Upon the release of David Bowie's most thematically ambitious, musically coherent album to date, the record in which he unites the major strengths of his previous work and comfortably reconciles himself to some apparently inevitable problems, we should all say a brief prayer that his fortunes are not made to rise and fall with the fate of the "drag-rock" syndrome -- that thing that's manifesting itself in the self-conscious quest for decadence which is all the rage at the moment in trendy Hollywood, in the more contrived area of Alice Cooper's presentation, and, way down in the pits, in such grotesqueries as Queen, St. Nicholas' trio of feathered, sequined Barbie dolls. And which is bound to get worse. For although Lady Stardust himself has probably had more to do with androgynous current fashionableness in rock than any other individual, he has never made his sexuality anything more than a completely natural and integral part of his public self, refusing to lower it to the level of gimmick but never excluding it from his image and craft. To do either would involve an artistically fatal degree of compromise. Which is not to say that he hasn't had a great time with it.

....Flamboyance and outrageousness are inseparable from that campy image of is, both in the Bacall and Garbo stages and in his new butch, street-crawler appearance that has him looking like something out of the darker pages of City of Night. It's all tied up with the one aspect of David Bowie that sets him apart from both the exploiters of transvestitism and writers/performers of comparable talent -- his theatricality. The news here is that he's managed to get that sensibility down on vinyl, not with an attempt at pseudo-visualism (which, as Mr. Cooper has shown, just doesn't cut it), but through employment of broadly mannered styles and deliveries, a boggling variety of vocal nuances that provide the program with the necessary depth, a verbal acumen that is now more economic and no longer clouded by storms of psychotic, frenzied music, and, finally, a thorough command of the elements of rock & roll. It emerges as a series of concise vignettes designed strictly for the ear. Side two is the soul of the album, a kind of psychological equivalent of Lola vs. Powerman that delves deep into a matter close to David's heart: What's it all about to be a rock & roll star?

....It begins with a slow, fluid "Lady Stardust", a song in which currents of frustration and triumph merge in an overriding desolation. For though "He was Al right, the band was altogether" (sic), still "People stared at the makeup on his face/Laughed at his long black hair, his animal grace". The pervading bittersweet melancholy that wells out of the contradictions and that Bowie beautifully captures with one of the album's more direct vocals conjures the picture of a painted harlequin under the spotlight of a deserted theater in the darkest hour of the night.

...."Star" springs along handsomely as he confidently tells us that "I could make it all worthwhile as a rock & roll star". Here Bowie outlines the dazzling side of the coin: "So inviting - so enticing to play the part." His singing is a delight, full of mocking intonations and backed way down in the mix with excessive, marvelously designed "Ooooohh la la la"'s and such that are both a joy to listen to and part of the parodic undercurrent that runs through the entire album.

...."Hang On To Yourself" is both a kind warning and an irresistible erotic rocker (especially the hand-clapping chorus), and apparently Bowie has decided that since he just can't avoid cramming too many syllables into is lines, he'll simply master the rapid-fire, tongue-twisting phrasing that his failing requires.

...."Ziggy Stardust" has a faint ring of The Man Who Sold The World to it -- stately, measured, fuzzily electric. A tale of intra-group jealousies, it features some of Bowie's more adventuresome imagery, some of which is really the nazz: "So we bitched about his fans and should we crush his sweet hands?

...."David Bowie's supreme moment as a rock & roller is "Suffragette City", a relentless, spirited Velvet Underground - styled rushing of chomping guitars. When that second layer of guitar roars in on the second verse you're bound to be a goner, and that priceless little break at the end -- a sudden cut to silence from a mighty crescendo, Bowie's voice oozing out as a brittle, charged "Oooohh Wham Bam Thank You Ma'am!" followed hard by two raspy guitar bursts that suck you back in to the surging meat of the chorus - will surely make your turn do somersaults. And as for our Star, well, now "There's only room for one and here she comes, here she comes."

....But the price of playing the part must be paid, and we're precipitously tumbled into the quietly terrifying despair of "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide". The broken singer drones: "Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth/Then you pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette." But there is a way out of the bleakness, and it's realized with Bowie's Lennon-like scream: "You're not alone, gimme your hands/You're wonderful, gimme your hands". It rolls on to a tumultuous, impassioned climax, and though the mood isn't exactly sunny, a desperate, possessed optimism asserts itself as genuine, and a new point from which to climb is firmly established. Side one is certainly less challenging, but no less enjoyable from a musical standpoint.

