David Bowie The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars by: Tom Bradbury Mon:14-May-07 Label: RCA Year: 1972 WB rating 85 out of 100

The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is not just a collection of eleven great songs, or merely an ingenious concept album, it’s also a fine piece of acting on the half of its creator – David Bowie. He didn’t just create a character, he inhabited it and gave it life and thus believability, sometimes to the detriment of his own sanity. Bowie himself admits that he got rather caught up in the character of Ziggy Stardust, every concert performance was an exercise in method acting. Bowie dramatically changed his appearance, and the album cover is a rather confident statement – Bowie sitting on a step, dressed in a blue jumpsuit with an other-worldly bright yellow hair cut. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars marries the theatricality of musical theater with rock and roll while diminishing the power of neither, and its a thoroughly entertaining journey in concept and song.

One of the reasons Ziggy Stardust works so well as a concept is that lyrically it doesn’t fall into the trap of taking itself too seriously or not seriously enough. It’s playful without being a joke –  “My brain hurt like a warehouse”. Mostly though, it is the expressiveness of Bowie’s voice that enables him to pull off the material. His melodies are good, but it is the way he sings them that is most impressive. On the opening track, ‘Five Years’, Bowie shows his range of his inflection, moving from casual to possessed, to passionate and back again, always at the right moment. ‘50’s chord changes and backing vocals lend the song an air of whimsicality in contrast to its subject matter – that the world is going to end in five years. The lyrics have taken on new significance in the age of global warming. Ziggy sings, “News had just come over/we had five years left to cry in/News guy wept and told us/earth was really dying”.

The ambiguous references to Ziggy’s sexuality add to the mysterious quality of the lyrics. On ‘Lady Stardust’, the “Lady” is referred to as a “He”. An irreverent sexiness pervades the music itself as well, but it partly an assumed sexiness. Bowie is a remarkable synthesist. He has always been a great borrower, taking liberally from Marc Bolan and Iggy Pop to name just a couple of prominent examples, but he is able to use this in his grander artistic vision, rather than simply being an imitator. ‘Hang on To Yourself’ in particular echoes T.Rex, but there is also the ‘Back In The USSR’-inspired ‘Suffragette City’, an up-tempo rocker whose use of horns and the moaning vocals of Bowie radiate sex. This is even without the lyrics, where Bowie sings, “This mellow thighed chick/Just put my spine out of place”. In an ironic twist the opening riff of “Suffragette City” has blatantly been ripped off by Powderfinger in recent years, but that just demonstrates how highly regarded the guitar work is on this album.
 
Bowie’s backing band cannot be overlooked in understanding the power of Ziggy Stardust. In particular, Mick Ronson’s dirty guitar sound supplies sludgy power to Bowie’s theatrics. Nowhere is this more apparent than on “Moonage Daydream”. As if commanded by Ziggy’s call to “Freak Out!”, Ronson supplies the album with orgasmic guitar histrionics bathed in strings and eerie synth; delay building, layer upon layer of wailing guitar in an exercise of musical abandon.
 
‘Lady Stardust’ is perhaps the highlight of Bowie’s creative vision on Ziggy Stardust. It embodies Bowie’s lyrical cheekiness and draws his finest vocal performance on the album. Bowie is not the sort of person that makes you want to sing, but the kind that makes you want to listen, not wanting to miss a single nuance of his voice. He may as well be singing about himself on ‘Lady Stardust’ – “And he was alright, the band was altogether/Yes, he was alright, the song went on forever/And he was awful nice/Really quite out of sight”. It truly is glam rock, for Ziggy Stardust is as much a spectacle as it is an album.