So why is David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on this best 1,000 albums ever thing?
What a strange and wildly great album this is.
You can see why Bowie’s re-inventions often struck gold, as they do here, and in fact The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars clocked in as the best David Bowie album of all on this here best 1,000 albums ever project.
This “loose concept album and rock opera” gives us the iconic character of Ziggy Stardust. From Wikipedia:
Bowie explained that the character of Ziggy Stardust was conceived as an alien rock star who arrives on an Earth that is dying due to a lack of natural resources. Around the world older people have lost touch with reality, while children have adopted a hedonistic way of life and no longer want rock music, as there is no electricity to play it. Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites (“black-hole jumpers”) to write about the coming of a starman who will save the earth. Ziggy’s tale of the starman is the first news of hope that the people have heard, so they latch onto it immediately. Ziggy soon gathers a large following and is worshipped as a prophet. According to Bowie, “He takes himself up to incredible spiritual heights and is kept alive by his disciples.” The infinites eventually arrive, and tear Ziggy apart onstage.[5]
More from Bowie himself on Ziggy Stardust:
“‘Ziggy’ was my Martian messiah who twanged a guitar. He was a simplistic character. I saw him as very simple … fairly like the character Newton I was to do in the film [The Man Who Fell to Earth] later on. Someone who dropped down here, got brought down to our way of thinking, and ended up destroying his own self. Which is a pretty archetype story line.”
Around five years ago, I put together a Spotify playlist that focused mostly on 1970s proto-punk and glam rock, and “Suffragette City” was placed in a prime position on it. I listened to this playlist – which is called Get Right While You Get Right, if you must know – constantly while I was working, and it probably wound up having some real impact on the eventual “rankings” for the best 1,000 albums project (Sweet’s Desolation Boulevard, which is #345, is a good example).
Anyway, the rollicking glam rock of “Suffragette City” – that, like the best songs from the New York Dolls, has a real base of hard driving rock to help it blast off – continues to be just about my most favorite Bowie song of all.
And that’s not even getting to…
Ahhh, Wham Bam Thank Ya Ma’am!
Then pose that against the pure gorgeousness of “Starman,” which is also just offbeat enough to keep me constantly excited and engaged in trying to figure out what it’s trying to do.
“Hang on to Yourself” is a proto-punk song that’s great fun, and it also astonishes me in terms of how different it feels compared to the rest of the album while fitting seamlessly into the Ziggy Stardust mix at the same time.
And “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide” starts out as incredible acoustic singer-songwriter stuff before launching into a musical stratosphere that only David Bowie can conjure.
Some stats & info about David Bowie – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
- What kind of musical stylings does this album represent? Rock Music, Glam Rock, Hard Rock, Proto Punk, Singer Songwriter, Art Rock, Concept Albums
- Rolling Stone’s greatest 500 albums ranking – #40
- All Music’s rating – 5 out of 5 stars
- When was The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars released? 1972
- My ranking, the one you’re reading right now – #251 out of 1,000
David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars on Spotify
A lyrical snippet from David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars that’s evocative of the album in some way, maybe
There’s a starman waiting in the sky. He’d like to come and meet us, but he thinks he’d blow our minds.
What does the “best 1,000 albums ever” mean and why are you doing this?
Yeah, I know it’s audacious, a little crazy (okay, maybe a lot cray cray), bordering on criminal nerdery.
But here’s what it’s NOT: a definitive list of the Greatest Albums of All-Time. This is 100% my own personal super biased, incredibly subjective review of what my top 1,000 albums are, ranked in painstaking order over the course of doing research for nearly a year, Rob from High Fidelity style. Find out more about why I embarked on a best 1,000 albums ever project.