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.