only weak song on the album. “Lady Stardust” is in general interpreted as alluding to Marc Bolan of T. Rex, an artist very appreciated by Bowie. It’s a nice acoustic ballad mainly performed by piano and acoustic guitar. It reminds me of the piano ballads of Elton John. “Star” is one of the greatest songs on the album. It’s a glam art rock song, the prototype of a perfect rock song. “Hang On To Yourself” is quite representative of the glam rock style as a bridge between rock and punk. It’s a catchy and wonderful song, a little bit dark. “Ziggy Stardust” was inspired by the legendary Stardust Cowboy. It’s the most famous song on the album and probably its best song. It’s a great song with immortal lyrics, where Bowie’s vocals seduce and Ronson plays as if it was his last time. “Suffragette City” is a great hard rock song, one of the most energetic Bowie’s rock songs that feature a heavy piano riff. It’s semi-punk/rock music that reminds me of Roxy Music too. “Rock’n’Roll Suicide” is a superb song. It’s at the same time beautiful, dramatic, emotive, passionate and dark. It’s one of my favourite songs. It represents a perfect close to this great album.
Conclusion: Fifty-three years after the release of “Ziggy Stardust” and almost ten years since Bowie’s passing away, The album remains alive and well. It’s an eloquent, elegant album. In narrative terms, it achieves something no easy feat, being conceptual without falling into boredom or pretension. The secret lies in the lightness of the narrative structure. “Ziggy Stardust” is one of those visionary albums that continues to reveal itself with each new listen. It’s sexy, it’s dramatic, it’s violent, it’s fun, it’s provocative and it’s intoxicating. It was one of the pivotal moments in David’s career, consecrating both creator and creature and forever changing his importance in pop culture, immortalizing the omnipresent presence showing one of the many facets of one of the most charismatic musical performers of all time.
Music was my first love.
John Miles (Rebel)
