It's full name is, of course:
and it was released 40 years ago today - June 6, 1972.
From wiki:
In 1987, as part of their 20th anniversary, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #6 on "The 100 Best Albums of the Last Twenty Years."
In 1997, Ziggy Stardust was named the 20th greatest album of all time in a Music of the Millennium poll ...
In 1998, Virgin All-time Top 1000 Albums ranked it at number 11...
In 2006, it was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
from biographers Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray:
"The grand slam, and arguably... the definitive rock and roll concept album, and by far the most cogent comment any rock artist has ever made on his own art form. Rock and Rolls greatest analysis of itself, an object lesson in how to record and layer vocals and the blueprint for rock stardom all in one package."
Yes, this album IS that good. And as further testament to this album's wide influence, (before we get into the music) a note on the iconic album cover:
The exact spot in London where the cover photograph was taken has become, over the years, an incredibly popular destination for Ziggy fans, Bowiephiles, and all manner of devotee. This phenomenon, coupled with the album's growing stature as a rock icon itself, (and with the pending 40th anniversary) prompted the owners of the building to erect a plaque there this past March. For shortly after the album's UK release on June 6, 1972 (and on to this day), fans would seek out and make a pilgrimage to Heddon Street, to find the exact doorway Bowie stood in. And therein could be found decades' worth of discrete messages penciled, painted, and scratched into the woodwork such as "Ziggy LIVES!" Similar graffiti attended the walls behind (and inside of) the nearby phonebox in which Bowie appears on the back cover.
And now, on to the music.
1 . Ziggy was a concept album, the story beginning with the revelation that the world will soon end (in Five Years). The music begins with a very gradual fade-in of a gentle and benign drum beat. When the drum beat arrives at full volume, the lyrics begin following a single but dramatic piano chord. However, the lyrics are anything but benign, as we soon learn
News had just come over, we had five years left to cry in
News guy wept and told us, earth was really dying
Vignettes are offered of various human reactions to the dire news, with some disturbing and memorable imagery:
A girl my age went off her head, hit some tiny children
If the black hadn't pulled her off, I think she would have killed them
A soldier with a broken arm, fixed his stare to the wheels of a Cadillac
A cop knelt and kissed the feet of a priest, and a queer threw up at the sight of that.
and by the time we reach the ending repetitive chorus of Bowie's increasingly agony filled
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we got
the music has grown into an extremely rich sound and drama which matches the raw emotions being expressed. The steady metronome-like drum beat, voices, and eerily space-age sounding synthesised strings gradually fade out. The song, from its benign start has transformed in a way that lets us know this is no ordinary musical journey we have embarked upon. The final word we hear is one last haunting cry of
"FIVE" delivered in a distorted, echoing manner which punctuates and summarizes earth's dire situation. With no more words or other instruments, the song fades out on those ever marching drum beats.
and here I'll digress here for some notes on the production.
The technical genius achieved on Ziggy is largely to the credit of Ken Scott, who learned the art of studio production at the side of George Martin at Abbey Road Studios beginning with the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour. Martin was of course the genius behind all of the Beatles' studio work, culminating in the masterpiece: Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, to which Ziggy Stardust is often rightly compared as a singular achievement.
The other key influence Scott brought to Ziggy was his experience as the re-mix engineer on 1971's Madman Across the Water. Under producer Gus Dudgeon and engineer Robin Geoffrey Cable, Scott learned how to achieve the haunting string effects heard in so much of that Elton John masterpiece.
Scott had for Ziggy perfected all of the tricks previously learned, one of the most important here being the simple device of timing- where the cadence of a song's ending smoothly segues into the start of the next. The use of this device is best illustrated (heard) on Abbey Road, where side 2 of the album is famously known as the 'Abbey Road Medley'. It seems one big long song, each piece having an integral musical relationship to the other.
We first experience this on Ziggy at the end of Five Years, as its endless drumbeat marches off into complete silence. The rhythm of the next song, Soul Love begins at the precise moment to achieve the segue effect. Here it becomes apparent that each and every aspect of the audial experience has been considered, and we are going on not just any musical journey, but are being delivered to the sublime. At this point you are allowed to say to yourself: 'Wow I better put on the headphones and give this thing a real listen!' (In fact, the listener was "officially" advised to do so as you'll find out later.)
Digressing further, I have compared notes with other Bowiephiles who confirm the phenomenon that all 11 of Ziggy's songs seem perfectly cued up to one another- so much so that you can almost hear the whole album playing perfectly in your memory. In fact, I feel the importance of this cueing is so critical to the "Ziggy experience", that I scoured the internet and found a faithfully made recording directly from the vinyl. From here on I will link to this recording with timestamps at the "segues".
