They just don’t do stuff like this any more.

David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a concept album that tells the story of a man from Mars called Ziggy Stardust who comes to Earth in a time of crisis five years before the Earth is to be destroyed. He comes as the only one with the potential to save the planet.

The album is the story of how Ziggy comes with his ideas of rock and roll to free mankind from everyday life and the upcoming destruction of Earth. He is The Rock Star in every way: drug-loving and wild, it is eventually these things that destroy him after an all-too-successful career as an inspirational rock star.

The album is really epic in its scope. It’s something that is not as accessible as what I’m used to; you have to continually pay attention to really enjoy it. It’s not so much the music (although there are a few songs that are just killer) but the story just pulls you in.

The most notable thing to me is that really on top of being a science-fiction story, it’s an album about what it is to be a rock star. I think this comes from an era where rock was much more defined by certain personalities that really stood out. Ziggy as a character is fascinating. The dreams of the rock star and their inevitable crumbling are particularly interesting to see in the album, because their appearance shows that Bowie acknowledges the way the life of a rock star turns out. Yet even with this knowledge, Bowie was tremendously influenced by the character of Ziggy; he said

“It was quite easy to become obsessed night and day with the character. I became Ziggy Stardust. David Bowie went totally out the window. Everybody was convincing me that I was a Messiah, especially on that first American tour. I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy.”

You could draw parallels to the tragic hero…. one who may see his destruction ahead of himself and yet is unable to turn his course….

Anyway, it’s a tremendously interesting album if you really listen to it.