Product Description

Every track on ZIGGY STARDUST & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS sounds like it was pulled from the rock 'n' roll bible. The albumcreated a mythology that reached beyond the Chuck Berry folklorisms of the everyday rocker to create a new type of rockstar. With ZIGGY, Bowie created a viable alter-ego to descend onto the planet and wreak havoc on rock's fertile soil. In doing so, he created the most original rock creation sincethe music's inception 20 years before.
Musically, the album was as inspired as Ziggy's persona. Mick Ronson's snarling guitar evoked the triumphant power of the late '60s guitar heroes, but added a flash so dynamic fans knew why the Spiders were labelled "glitter rockers". As an album, ZIGGY STARDUST told the story of rock through the eyes of Ziggy, an alien--with a narrative that was equally sensational and intimate.
Any doubts as to Bowie's intentions to take over rock were displaced on a closer listen to "Star". At the end of the song Bowie (as Ziggy) whispers, "just watch me now", and his determination is eerily obvious. Combining skills as a mime artist and top-rate vocal dramatist, Bowie created Ziggy, the bisexual space man, who sang "songs of darkness anddisgrace". The planet was dying, something made evident on the first track "Five Years", and the only way to survive was to "Hang On To Yourself".
In the end, "they had to break up the band", according to the tale told in ZIGGY STARDUST, but the inevitably tragic strains of this "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" had left their mark on the dying planet. They are still being felt today.

Track Listing

1. Five Years
2. Soul Love
3. Moonage Daydream
4. Starman
5. It Ain't Easy
6. Lady Stardust
7. Star
8. Hang on to Yourself
9. Ziggy Stardust
10. Suffragette City
11. Rock & Roll Suicide

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #779 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-06
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Enhanced

Amazon.co.uk Review
Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour, spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as "Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century, its influence is immeasurable. --James Littlewood

Customer Reviews

Masterpiece!
In my opinion, this is one of the greatest albums ever recorded. I first heard it in 1972 (after Starman had got into the charts) and never looked back - been a bowie fan ever since. Bowie's best album still. It contains classics such as Moonage Daydream and Suffragette City and the Spiders never sounded better. Every track is superb, even the oddly sounding 'It ain't easy' penned by Ron Davies (surely not the same Ron Davies who played for Southampton?. It also seems to have a very intimate feel to it, i.e. the production is so clear its almost like being in the studio with the musicians.
Says on the album sleeve 'To be played at maximum volume'- indeed it should, all across the land!

getting it off my chest....
I had this new when it came out so it shows how old I am. The record has been reviewed in depth so I won't repeat what's already been said by other reviewers. What I want to say is that this album had a massive impact back in the day partly because we didn't know Bowie then as some sort of Chamelion changing his identity every season. He WAS ziggy stardust...an alien fully formed and here on earth. Everybody who is a Bowie fan has their favourite periods but for me it's this album and the follow up Aladdin Sane, not just because I listened to them in my formative years, but also because of his band, The Spiders. Bowie's played with loads of highly accomplished musicians but none have suited him as well as this band, who he treated pretty damn badly. Here's to Trevor Bolder, Woody Woodmansey and the glorious Mick Ronson, without whom Bowie wouldn't be where he is today.

Spectacular
I'll keep it short since others before me have reviewed it better than i could.

This album is one of the top 20 of all time and one of my personal favourite records. There's no better collection of tracks put together on an LP and Moonage Daydream maybe one of the best Rock songs of all time.
Every household should have this album