NOTE: The opening three songs (triptych) is discussed in detail here. Hat tip to Bill W in the comments.
The bridging device used at the beginning of
Soul Love is a very smooth double brushed cymbal initiating a loud but slow bass drum beat alternating with hand claps. Completing the percussive richness is a subtle but relentless cymbal brush (in 8/8 time) which is finally joined by (and reinforces) the rhythm guitar. The effect provides a rich backdrop for Ronson to pick out the solo notes and chords.
2. Soul Love accounts love in its various forms, beginning with "Stone Love" where a mother grieves at her soldier son's grave, and moving on to romantic love- "New Love", and finally love of a transcendent form as occurs in belief in God or other ideals- this being the highest: "Soul Love". The song is very pretty, and culminates with a chorus twice sung and includes these words:
Inspirations have I none - just to touch the flaming dove
All I have is my love of love - and love is not loving
Beneath all this, Bowie has layered various backing vocals, my favorite being the two note fawning 'sighs' in the chorus. Campy, yes! but as with so much of Bowie, it
works! The tune has an easy and relaxed cadence, with Bowie playing a lilting and soulful saxophone. One can imagine slow dancing to it.
3. And again, as this lulling sound fades away almost (but not quite) to silence, the next song arrives with a dramatic explosion in two powerful chords from Mick Ronson's guitar: the first cueing the pronouncement "I'm an alligator", and the second "I'm a mama-papa coming for you". We again return to the sci-fi atmosphere we heard in Five Years with Moonage Daydream, a sci-fi depiction of otherworldly lust and love:
Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe
Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love
Freak out in a moonage daydream oh yeah!
And again the atmosphere of outer space is achieved with Ronson's wailing lead guitar finally fading out on a soaring backdrop of strings. And I would be remiss in not pointing out that Ronson's solo is absolutely transportive. (A solo, BTW, which Bowie diagrammed with pencil on paper, and Ronson then proceeded to dutifully execute successfully on the very first attempt!) It's one of those musical moments you wish would never end. But it does end, fading completely out, and this time we actually do get a few seconds of silence before the next song begins. Out of this brief pause come the first chords of
Starman, which heralds the arrival of Ziggy Stardust.
4. Starman
A distant reverb'ed chord emerges as if from deep space, a perfectly appropriate suggestion because, as I said, Ronson's fading lead was transportive, and it seems that space is exactly where we have been transported to! From beneath Bowie's beautifully strummed 12-string chords we hear a barely discernible "Hey hello".... and then... "Look above" (and you really have to listen intently to make them out) Ziggy Stardust has taken to earth's airwaves, as the narrator tells us:
Didn't know what time it was, the lights were low
I leaned back on my radio
Some cat was laying down some rock 'n' roll 'lotta soul, he said
The song is a brilliant musical expression of an alien contacting earth, with the repetitive notes between the verses and chorus mimicking a morse code/telegraph sound. And the chorus
(oh the chorus!!!) absolutely soars on the symphonic string sound Bowie and Scott created in the studio, giving the song a majestic dimension in a most Beatlesque way. If
Soul Love is "pretty", then
Starman is absolutely gorgeous.
There's a Starman waiting in the sky
He'd like to come and meet us
But he thinks he'd blow our minds
The song also poignantly captures the angst of adolescents seeking out the comfort of collective experience to better understand the world:
I had to phone someone so I picked on you
Hey, that's far out so you heard him too
Switch on the TV we may pick him up on channel two
Here I will digress to describe just how important this song is to not only the Ziggy Stardust concept and story but to Bowie's career itself and to some extent this particular era of rock music.
Starman, incredibly, was originally not to be on the album. Realizing that the album needed a single, and upon hearing a demo, RCA's Dennis Katz insisted they record it and put it on the album. This was done in April and the single released at the end of that month. However, neither the single's or album's initial release were met with any marked success. The big breakthrough came on July 6, 1972, exactly one month after the album's release, and over two months after the single's, when Bowie and Ronson and the rest of the band performed Starman live on BBC's widely viewed Top of the Pops.
The effect across England was electric. The single rose to number 10 on the charts, and the album to number 5. More broadly, it cemented the persona and public image of Bowie as some kind of alien/space man because it was his first big hit since Space Oddity which reached UK chart No. 5 in 1969. Even more broadly, Bowie's androgynous look and unabashed behavior (he famously hung a limp wrist over Ronson's shoulder in parts of the performance) and their wild garb of glittery jumpsuits and heeled highlaced boots created a sexual sensation. Straight, gay, perhaps unsure- a young audience had found a new icon, and was hooked by Bowie's confidence, charm, and uniquely beautiful music. Countless fans and future punk/new wave musicians cite this broadcast as their moment of baptism into full fledged Bowiedom.
