The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is the fifth
studio album by David Bowie, which is loosely based on a story of a fictional
rock star named Ziggy Stardust. Rhino will be breaking out ‘breaking out’
this albums from the David Bowie ‘Five Years 1969 – 1973’ box as a
standalone releases.
Driven by an entirely deeper dynamic than most pop artists, David Bowie
inhabits a very special world of extraordinary sounds and endless vision.
Unwilling to stay on the treadmill of rock legend and avoiding the descent into
ever demeaning and decreasing circles of cliché, Bowie writes and performs what
he wants, when he wants. His absence from the endless list of “important
events” has just fuelled interest. Constant speculation about what the guy was
up to has even led some to wonder if this is his greatest reinvention ever.
David Jones!
David Robert Jones was born in Brixton on January 8, 1947. At age thirteen,
inspired by the jazz of the London West End, he picked up the saxophone and
called up Ronnie Ross for lessons. Early bands he played with – The Kon-Rads,
The King Bees, the Mannish Boys and the Lower Third –provided him with an
introduction into the showy world of pop and mod, and by 1966 he was David
Bowie, with long hair and aspirations of stardom rustling about his head.
Kenneth Pitt signed on as his manager, and his career began with a handful of
mostly forgotten singles but a head full of ideas. It was not until 1969 that
the splash onto the charts would begin, with the legendary Space Oddity (which
peaked at No. 5 in the UK). Amidst his musical wanderings in the late 60s, he
experimented with mixed media, cinema, mime, Tibetan Buddhism, acting and love.
The album, originally titled David Bowie then subsequently Man of Words, Man of
Music, pays homage to all the influences of the London artistic scene. It shows
the early song-writing talent that was yet to yield some of
rock-n-roll’s finest work, even if it would take the rest of the world a few
years to catch up with him.