I was listening to Chris Carter's British Invasion show on the Little Steven Sirius channel(he was the bass player in the band Dramarama, and has another show, Breakfast With The Beatles as well), and he hit me with this fact…this week it will be 50 years since the release of David Bowie's The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust. Whoa. I know time gets away from everyone, but this was a cold splash of water. Now, I don't get caught up with that melodramatic "this album changed my life" stuff too much, but it was certainly impactful for me. I was only vaguely aware of Bowie before, I think I had heard "Changes", and 1971 felt like a musically confused time to me, but this album was different, a whole new direction.
It sounded different, cinematic(Ken Scott's production), it was kind of a storyline, but it was no rock opera(a concept that was already tired), it opened with this creepy, mournful apocalyptic scenario which was nothing I'd encountered before, and then moved on to all these unique tunes, some rocking out with an urgency I hadn't heard for a long time. Bowie seemed to be the first artist coming along that had a clue that it wasn't the 60's any more.
Yeah, there had been that buzz about his sexuality, but so what, Jagger had been camping it up for years, I had been into T. Rex previously, Marc and his feyness, and was a huge Velvet Underground fan for years, no big whoop, I just figured it was publicity. Some of my peers had a problem with it, but that was their problem. I was just taken with the music, but soon I did ditch the neo-hippie look, and hair got spikier.
The idea that he would become a character, a separate identity from who he really was(but of course, who was David Bowie really?)confused and sometimes angered people, but there had already been Alice Cooper. The real icing on the cake was Mick Ronson. That "Moonage Daydream" solo, whew, so epic. And the fact that he arranged the piano and string parts on the album, amazing. Trevor Bolder was no slouch either, I'd workout to "Hang On To Yourself", barely hanging on…
The album had a great flow, the only flaw/clinker was the cover tune, "It Ain't Easy", I never got that one, but the big payoff/showstopper, I wore that out…
Followed by the very theatrical closer, "Rock and Roll Suicide".
Anyway, there were plenty other albums that hit me where I lived, like King Crimson's Red, all the way to numerous contemporary releases, but that one was a game changer, a first, and its influence trickled down to a lot of stuff later.
It sounded different, cinematic(Ken Scott's production), it was kind of a storyline, but it was no rock opera(a concept that was already tired), it opened with this creepy, mournful apocalyptic scenario which was nothing I'd encountered before, and then moved on to all these unique tunes, some rocking out with an urgency I hadn't heard for a long time. Bowie seemed to be the first artist coming along that had a clue that it wasn't the 60's any more.
Yeah, there had been that buzz about his sexuality, but so what, Jagger had been camping it up for years, I had been into T. Rex previously, Marc and his feyness, and was a huge Velvet Underground fan for years, no big whoop, I just figured it was publicity. Some of my peers had a problem with it, but that was their problem. I was just taken with the music, but soon I did ditch the neo-hippie look, and hair got spikier.
The idea that he would become a character, a separate identity from who he really was(but of course, who was David Bowie really?)confused and sometimes angered people, but there had already been Alice Cooper. The real icing on the cake was Mick Ronson. That "Moonage Daydream" solo, whew, so epic. And the fact that he arranged the piano and string parts on the album, amazing. Trevor Bolder was no slouch either, I'd workout to "Hang On To Yourself", barely hanging on…
The album had a great flow, the only flaw/clinker was the cover tune, "It Ain't Easy", I never got that one, but the big payoff/showstopper, I wore that out…
Followed by the very theatrical closer, "Rock and Roll Suicide".
Anyway, there were plenty other albums that hit me where I lived, like King Crimson's Red, all the way to numerous contemporary releases, but that one was a game changer, a first, and its influence trickled down to a lot of stuff later.
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