David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust

The definitive song from the definitive glam rock album.  Really, this review could stop right there.  But it won't.  I wouldn't shortchange y'all like that.


The rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars might be one of the most influential albums ever recorded.  Marilyn Manson basically took the plot wholesale when he made his own tribute to the glam rock genre Mechanical Animals.  Anne Rice was almost certainly thinking of Ziggy when she had Lestat crawl out of his hole to become a rockstar in her vampire saga.

The album tells the story of a space alien who comes to earth to preach a message of peace and love but is consumed by the rock and roll lifestyle before his message can be heard.  He dies in a flurry of drugs and sex, his goals lost.

This, the closest the album has to a title track, serves as a eulogy for the star sung by one of his bandmates.  He tells the tale of Ziggy, the man who could play guitar better than anyone he'd ever seen.  It's impossible not to see characters future and past in the lyrics, the reference to playing left hand can't help but remind listeners of both Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain.

The song succeeds (as most songs do) primarily because it's a fantastic tune.  That guitar riff must have sounded like gold when it was first written, that trill on the second chord before the third and fourth crash into each other deliciously.  Though David was always the unquestionable star, his band were notably fantastic and here is no exception.  The bass bounces actively, the drums clatter and hum in the perfect backing rhythm.

Shining over all though is that strange, nasal voice singing a melody that will haunt your brain for hours after hearing it.  Really, nobody else could have made this album about a space alien rockstar and have it simultaneously sound as earthy and rocking while strange and alien but Bowie.

Of course, lyrically we see Bowie on top form, sketching an image of the rockstar losing himself in the face of his adulation.  Ultimately though, for me, it feels true.  That comes from the element that only other musicians could put their fingers on.

For all the wierdness.  For all the strangeness.  For the drugs, the voice, the "god given ass", the one thing Ziggy's bandmate remembers about him more than anything else is his talent.

Taken away from everything else, Ziggy played guitar.

Posted in: David Bowie, Music, Music Review, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars, Ziggy Stardust