A blatantly unscientific poll conducted recently at New York University revealed that three out of four college students believe that David Bowie is the coolest person alive— with only one vote, 50 Cent was a distant second. All kidding aside, why would a glam rock star from the 70s, fond of wearing skinny chest-bearing blouses, and who may or may not have slept with Mick Jagger, be so popular among today’s (straight!) youth? And why should his loosely termed “concept album” about a rock ‘n roll messiah sent from outer space to save the world resonate so strongly thirty-four years after its initial release?
There is little to say about the production, concept, and influence of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars that hasn’t already been said. Mick Ronson’s virtuoso guitar work, how Mott the Hoople and the Velvet Underground paved the way for this album to pave the way for Alice Cooper and even Marilyn Manson, the alien/Christ allegory, the improvised “wham bam thank you ma’am”— all of it has been well documented in the pages of Rolling Stone and on countless VH1 specials. What interests me isn’t so much how revolutionary the album was at the time of its release, or how inspirational it has been since then to other artists, but rather why the album itself continues to connect with generation after generation of music fans.
I think there are two main reasons behind this phenomenon. The first is that David Bowie hasn’t gone away, and his following hasn’t either. Bowie has continually reinvented himself, from Major Tom’s space-aged melancholy, to Ziggy’s glam rock flamboyance, the Thin White Duke’s drug-addled occultism, the Berlin Years, 80s stardom, all the way through to the elder statesman of rock we see today. By constantly providing new material and images, Bowie keeps his old personas from getting stale, and all the while encourages new fans to discover them.
But the second and more important reason behind the longevity of Ziggy Stardust is just how damn good the music is. The album is undeniable. It has become standard fare to say a classic album has no filler tracks, but each one of the eleven songs on Ziggy Stardust, changes the flow and mood of the entire album. The album has the same dramatic structure and elements of a well-crafted play. It begins with an exposition that is both inviting and exciting. Then the audience settles down to the gentler sounds of “Soul Love,” only to be shaken up again and “freak out in a moon-age daydream.” The fourth song, the make-or-break point on most albums where the listener’s attention is either commanded or lost, is the soaring “Starman.” But it doesn’t stop there. “Starman” is followed by a barrage of hard-hitting songs that could leave you rattled if not for the sweet respite of “Lady Stardust.” Then the climax, “Ziggy Stardust,” brings the rest of the album together, not just as a literal summary, but a musical montage of the highlights that precede it. (It also contains one of the great misheard lyrics of all-time, “Making love with his eagle, Ziggy sucked up into his mind,” which might not have been such a stretch for Bowie in the 70s). Not content to fade out, Bowie follows that with what may be his strongest blow, the energetic “Suffragette City.” The album has a classy resolution in “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide,” a song that begins with a lone acoustic guitar and soft spoken vocal, and slowly gains momentum as it explodes into a chorus of guitars, strings, drums, a choir, and a desperate pleading vocal. After stopping for a beat, one last note on the violin is sounded to mark the conclusion with an unmistakable air of finality. If (as some claim) the last song is supposed to be a eulogy to the mythological Ziggy, the driving force behind the rest of the album, then it is a fitting tribute.
As noted in the last song, the dramatic arc is not only noticeable in the album as a whole, but in each individual song as well. This leads to several moments of pure excitement. “Five Years” piles verse upon verse, upping the dramatic ante with each passing note, until finally, finally culminating around the three minute mark. The precise moment when the tension of the verses boils over into the refrain, the line “Your face, your race, the way that you talk/ I kiss you, you’re beautiful, I want you to walk” is nothing short of breathtaking. It’s like a scene in a Hitchcock movie in which the duration of each shot gets shorter and shorter as the score races towards its peak, building suspense. The moment of ecstasy isn’t the revelation, but the peak of the anticipation just beforehand.
There are other moments that demand to be noticed. In “Moonage Daydream” it is Bowie singing “I’m an alligator” so assuredly that you notice its intensity long before you actually recognize its absurdity. The guitar solo in “Starman” is just so fucking good that I don’t think I could do it justice in words. Maybe my favorite guitar part in any song. It’s simple, it’s powerful, and it’s beautiful. “Suffragette City’s” “Wham bam thank you ma’am” exemplifies all of the attitude, sex, and improvisation that rock is supposed to be about.
Which I think brings us back to why new audiences keep discovering and falling in love with Ziggy Stardust. It’s not just about an alien saving the earth from destruction, and it’s not just about David Bowie. It’s about the free spirit and energy that is the current that runs throughout rock music. It’s about the rhythm and drama of music that is as much Beethoven as it is the Beatles. Teenagers are particularly attracted to rock’s freedoms, but the drama is what gives the music substance. On Ziggy Stardust Bowie seamlessly fuses the two together perfectly. And that’s what makes him the coolest man who fell to earth. |