Tags archives: The Thin White Duke
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Enter Ziggy Stardust.
Bowie’s beloved persona began with the release of 1972’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Stardust starred as the record’s fictional alien rock star who arrived on Earth just as it received the news that the world would end in five years. In the album’s opening track, which is aptly titled “Five Years”, Stardust laments about the planet’s fate while walking amongst it’s doomed species. He resembled them in shape, but is extreme in all other aspects. He had wild hair, outlandish outfits, and an overall zeal that made him an eccentric, especially compared to the cop, soldier, priest, mother and newscaster that populate the rest of the song.
In a 1974 interview with “Beat Godfather” William S. Burroughs, Bowie described the scene:
...It has been announced that the world will end because of lack of natural resources. [The album was released three years ago.] Ziggy is in a position where all the kids have access to things that they thought they wanted. The older people have lost all touch with reality and the kids are left on their own to plunder anything. Ziggy was in a rock & roll band and the kids no longer want rock & roll. There's no electricity to play it. Ziggy's adviser tells him to collect news and sing it, 'cause there is no news. So Ziggy does this and there is terrible news. "All the Young Dudes" is a song about this news. It is no hymn to the youth as people thought. It is completely the opposite[...]
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9 years ago
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David Bowie was a musician of almost immeasurable influence. His last name echoes amongst the likes of Fitzgerald, Lennon, Presley, Ramone, Nicks and Cobain as one of the people responsible for music today. For almost half a century, he graced genre after genre with his albums, exploring each with an obsessive eye. From folk rock to krautrock-laced funk to art rock and experimental, there seemed to be no undertaking that Bowie couldn’t master. He fathered sub-genres and inspired others to do the same.
He became known not only for his songs, which climbed the charts like English ivy, but also his oddities. His hair, his face paint, his outlandish outfits. During the era of Ziggy Stardust from his station in glam rock, he made being an outsider ‘in’. He challenged gender norms, racism, politics, and a whole manner of preconceived notions of how music was supposed to be. He was an idol, a style icon, a pop star, the star of your favorite childhood movie and in his final effort he was a blackstar.
Bowie’s final album Blackstar was released on January 8th, coinciding with his 69th birthday. The record is a short, emotional, and strange departure from the various forms of pop that Bowie is best known for, but fittingly so. Bowie was never going to be predictable. Two days after the album’s release, the seemingly immortal Bowie died after a long battle with cancer. Blackstar then took on its intended meaning. It was his swan song. With every subsequent listen it seemed increas[...]
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