2. The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (1972)

Certainly David Bowie’s most famous work, and one of the very few albums associated with ‘glam-rock’ in the United Kingdom to have aged well and outlived that scene, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars has been so widely celebrated by so many and for so long that it’s difficult to say anything new about it. Indeed, it’s hard to conceive of any music fan needing any kind of introduction to this album, considering that its DNA can still be detected in so much pop and alternative music nearly half a century later.

It was the first example of one of Bowie’s famous alter-egos taking on a life of its own, a story of an extra-terrestrial, self-destructive rock star communicating messages of peace and love for humanity even in the last five years of its existence, all told through a brilliantly constructed song cycle. A construction influenced by Bowie’s time with Lindsay Kemp learning mime and dance, his TV and stage acting, his sexual expression and his musical influences, the character of Ziggy Stardust changed what rock ‘n’ roll could be, how it could look and be presented visually, and the subject matter it was licensed to deal with.

The reason so many people go on about that Top Of The Pops performance of ‘Starman’ was because it really was completely revolutionary in 1972, when vast swathes of Western society were still deeply socially conservative. The androgynous, outrageously dressed Bowie draping his arm camply around Mick Ronson, pointing his beckoning finger straight down the camera as he sung “You-ou-ou!”, was the precise moment that he crash-landed into the consciousness of an entire generation of music fans, never to be dislodged.

The record itself is stuffed with Bowie highlights, the extravagant melodicism of Hunky Dory tempered with a hard-rocking edge influenced by Iggy Pop’s The Stooges and Lou Reed’s The Velvet Underground. The presence of those individuals can be detected in the likes of ‘Hang On To Yourself’, the joyous ‘Suffragette City’ and the flamboyant riff of ‘Ziggy Stardust’. But the escapism and theatricality offered by ‘Starman’ (its melody lifted straight The Wizard Of Oz’s ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’…), the cinematic apocalypse of opener ‘Five Years’, the elegant ‘Moonage Daydream’, the grandly orchestrated finale of ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’, was what really made the record special.

When Bowie died in 2016, the go-to album for memorials to the singer, overwhelmingly, was this one, and for good reason. Despite the many other great albums he released – and we believe there was one even greater album than this – his legacy is bound up with the Ziggy character more than any other. Indeed, that legacy still lives: over forty years later, Ziggy Stardust retains the power to influence new listeners, with countless generations of outsider kids picking up inspiration and solace from the album. (LISTEN)

In his own words: “What I did with Ziggy Stardust was package a totally credible, plastic rock & roll singer – much better than the Monkees could ever fabricate. I mean, my ‘plastic rock & roller’ was much more plastic than anybody’s. And that was what was needed at the time… Until that time, the attitude was ‘What you see is what you get.’ It seemed interesting to try to devise something different, like a musical where the artist onstage plays a part.”

Highlights: ‘Five Years’; ‘Moonage Daydream’; ‘Starman’; ‘Ziggy Stardust’; ‘Suffragette City’; ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’