72/07/06 Bowie radiates and charms through his Brixton accent:
Back to the record:
Musically, Starman synthesizes the contrasting juxtaposition of the soothing Soul Love with the more jarring Moonage Daydream which followed. We are finally satisfied- we have reached a peaceful musical equilibrium. Appropriately, the next song begins, as Starman's chords finally fade into silence, with a single note of a bird-like squawk. Again, this bird-note echoes away as if occuring in the vastness of space.
5. It Ain't Easy is the album's only non-Bowie song, a much covered 1971 song by Ron Davies. More of a blues song, a style which might seem out of place here, the lyrics describe the daily emotional burdens of coping with life. The burden here belonging to Ziggy Stardust in his quest to reassure mankind. Ronson's powerful electric guitar arrangements make a dramatic counterpoint to the soulful chorus voices and relate it quite well musically to the rest of the album. Furthermore, if David Bowie is anything he is a master of... well... mastering his chosen material and medium. Here he fully respects the genre of Blues, limiting the instruments to drums, guitars, and- where Davies used a soulful piano, here Bowie uses a synthesizer tuned to something very harpsichord-like. Its delicate sound provides a nice contrast to the soulful chorus and continuous deep beat of the bass drum.
As for the lyrics, they actually relate quite well to the story, since they return us from space and put us once again in more earthly environs:
When you climb to the top of the mountain
Look out over the sea
Think about the places perhaps, where a young man could be
Then you jump back down to the rooftops
Look out over the town
Think about all of the strange things circulating round
This earthbound imagery brings us back to the mundane scene that opens the album
"Pushing through the market square..." The song makes for a very satisfying end to Side 1 as well as giving us a pause before we proceed to Side 2 and unfold the full saga of Ziggy Stardust.
6. Lady Stardust opens side 2. It's another beautiful piece which some have called top-rate piano balladry. I liken it more to cabaret, since it is easy to imagine it sung in such a setting, especially given the subject matter, which is the cross-dressing singer of the title. Our hero, it turns out, has a very human side, and it is poignantly expressed here.
People stared at the makeup on his face
Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace
The boy in the bright blue jeans
Jumped up on the stage
Lady Stardust sang his songs
Of darkness and disgrace
Yet another beautiful song on this masterpiece of an album.
7. With the last piano note of Lady Stardust fading out the story then begins its explosive ending. As if in answer to the piano which dominated Lady Stardust, a no-nonsense pounding of two alternating piano chords launches us into the wild energy of Star, where with each repetition of this pair of piano chords, further layers of instruments are added- voices, power chords from Ronson, higher octaves of piano notes. Finally, as the layering of sound reaches a satisfying density, Bowie launches into the song's no-nonsense lyrics:
Tony went to fight in Belfast
Rudi stayed at home to starve
I could make it all worthwhile as a rock n roll star
Bevan tried to change the nation
Sonny wants to turn the world, well he can tell you that he tried
I could make a transformation as a rock n roll star
As with other songs on the album,
Star was not written expressly for Ziggy Stardust, however, it was obviously included because the subject matter relates thematically to Ziggy rising to become a rock star- this is the persona we see on the album cover!
Star has a very interesting ending (or three), with the energy of the piano suddenly slowing down to the more graceful manner heard on Lady Stardust and with the tranquilizing lyrics
I could fall asleep at night as a rock n roll star
I could fall in love all right as a rock n roll star
and as the last piano note resonates into silence, instead of ending, we get a recapitulation of this closing theme but now with Ronson's guitar dominant and the lyrics truncated to:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Rock n roll star
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Rock n roll star
again, seemingly finished, we are left with a final, lone instrument, Bowie's voice in one last iteration
bom bom bom bom just watch me now
Star actually ends three times!
8. Hang Onto Yourself continues the wild energy from Star although this time the instruments are all guitars. It's a straight rocker, very compact and efficient, and in fact both this and Star are the shortest tracks on the album, at 2:50 and 2:40 long. Appropriately so since they deliver so much punch. Ironically, our musical journey is nearly over before we finally get the advice to "hang on". My favorite lyric, (perhaps misheard according to what is written**):
Well the music comes out better on a stolen guitar
You're messin' with The Spiders From Mars
Musically, the song has a clever chord structure which opens with its signature down scale theme: D C G, and on the lyrics it reverses and goes up: F#m A B. Trevor Bolder's bass is fantastic and really holds the whole wild song together.
