12.The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars

       Back in early 1972, Bowie, although striking, was not quite the shock of the new he would become in 1973.
       That said,the cover of his fifth, and , so many would say, greatest album, is one of rock's most iconic images.

       Work on the Ziggy Stardust album in 1972/73 also took place at Trident Studios.Bowie told Ken Scott,who had again been brought in to co-produce,that he wanted a very different sound.According to Ken Scott, however, although Bowie was keen to harden the sound, the influence of the then contemporary proto-punk sound of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed was minimal at best.

Tracks:

Side 1

1 Five Years
2 Soul Love
3.Moonage Daydream
4 Starman

5 It Ain't Easy

Side 2

1 Lady Stardust
2 Star
3 Hang On To Yourself
4 Ziggy Stardust
5 Suffragette City
6 Rock' n ' Roll Suicide

      The album has a wonderful unity,from the heartbeat-like drum intro on Five Years  to the calamitously overwrought ending of  Rock N Roll Suicide .
      If you ask me, all songs are masterpieces! My personal favourite has to be Rock n Roll suicide because of its lyrics.

      In Five Years , lyrically, Bowie strikes a deliberately unstable register, depicting a world five years from Armageddon in terms of universals or stereotypes - the priest, the soldier, the policeman, etc.. Crucially, Bowie's society in crisis deals with minorities: a black ( cast as the good guy), a gay ( who is repulsed by the priest and not the object of society's repulsion for once), a woman (out of control,downtrodden) and a physically handicapped person ( " I kiss you / You're beautiful / I want you to walk ") . Five Years  has a radical edge which helps position Bowie as a speaker for the dispossessed.

      Starman ,the second RCA single, was released on 28th April 1972,although it took until the chart for the week ending 8 July for it to hit the Top 40. The band played it on ITV's Lift Off  in front of a backdrop of huge gold stars, and on Top of the Pops  on 5th July 1972. It was these 2 television appearances in the early Summer of 1972 that were crucial in making David Bowie a star. Many fans date their conversion to all things Bowie to this Top of the Pops appearance,even myself! This was the first David Bowie video I've seen,and this was the song that convinced me to try more of Bowie,made me curious about the other songs,though I did not live in the 70s.Lavishly plastered in make-up, his hair dyed a brilliant carrot-orange,and lovingly limp arm draped round guitarist Mick Ronson's broad shoulders, a little piece of pop history was made. An event changed people's lives. Nobody had seen anything quite like it before. Enjoy it!

      The writer Jon Savage called Ziggy Stardust  the 'first post-modern pop record',and it's easy to see what's he getting at. Bowie littered the songs with allusion to real pop world.The reference in Ziggy Stardust  to Jimi Hendrix is unmissable - " He played it left hand, but made it too far " (Bowie himself,though a leftie,plays the guitar right-handed) .

      In Lady Stardust  his references are to Marc Bolan - " People stared at the make-up on his face / Laughed at his long black hair,his animal grace" . This is also one of my favourite songs from the album.

      Soul Love another beautiful song - his voice is amazing!

     Lyrically Moonage Daydream,is full of references to bisexuality and gender crossing : " I'm an alligator / I'm a mama papa commin' for you "

     Star,like Changes before it - is another brazen declaration of intent: " So inviting - so enticing to play the part / I could play the wild mutation as a rock n roll star / I could do with the money "

    Suffragette City its faster than the other songs of the album,another favourite of mine

      By thr Summer of 1972, Bowie had finally achieved UK succes, The Zigy Stardust album rocketed into the charts and was to stay there for two years.

11.Ziggy Stardust

" I'm going out to bloody entertain, not just get up on a stage and knock off a few songs. I couldn't do that. I'm the last person to pretend that I'm a radio. I'd rather go out and be a colour television set. "

                                                                                            (Bowie in 1972)

    He had his own album. He had his own, very particular, hairdo, which was copied by both men and women. He brought cross- dressing, glitter and make-up to the high street. He's the most famous fictional rock star ever. He has a website devoted to him. He's had whole books written about his. Numerous tribute bands have sprung up in his wake, His last ever performance was turned into a film, a documentary about a complete fiction. There was even a Ziggy Stardust hotel in Thailand. His creator, David Bowie, ne Jones, has been inundated with offers to resurrect him in a musical. Quite simply, Ziggy made David Bowie a star. And Ziggy Stardust will go down in history as Bowie's finest creation.

    Bowie first mentioned his character Ziggy on a tour in America in 1971. 

    Ziggy was a composite rocker, and was based on two cult pop artists in particular.

• One was the Legendary Stardust Cowboy - a sort of thrash country- and-western star
• Vince Taylor (Bowie remembers: " He was out of his gourd. He was unfolding a map of the metropolis on the pavement, and he would just start pointing out sites where UFOs were going to land." ). Taylor was a cult figure possessed with a mad genius, his story was a rock'n'roll tragedy and a perfect example of rock martyrdom. (he died at the age of 52, in 1991 )

     Another immediate influence on the Ziggy creation was Stanley Kubrick's film version of the Anthony Burgess novel, A Clockwork Orange. 

     But perhaps the biggest influence of all came not from rock music at all, but from Japanese culture. First, Bowie has said that Japanese designer Kansai Yamamoto was "one hundred per cent responsible for the Ziggy haircut and colour ". Second, Japan's influence of Ziggy came from its peculiarly stylised theatre. Bowie was fascinated by Japanese kabuki and No theatre and appropriated their essence for the Aladdin Sane shows.

     In fact, there appear to be two quite distinct eras, The 1972 tours in support of Ziggy were rocky, punky and brash; not without theatricality, but still very much part of the accepted way of framing a rock gig. However, once Bowie started promoting Aladdin Sane in 1973, the costuming becomes far more elaborate and garish. And Bowie's fascination with all things Japanese was crucial in defining the Aladdin Sane era.

     In the West, Japan was traditionally viewed as an 'alien' culture. Bowie's Ziggy dignified Japanese culture and showed him open to ideas outside Anglo-American rock. Bowie helped internationalise pop, starring a long-running fascination with the East. He later became one of Japan's biggest idols.

     The use of kabuki styles in rock performance was an innovation.Some of the costumes for the Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane shows were actually first used in kabuki theatre, others were designed for Bowie by Kansai Yamamoto , again based on traditional designs.

 The overall visual effect of these shows was that of a blurring of 'found' symbols from science fiction - a space age high heels, glitter suits and the like - with kabuki-style garments whose effect was to signify the codes of another culture, one alien to Western society. Kabuki was perfect for the Aladdin Sane shows in that,by its very nature, it is a 'gender-bending' theatrical form.In Kabuki theatre,all parts,both men and women,are played by men. Its androgynous nature was elevated by Bowie to a position of fundamental importance.
     The constant changing of costume, so evident in both Ziggy and Aladdin Sane stage shows, also had its origins in kabuki. A change of kimono meant a change of personality.