DAVID BOWIE

(1947 - 2016)
MUSIC ::: NEW WAVE ::: ALTERNATIVE :::

The Cosmic Chameleon Touches Down

Born David Robert Jones on January 8, 1947, in London, England, Bowie would grow up amid the postwar hum of British suburbia, absorbing American rock’n’roll, blues, and jazz before forging a sound that was at once alien and ancestral. He first tasted success with 1969’s “Space Oddity,” a haunting ode to isolation and orbit, but it was his next major transformation that would cement his place in cultural history. In the early 1970s, Bowie conjured a figure that seemed beamed in from another galaxy — Ziggy Stardust, the flamboyant, androgynous rock messiah whose electric presence upended music, gender, and performance itself.

In 1972 Bowie launched The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, both a concept album and a legendary persona that fused science fiction with street-level glam. Backed by his band, the Spiders from Mars, Bowie crafted songs that were at once propulsive and mythic — “Ziggy Stardust,” “Suffragette City,” and “Starman” became anthems for a generation who felt themselves outsiders. With flaming red hair, lightning bolt makeup, and costumes that blurred theatricality and futurism, Bowie didn’t just perform; he inhabited a mythology. Ziggy was a messenger from the stars whose gift to Earth was both ecstatic music and a liberated sense of self, inviting fans to play with identity and possibility in ways rock had never before fully embraced.

Ziggy’s arc was dazzlingly brief but seismic. By 1973, at the height of his fame, Bowie retired the character onstage at London’s Hammersmith Odeon — a shock that reverberated through the music world and underscored Bowie’s restless inventiveness. Yet the impact endured: Ziggy Stardust reshaped rock performance, making ambiguity glamorous, futurism fashionable, and theatrics a vital part of musical storytelling. Bowie would continue to morph — from Thin White Duke to Berlin period experimentalist and beyond — but the cosmic dust of Ziggy remained in his wake. In doing so, he didn’t just create a rock star; he rewired the very idea of what a rock star could be: a myth, a prophecy, and a mirror for the self.

For your reading pleasure, 16 Books That David Bowie Says We Should Read. Press Your Space Face Here