I recently listened to David Bowie’s album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars for one of my classes. This album is a mixture of the pop and rock genre and is characterized by Bowie’s unique voice and lyrical choices. Throughout his career up to the point of this album, Bowie has created multiple fictional characters in his music. In his 1969 self-titled album, he has a character named Major Tom in his song “Space Oddity” who is a man traveling through space. Now in The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, David Bowie creates the alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Ziggy is the embodiment of androgyny and flamboyancy: “... Lady Stardust himself has probably had more to do with androgyny's current fashionableness in rock than any other individual, he has never made his sexuality anything more than a completely natural and integral part of his public self, refusing to lower it to the level of gimmick but never excluding it from his image and craft” (Cromelin). The creation of an alter ego is a way that Bowie asserts his stylistic fidelity. His use of stories and characters in his works separates him from any other artist of his time and even following his life.
The album is a narration of Ziggy’s life, talking about how this extraterrestrial rock star has been sent to Earth and warns humanity about their destructive nature and their impending doom. The album begins with the song “Five Years” which warns the humans that they have only five years left until they are destroyed. We are introduced to Ziggy Stardust in the third song of the album, “Moonage Daydream” where Stardust greets himself to the humans and offers to save them through the power of rock ‘n’ roll: “I'm the space invader, I'll be a rock 'n' rollin' ***** for you” (Bowie). A little later in the album, there is a song titled “Lady Stardust”, which confers that Stardust either belongs to multiple genders or is completely gender fluid. The theme of gender fluidity has been prevalent in all of Bowie’s works, with his vibrant and somewhat feminine outfit choices and the way he presents himself while performing. Bowie’s album cover for The Man Who Sold the World, released just a few years prior to The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, you can see him wearing a long, flowy dress while lounging on some sort of furniture. Bowie has always been able to express different sides of himself through his music, and for Ziggy Stardust, he was just able to add a sci-fi element to it. The album ends, almost tragically, with the end of Ziggy Stardust: “Ziggy is observed through the eyes of one besotted fan who, following the star's death, takes their own life in the thrilling climax of "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" (Jones). This track in particular goes from being very quiet and calm, with only Bowie’s voice and guitar, but surges into this combination of different string and percussion instruments, giving the album a very dramatic close.
Overall, David Bowie is able to maintain his style of gender fluidity and flamboyancy through his music and storytelling. He adds factors of fantasy into his music which sends the listeners into another world. He creates multiple names for himself, each of them acting in different ways with different stories to tell through the music. I loved listening to this album, it is one of my favorites of Bowie’s and I thought it did a great job of utilizing musical creativity and imagination.
BBC. (n.d.). Music - review of David Bowie - the rise and fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/2hf9/
Cromelin, R. (1972, July 20). David Bowie: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, 1–4.
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