....Bowie's favorite themes - Mortality ("Five Years", "Soul Love"), the necessity of reconciling oneself to Pain (those two and "It Ain't Easy"), the New Order vs. the Old in sci-fi garments ("Starman") - are presented with a consistency, a confidence, and a strength in both style and technique that were never fully realized in the lashing The Man Who Sold The World or the uneven and too often stringy Hunky Dory Bowie initiates "Moonage Daydream" on side one with a riveting bellow of "I'm an alligator" that's delightful in itself but which also has a lot to do with what Rise and Fall... is all about. Because in it there's the perfect touch of self-mockery, a lusty but forlorn bravado that is the first hint of the central duality and of the rather spine-tingling questions that rise from it: Just how big and tough is your rock & roll star? How much of his is bluff and how much inside is very frightened and helpless? And is this what comes of our happily dubbing someone as "bigger than life"? David Bowie has pulled off his complex task with consummate style, with some great rock & roll (the Spiders are Mick Ronson on guitar and piano, Mick Woodmansy on drums and Trevor Bolder on bass; they're good), with all the wit and passion required to give it sufficient dimension and with a deep sense of humanity that regularly emerges from behind the Star facade. The important thing is that despite the formidable nature of the undertaking, he hasn't sacrificed a bit of entertainment value for the sake of message.

....I'd give it at least a 99.

Bowie's albums seem to possess that strange quality which allow them to "grow" on the listener over a period of time. Couple with a visit to a live concert of his the effect can be devastating!

....Now that Bowie has settled in with his band, the albums are becoming less studio-oriented and establish him as a rock n roll singer pure and straight. Side Two is a chronicle of his life as a "Star" ending with contemplation on "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide". The strongest numbers on the album are "Starman", "Hang On To Yourself" and his favourite encore raver "Suffragette City".

.....Definitely an album for every serious rock fan. A taste of things to come.

Since jumping from Mercury to RCA, David Bowie has added the decipherable touch to his recordings which they needed to reach more than the esoteric crew of rock critics that his two Mercury albums were embraced by. Consequently the newer records HUNKY DORY and now ZIGGY STARDUST are selling and Bowie is ripping up English audiences with a stage show designed to embarrass everyone from T. Rex to the Cockettes.

.....Five years ago, Bowie was making typically English rock and roll story records, his image late-sixties flash mod flower phase child. He then moved on to poetry and art rock, going through a semi-acoustic and an odd hit record called "Space Oddity", which reflected both his interests in rebelliousness and intergalactic matters. Next came some very electric, at times almost heavy-metal psychotic commentary by way of a powerful album called THE MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD.

.....ZIGGY STARDUST, the out growth of Bowie's new openness is a self-contained rock and roll album about rock and roll. Bowie's band, guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Mick Woodmansey, team with the singer-guitarist to both perform and play the roles depicted in the album's songs: to a limited extent, they are Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And most certainly they are an excellent rock band.

.....The songs, beginning with the doom-portending "Five Years", creates a tale in which a number of Bowie's beliefs and fantasies are placed in full view. The thread of the plot goes from the announcement of impending doom through the uncontrollability of love ("Soul Love") to a major turning point, "Moonage Daydream", where Ziggy, whoever he is before he actually becomes Ziggy, is zapped by a combination of religion (first invoked at the end of "Soul Love" ), romance, rock and roll and bisexuality. Symbolically it is probably the album's most important number.

.....From this point, the new rock and roll idol, obstensively an invader from space (though it is really space in someone's imagination), begins making himself public. "Starman" presents his arrival on earth both as a physical phenomenon and as a religious occurrence. A stylised rendition of Ron Davies funky "It Ain't Easy" takes Ziggy on a sexual tangent to finish Side One.

.....Side Two is more directly devoted to the rise and fall of Ziggy and the Spiders. "Lady Stardust" says, in no uncertain terms, that this rock star appeals sexually to everyone in the audience, just as it is actually the case with most superstars (Bowie, though, has a way of not mincing his words). "Star" offers the singer's motivation for seeking fame, and "Hang On To Yourself" describes the position of the band as they begin to discover the nature of their appeal and precisely what they must do to make it big.

....."Ziggy Stardust" compresses, in rock ballad form, the basic story of the band's fling with stardom. The final pair of numbers, the ballsy "Suffragette City" and "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" are a bit anti-climatic in content. "Suffragette City" is pure lust and out of sequence (it would seem more comfortable if heard before the idea of Ziggy's downfall is introduced), though it is the album's classic rocker in the Rolling Stones sense. "Suicide" is a symbolic reference for the idea of what the forgotten idol does after the fall.

.....David Bowie, on the strength of his five albums, is certainly one of the more distinctive personalities in rock, and that alone is enough to make his very listenable records a bit extra-ordinary. Even if some of his ideas don't quite work out, his talent for strong conception and sound execution is undeniable. Should he become a star of Ziggy Stardust magnitude, he will deserve it, and hopefully his daydreams won't be forced to turn to suicide when it's all over.

