David Bowie :: The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars CD Album (1999)

DAVID BOWIE
The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
Remastered CD (1999)

CD
1 9 7 4

All images © RCA.

David Bowie autographs, photographs and more @ ebay.com (direct link to photographs) - just checked and a bigger selection than i have seen everywhere else

David Bowie ~ The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars CD Album

Type: Audio CD (6 Sept. 1999)
Number of Discs: 1
Format: Enhanced, Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
Label: EMI

Item Details

Aliens, androgyny, loosely conceptual, swaggering, and with songs that remain classics in a glorious career. Timeless, can be played again and again as surely as the best from the Beatles. The song remains the same.

It was originally released on June 6th, 1972. It tells the story of Ziggy, the human manifestation of an alien being who is attempting to present humanity with a message of hope in the last five years of its existence.

In July 1972, dressed in a multicoloured quilted jumpsuit, he performed Starman on Top Of The Pops. His career went into orbit.

The photograph used for the cover was Heddon Street in the West End of London.

The same year, Bowie was approached by an unknown singer to produce his band's debut. Bowie turned down the offer as he was busy. The singer was Freddie mercury. The band was Queen.

The party for the final Ziggy concert in 1973 was attended by Lou Reed, Mick Jagger and Lulu.

Boy George's aunt, Jan, gave the Boy a Ziggy haircut at the time. He recalled it din't work and he looked more like Dave Hill from Slade.

The Ziggy Stardust Tour lasted between 1972 and 73 consisted of 182 shows worldwide.

The broadcaster, Janice Long, had a brief encounter with Ziggy in 1972 - she stood next to him in a lift in a Liverpool hotel!

This 1999 UK 11-track 24-bit digitally remastered CD album comes with a picture sleeve booklet.

Track Listing:

1. Five Years 4:42
2. Soul Love 3:33
3. Moonage Daydream 4:37
4. Starman 4:16
5. It Ain't Easy 2:57
6. Lady Stardust 3:21
7. Star 2:47
8. Hang Onto Yourself 2:38
9. Ziggy Stardust 3:13
10. Suffragette City 3:25
11. Rock 'N' Roll Suicide 2:57

Baal BBC Petition

David Bowie on Ziggy Stardust:

"Firstly, I find it exciting. Then I find it sad, because I know the reason why I became Ziggy and what went into Ziggy." (1972)

"Five Years is an optimistic song. The album in fact should be taken that way. Starman can be taken at the immediate level of There's a Starman in the Sky Saying Boogie Children, but the theme of it is that the idea of things in the sky is really quite human and real and we should be a bit happier about the prospect of meeting people." (1972)

"I wasn't at all surprised Ziggy Stardust made my career. I packaged a totally credible plastic rock star - much better than any sort of Monkees fabrication. My plastic rocker was much more plastic than anybody's."

"I'm not disenchanted because I always believed when I started that Ziggy, for me, was what it was all about. I said it with Ziggy five years ago and I believe that you can go up or come down or be carried along by the tide for a few years. The only thing to do, if you want to contribute to culture, or politics, or music, or whatever, is to utilise your own persona rather than just music. The best way to do this is to diversify and become a nuisance everywhere." (March 1976)

"I want to go out like Vince Taylor. He was the inspiration for Ziggy. Vince Taylor was an American rock'n'roll star from the Sixties who was slowly going crazy. Finally, he fired his band and went onstage alone, wrapped in a white sheet. He told the audience to rejoice, that he was Jesus. They put him away." (February 1976)

"You know I never do anything by half. The costumes for the act are outrageous. I've had ten to twelve different ones made-up - for the group, not only myself. I like to keep my band well dressed unlike some other people! They are rather like astral West Side Story outfits, with sequins and short battle dress jackets, and long patent leather boots. I've also had my hair chopped off and I feel very butch now.

"I'm going out to bloody entertain, not just to get upon a stage and knock off a few songs. I couldn't do that. I'm the last person to pretend that I'm a radio. I'd rather go out and be a colour television set. It's going to be beautiful. I'm getting alarmed the band are falling into it so easily! They were a regular hard blues band, but they are really getting into the costumes bit." (1972)

"A lot of people I've talked to that have been to the shows have got a very, very definate idea of what Ziggy is and what he represents. They know how he works for them. I would not want to shatter anybody's private movie.

"I would not care to do a Ziggy movie because, not having heard their versions, I agree with them as well as I agree with my own version. I see what they mean, and I would hate to destroy any of that because it's all real. It's all valid." (1972)

"I'm still totally involved with Ziggy. I probaly will be for a few months getting it entirely out of my system, and then we'll don another mask. I hope you and Ziggy will be very happy. Ziggy's my gift to you." (1972)

"I fell for Ziggy too. 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. I could have been Hitler in England. Wouldn't have been hard. Concerts alone got so enormously frightening that even the papers were saying, "This ain't rock music, this is bloody Hitler! Something must be done!" And they were right. It was awesome. Actually, I wonder...I think I might...be an excellent dictator. Very eccentric and quite mad." (February 1976)

"Ziggy, particularly, was created out of certain arrogance. But, remember, at that time I was young and I was full of life, and that seemed like a very positive artistic statement. I thought that was a beautiful piece of art, I really did. I thought that was a grand kitsch painting. The whole guy.

"Then that f##ker wouldn't leave me alone for years. That was when it all started to sour. And it soured so quickly you wouldn't believe it. And it took me an awfully long time to level out. My whole personality was affected. Again, I brought that upon myself.

"I can't say I'm sorry when I look back, because it provoked such an extraordinary set of circumstances in my life. I thought I might as well take Ziggy out to interviews as well. Why leave him on the stage? Why not complete the canvas? Looking back, it was completely absurd.

"It became very dangerous. I really did have doubts about my sanity. I can't deny that the experience affected me in a very exaggerated and marked manner. I think I put myself very dangerously near the line. Not in a physical sense, but definately in a mental sense. I played mental games with myself to such an extent that I'm now very relieved and happy to be back in Europe and feeling very well...But, then, you see, I was always the lucky one." (October 1977)

Quotes from Bowie in His Own Words Book.

Sales:

No. 5 in the UK in 1972. Sales (before his death): 7.5m.

Key track: Starman.