The Bowie Project #5 – The Rise and Fall of
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is David Bowie’s most popular album and for many represents the absolute peak of his career. Released in 1972, his fifth studio album brings together much of the styles and genres he had been experimenting with up until this point and epitomises the height of the glam rock style he helped to popularise. It has been described as a loose concept album and rock opera, although much of the narrative of the record was written after the album had been recorded. The album tells the story of a legendary androgynous bisexual alien rockstar Ziggy Stardust. It goes a little something like this; It is revealed that the world is going to end in five years due to an impending apocalyptic disaster due to a lack of resources; The alien Ziggy Stardust brings a message of hope to Earth’s youth through the radio; Getting caught up with being the world’s saviour Ziggy is destroyed by his own ego, falling victim to his own fame and excesses. The storyline is vague but if you read between the lines a little bit what it seems to be is an artistic exploration of the pitfalls of fame as well as a consideration on the musical possibilities the 25-year-old Bowie felt he had inside him.
The character would become Bowie’s stage persona throughout 1972 and 1973 as he toured this album as well its follow up Aladdin Sane which he described as “Ziggy goes to America”. Bowie would have many alter egos throughout his career, but Ziggy is without a doubt his most enduring and well-known. While Bowie had experimented with an androgenous style before this (reclining in a cream and blue satin “man’s dress” on the cover of the 1970 album The Man Who Sold the World), the character of Ziggy allowed him to play with gender and sexuality in a way that inspired everything that came after. Ziggy was a sexuality liberated LGBT icon and flung Bowie right into the stratosphere of superstardom.
This leads us into “Soul Love” a track that in a way stands outside the main narrative of the album but could be interpreted as the world citizens dealing with love before the impending disaster that will destroy Earth. The song introduces a note of optimism after the dystopian opening and features a smooth saxophone solo by Bowie with bongos and an acoustic guitar background giving it a more melodic mellow feel. While it is a love song it does not fall into the usual traps of being overly sentimental or sappy, the track deals with love in a more universal or philosophical way, as if the alien Ziggy is observing the love rituals of humanity.
“Moonage Daydream” indirectly introduces the character of Ziggy Stardust for the first time and gives us a glimpse into Bowie’s rockstar ambitions melded with sci-fi imagery with lyrics like “I’m an alligator/I’m a mama-papa coming for you/I’m a space invader/I’ll be a rock ‘n’ roll bitch for you”. The song establishes the album’s theme of star making and a desire to achieve fame. The song has been cited by various people who worked on the album as their favourite on the entire record with drummer Woody Woodmansey stating, “It was a dirty, sexy, rock ‘n’ roll track from the future”.
The next track is “Starman” which reached number 10 in the UK singles charts and was Bowie’s first hit since “Space Oddity” three years earlier. The lyrics describe Ziggy Stardust bringing a message of hope to Earth’s youth through the radio. The song is told from the point of view of one of the kids who hears Ziggy, the track feels like it has religious overtones with allusions to Ziggy representing a glam rock manifestation of the second coming of Christ, here to save the youth and “let them boogie”. Bowie’s performance of the song on Top of the Pops was a major factor in the album's success and has been described as a pivotal moment in the history of British rock music going on to inspire the likes of Boy George, Adam Ant, the Clash, Morrissey, as well as Noel Gallagher from Oasis.
Side one closes with the only cover on the record “It Ain’t Easy” composed by country singer Ron Davies that was originally recorded for Hunky Dory and features Rick Wakeman on harpsichord. A cover of the Jacques Brel song “Amsterdam” was originally slated to close side one but was replaced with the Davies track at the last minute (The Brel song was later included as a b-side for the single "Sorrow" from Bowie’s 1973 covers album Pin Ups). The song doesn’t neatly fit in with the concept of the record and while it’s not a bad track I don’t think it stands up to the quality of the rest of the album.
Side two opens with a personal highlight of the record for me “Lady Stardust”, a song originally written about T. Rex singer and fellow glam rock star Marc Bolan, with the original demo version was entitled “He Was Alright (A Song for Marc)". At this point in his career this is Bowie’s most explicit statement on gender fluidity, the shifting pronouns in the track describes this strange allure that draws in both men and women alike to Lady Stardust. The beautiful piano arrangement of the song and Bowie’s passionate vocal delivery meld perfectly with Mick Ronson singing backup. The song takes on an extra layer of meaning with the knowledge that Marc Bolan tragically died in a car crash in 1977, just two weeks before his 30th birthday, embedding the song with a haunting sentimentality that gives me goosebumps every time I listen to it.