David Bowie, England's Answer-To-Alice-Cooper-But-He's-For-Real, has finally made an album with positive commercial potential and consistent strength. ZIGGY STARDUST is the AFTERMATH of the Seventies, where every track is a hit and no fillers; what's more Bowie is with his band and rocking at the seams of his kelly green jump-suit all the way down to his screwed down hairdo.

.....Bowie's tale is of a rock-star from start to finito, and is pretty all-inclusive: screaming teenies, frantic groupies, envious band members, et al. There are no bad songs on this album, just great songs and good ones. There has been a single released, "Starman" and its the fusion of all mod British pop and "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". Bowie has a way with words, uses keen phrases like "leper messiah", "Hazy cosmic jive" and "tongue twisting storm." "Starman"s chorus features the absolute most exquisite pronunciation of "boogie" ever, rhymes it with "loose it."

.....The band is marvellous, from the tone of Mick Ronson's electric guitar to the bass lines of Trevor Bolder. The production is outstanding, even for Bowie (whose previous albums haven't been bad either, mind you). Strings are used sparingly, arrangements are complex but come across as simple pop rock.

.....This album is obviously one of the finest records released this year, but even more importantly, this is the most universally enjoyable disc in a long time. Play ZIGGY for hippies, mods, AM'ers, they'll all like it. Hell, my mother asked me to play it again when I gave it a spin in the downstairs living room, and I wouldn't be surprised if she bought herself a copy. Anyway, my high school graduation is this year and what a perfect record to remember as being from my 17th and a half year on this planet!

The memorable Ziggy Stardust brightened up the easily forgettable early '70s and catapulted kooky David Bowie into a glittering superstardom that was based upon the crafty, slightly disturbing interaction between creator and creation, the whey-faced hermaphroditic rock 'n' roll star who made it too far. Ziggy's cautionary tale-from the brighteyed, animal grace of Lady Stardust to the dark disgrace of Rock'n'Roll Suicide-used to neatly occupy the second side of the Ziggy LP. It does so no longer for, tricked out as this re-release package is with five extra tracks, the Ziggy story is chopped unhappily in half (time out after Hang On To Yourself). The dubious bonuses this time are the pretty good original John I'm Only Dancing single, the slightly preposterous Velvet Goldmine (B-side of the re-issued Space Oddity), the hopeless Sweet Head, and two completely meritless acoustic demos of Ziggyand Lady Stardust. But although Five Years, Starman and Moonage Daydream seem even more silly than they did, time has been kind to the other songs, and the bite and attack of the ball-breaking Spiders is still edgy and exciting.
Q Rating: ****

Nineteen and Seventy-Two may well go down as the year Davy Bowie put the glitter and glamour back into rock. He is almost indestructibly sensitive lyricist in popdom: already an avant-garde superstar this album will make him accessible to the masses for home consumption. His vocal flamboyance scores most obviously on "Star," "Suffragette City" and "Starman."

1972 was a break through year for David Bowie. Four hit albums between July and November - that's four hit albums - discovered, rediscovered and propelled into the charts on the back of 'Ziggy Stardust', the record that saw the previous year's long-hair freak of 'Hunky Dory' evolve into full blown, space cadet, rock 'n' roll star.
....'Ziggy' surfed the glam rock wave perfectly, but here was a fully matured, part concept, rock record made by an aspirant rock star writing about an intergalactic superstar. You had to be there to appreciate the full impact of Ziggy, but the music is still astonishing. 'Starman', 'Hang On To Yourself', 'Suffragette City' and 'Ziggy Stardust' itself are now, thirty years on, set in moon rock as part of rock's canon while the eerily desperate 'Five Years' put several galaxies between Bowie and contemporary glam pals such as Marc Bolan.
....CD2 is where collectors can gorge themselves on a selection of demos and rarities including early versions of 'Moonage Daydream' and 'Hang On To Yourself' courtesy of Bowie's by now defunct Arnold Corns ensemble. On demos of 'Lady Stardust' and a stark 'Ziggy Stardust' you can almost smell the hunger and imminent success of the prolific young artist. There's even a relaxed romp through Chuck Berry's 'Round And Round' and the glam, gallop of 'Sweet Head' complete with comedy asides by Bowie.
....That Bowie, Mick Ronson and producer Ken Scott began work on this record just weeks after the completion of 'Hunky Dory', is testament to Bowie's drive and vision and the timely brilliance of the Ziggy Stardust persona. No student of rock 'n' roll can be taken seriously without this album in their satchel. Altogether now... "Ziggy played guitaarrrrrrr!"