9. Ziggy Stardust begins the album's ending medley and the story's conclusion. This is a beautifully written, elegant, and sophisticated piece. The rhythm guitar moves easily in and out of leads, syncing back into rhythm, trading off with the Trevor Bolder's bass which also takes turns as lead, and both going from counterpoint to syncing up with each other at key junctures. Even Woodmansey's drum work is used wonderfully as both an enhancement and a more prominent counterpoint.
Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly
And The Spiders From Mars
He played it left hand
But made it too far
Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band
However, what began as admiration soon devolves into envy and animosity, as all of the instruments (
including the drums) sync up in an ominous unison with the pulsing pair of power chords for the lyrics:
So where were The Spiders, while the fly tried to break our balls?
Just the beer light to guide us,
So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?
And appropriately so since we learn that Ziggy's own band has turned on him. Ultimately, this signals the end for both Ziggy and the band:
Making love with his ego, Ziggy sucked up into his mind
Like a leper messiah
When the kids had killed the man, I had to break up the band
Now there is no small discussion amongst 'Ziggy scholars' that he is in fact the "new Messiah". References to Jesus abound in this song as lyrics also include:
he was the nazz, With God-given ass
Nazz being short for Nazarene, and the band playing the role of the Apostles losing faith in him. The lesson being that Ziggy, whether alien being or otherwise, was no more dependable as a source of salvation than any other gods which had come before. The truth is Ziggy was, for Bowie, an
amalgamation of ideas.
10. The dénouement for Ziggy Stardust is put off momentarily (but quite dramatically) by the album's most powerful song Suffragette City. Also not intended specifically for Ziggy, its penultimate placement nevertheless makes it the musical climax. Famously, this song launches right out of Ziggy Stardust's closing guitar work- three very delicate harmonic notes are suddenly followed by the blasting power chords. This is the segue most everyone is familiar with. Some irony exists in the fact that this powerful, masculine piece depicts a place where the women control and dominate!
Bowie wanted as solid and massive a sound as possible here. To that end, his own saxophone playing fell short of what he desired. So he and Scott employed an ARP 2600 synthesiser, adjusted it to as close a real sax sound as possible, and let Ronson work the magic. The song's signature false ending, cueing up the famous "Wham! Bam! Thank you maam!" (a lyric not Bowie's creation but taken from a 1961 Charles Mingus song) boomerangs back on Ronson's double power slides (one in each speaker) for a final cycle and climactic end on the lyric "Suffragette!" It's one of rock's most famous (and whiplash inducing) moments!
11. The album's energy not quite entirely expended, Rock 'N' Roll Suicide's opening acoustic guitar chord emerges immediately from the silence of Suffragette City's reverberating final note. And then the lyrics begin
Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
and really quite powerfully captures the mood of depression
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock n roll suicide
Once again, as so often on the album, this is a song that transforms from its quiet start into something much greater and profound. Electric guitar, drums, a horn section, and finally orchestral strings join in and build up to the closing:
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen...
I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone
and a chorus of voices finally joins in on the word "wonderful"
Let's turn on and be not alone
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful
Oh gimme your hands
Closing all of the live concerts, these lyrics gave Bowie (and his fans) the opportunity to literally reach out to each other as he repeats "gimme your hands". This happened for the final time on July 3, 1973 at London's Hammersmith Odeon.
And so ending somewhat hopefully, the music winds down with a brief coda of guitars and horns that settle on a final extended note, which is then repeated by what sounds like a small orchestra of violins (very much as if this were a classical piece, we get an unapologetically faux classical ending) with the bows drawn slowly across the strings! And thus closes one of the greatest albums of all time.
The back cover with Bowie in the Heddon Street phonebox:
Note the bottom credit is actually an instruction: "TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME"
As I noted earlier, this was Ken Scott's way of saying to "listen closely!"
Indeed, I can assure you, this is very sound advice!
Further reading and sources:
Original Rolling Stone review By Richard Cromelin JULY 20, 1972
BBC review by Chris Jones 2002-11-20
Review song by song on bowiesongs blog This is a very detailed site which covers basic song structure and all of the chords played in each.
The Ziggy Stardust Companion Basically everything you might have ever wondered about ZS. My favorite and by far the most authoritative website.
For printed books, the first serious Bowie biography is also one I own:
David Bowie : an Illustrated Record by Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray. A well written and very thorough document published in 1981. I highly recommend it to any Bowie fan.