The next track “Star”, a fast paced proto-punk rocker which is one of the more obvious examinations of the record's theme of fame, projection, and desire. After examining his musical rival and contemporary Marc Bolan in the previous song Bowie now puts himself forward as a rock ‘n’ roll icon singing, “I could make a transformation as a rock ‘n’ roll star”. While Bowie has always fetishized fame, the song seems to be acutely aware of the pitfalls of success as well as the superficiality of it all, but still, it’s “so enticing to play the part”. The song opens with lyrics “Johnny went to fight in Belfast/Rudi stayed home to starve” as if while Bowie, or more accurately the character he’s portraying, sees all the struggle, horror, and things wrong with the world, he still can’t help but be drawn into the specious world of celebrity.
“Hang on to Yourself” was originally recorded in 1971 with Bowie’s short lived band Arnold Corns, a side project which acted as a kind of dry run for Ziggy Stardust and featured many of the same musicians who played on the album. The song acts as a mishmash of 1950s rockabilly, mixed with a glam rock style, as well as a forebearer to the punk music that would come later in the 70s (the Ramones learned a lot from this track I’m sure). This song also directly references Bowie’s backing band the Spiders from Mars and like the previous song is an exploration on the theme of fame, as if now that success has been achieved all of its excesses can be fully enjoyed, albeit only briefly as the scene has now been set of Ziggy’s demise.
“Ziggy Stardust” is the narrative core of the record and is a presentation of the rise of fall referenced in the album’s title. The inspiration for the Ziggy character comes from a number of different places but most notable the 1950’s rockabilly singer Vince Taylor, who after achieving success fell victim to alcohol and drug addiction. Throughout the 1960’s Taylor’s problems got worse as he experienced a religious epiphany and believed himself to be the prophet Matthew, its this aspect of Vince Taylor’s decline which influenced much of the religious imagery found throughout Bowie’s album. The song climaxes with Ziggy’s ultimate destruction, a victim of his own narcissistic tendencies he eventually dies amid fame, success, and excess, “making love with his ego/Ziggy gets sucked up into his mind”. One of Bowie’s most well-known songs it seems to sum Ziggy up as a false prophet who just took it all too far, and while there are a lot of similarities between the story of Jesus and Ziggy it is never quite clear if Ziggy actually did manage to save the world from its impending destruction.
Next up is “Suffragette City” which was originally written for Mott the Hopple, who turned it down and chose to record Bowie’s “All the Young Dudes” instead. It’s a hard rock, proto-punk song with a Little Richard influenced piano riff. The song’s false ending and exalted yelp “wham bam thank you ma’am” (possible allusion to the Small Faces or maybe Charles Mingus) are often cited as giving the song an extra power and it was always a live favourite at Bowie concerts.
The album closes with “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” where we see Ziggy’s final collapse in the narrative’s conclusion. It was the last song Bowie performed in character as Ziggy at the 1973 concert where he killed off the character, introducing the song saying this is “the last show we’ll ever do”. Although the concept was always vague the ending is clearer, Ziggy Stardust is willingly killed by his fans in a moment of symbolic unity between audience and performer. The song builds as Bowie laments “you’re not alone”, “you’re wonderful”, with strings, saxophone, and Mick Ronson’s guitar work at the forefront. It’s an expertly crafted song and a fitting epilogue to one of the most important and seminal albums in Bowie’s career.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars in my opinion deserves the hype associated with it. Its intriguing narrative, sexually liberated lyricism, and theatricality have all stood the test of time and rightfully deserves its place as one of the most influential albums of all time. It might not be an absolutely flawless record but that’s not what it’s trying to be. Its narrative isn’t as concrete or consistent other rock operas like Tommy but that’s not the point of the album, Ziggy was always about the character and persona, what could be achieved by shedding your own identity and taking on something new, and this was something Bowie would do again and again, the core of the character then carries through into his next release Aladdin Sane, which Bowie described as less “clear cut” and “pretty ephemeral”, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves just yet.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (9/10)
Bonus Tracks:
There are also two tracks that were originally slated to be included on this record that never made it and that’s “Velvet Goldmine” and “Sweet Head”, both were left out for being too sexually provocative for 1972. They are worth checking out for any Ziggy Stardust fans out there who may have missed them.
“Velvet Goldmine” was first released in 1975 as part of a rerelease of “Space Oddity”, the song is written in third person and Bowie stated it features the worship of Ziggy Stardust as seen through a groupie’s eyes, although originally many thought it was a description of Bowie making out with another man.
“Sweet Head” is a song about oral sex that remained unreleased until 1990. Bowie was normally pretty good at sneaking risqué references into his songs, but it looks like he could only take it so far and record label RCA blocked the song.
Comments
Post a Comment