One of rock’s venerable characters says farewell with David Bowie’s LP
Throughout an illustrious musical career, David Bowie performed art rock as no one has before or since.
Bowie’s music, while sometimes obscure and downright bizarre, has always been captivating as it managed to lure the listener into all kinds of dimensions.
More, than a mere musician, Bowie was – and remains a showman and an actor.
In a career that has spanned more than half a century, Bowie brought us rock ‘n’ roll characters as Major Tom, The Young American and the Thin White Duke.
Bowie’s most renowned alter-ego was Ziggy Stardust, an androgynous cross-dressing alien from outer space, who fell to earth. Ziggy had his beginnings in 1971 during the Hunky Dory days and launched Bowie into super stardom a year later with the release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.
The Ziggy character took over Bowie’s life and nearly drove the singer mad. Bowie would kill off Ziggy Stardust in 1973 but not before he and the Spiders recorded Aladdin Sane and yes, the pun was intended, according to Bowie and band members Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick “Woody” Woodmansey. Bowie had become a lad insane.
As always, the line between brilliance and insanity, is razor-thin and this album is truly Bowie’s best. The Spiders are tight and the contribution of jazz pianist Mike Garson (who toured with the Spiders on their final two circuits around the world) brings an eerie component to this work.
On Aladdin Sane, Bowie abandons the outer-space theme of his earlier work.
Here, he rocks on songs like “Watch That Man” and “Panic in Detroit” and “The Jean Jeanie.”
He also explores the world of prostitution in “Cracked Actor” and drug use in “Time.”
The title cut is a melancholy tune and ask repeatedly, “Who’ll love Aladdin Sane?”
Garson’s jazzy piano riffs make this LP. Ronson’s guitar is grungy and the rhythm section is flawless on this Swan Song for Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
The album also contains a jacked up 1970’s version of the Rolling Stones classic “Let’s Spend the Night Together. Bowie adds a verse that makes the song sound a bit homoerotic when he sings “They said our kind of love was too young and they said our kind of love was no fun, but our love comes from above.”
During the Spiders’ final tour, Bowie simulated oral copulation with Ronson and his guitar during performances of the early Jagger/Richards classic.
Bowie’s work on this album is sexually explicit and sometimes violent. But some songs are melancholy and others are fun.
It foreshadows the rise of other glam rock acts and the decadence of disco, which took off a short time later.
It, however, also is an evolution and recalls the days of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.
It’s a fitting end to an alien for came to earth to give disenfranchised rock fans a hero to call their own.
Bowie and the Spiders definitely split at their peak but Bowie said that it was a pure necessity because he was becoming Ziggy and going nuts in the process.
