You're squawking like a pink monkey bird

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - 1972

TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME

Once in a while, the planets align and an album turns up being so brilliant, so perfect, that it becomes a landmark, not only in the history of the artists, but also of music itself. Nothing will be what it was before. And of all the brilliant albums in music, I think this one is at the top of the list of fundamental albums in the history of music. It does so many things, and it does them so well, that I'm not too sure how to tackle it, but I will certainly try.

I never thought I'd need so many people - The Story

Just imagine it: You turn on the news, and a distraught announcer tells us all that the earth will be destroyed in five years. That's all we have left. And that's how this story begins. Then comes a creature from another planet, maybe to save us all, maybe to tell us how to spend our time, that is never too clear. And then comes Ziggy Stardust, the strange androgynous musician, a sort of representative of the alien visitor, and his band, The Spiders from Mars, probably the last band on earth.
The story is, in a way, like an impressionistic painting, not clearly drawn but rather formed by some of the songs, and I've always been fascinated how it allows itself to be interpreted and reinterpreted depending on how we choose to view it, and to how we are feeling at a certain moment in time. Like all great stories, the total is larger than the sum of its parts.

I'll be a rock'n'rolling bitch for you - Ziggy

Ziggy Stardust, as a character, embodies most, if not all, of Bowie's themes and obsessions. There's the ambiguous sexuality, of course, and that is the first thing that stands out. Let's remember that Bowie actually pretty much became Ziggy in those years, and the allusions to bisexuality and androgyny, which were hinted at in previous material, are made clear here, and I think that attitude and Bowie's image at the time changed a lot on how people viewed sexuality at the time.
I wonder how lines like "and Lady Stardust sang his songs of darkness and dismay" must have sounded back then.
Sometimes I think that all the current view on gender is actually much more stringent than it was at the time, and that Ziggy's ambiguity was a much healthier way of seeing things. But that's probably a topic for a different blog.
There's also the recurrent topic of children as vessels of salvation, in a way, and as the ones who can be relied upon, which is made clear in the beautiful "Starman", in which it is the children who see the visitor, and decide not to tell their parents "or they'll get us locked up in fright".

So where were the spiders? - The music

Of course, no album is great on subject matter alone, and musically this album does so much that is good, that it would take a couple of entries to analyse, so I'm only going to focus on two things.
One of them is the larger than life quality of so many songs here. Early in the album we have "Moonage Daydream", and as soon as it begins, there's a certain epic electricity to it. You listen to it, and it's a song that was born not just to be played at maximum volume, but to me it always evokes images of a kind of mythical musician playing it live, and the audience being wild and awed at the performance. The same thing happens to me with a lot of songs here, like the title track, "Lady Stardurst" and the closing "Rock'n'Roll Suicide". These are great songs to be played live and, at the same time, we can feel that they're so great that no live performance would really do right by them. They are the songs that only a creature from another planet would manage to play live they were they are meant to be played, somehow. I can't think of any other examples of songs that make me think of epic live performances as much as these songs.

Wam bam, thank you ma'am - The music II

There's another thing that has always called my attention in this album, and it mostly happens with songs that aren't strictly related to the main "Ziggy" theme, like "Suffragette City", "Star" or even "Hang on to Yourself", which is how far ahead of their time they were, in a way. They not only seem to predict what Bowie himself would do in future albums, but in some cases you can hear elements that would only be a usual thing at least 5 years later. I guess this album became a much larger influence on punk and late 1970s new wave than any other album at the time.

I'll be your king volcano right for you again and again - The bonus tracks

I guess some people out there will have the original version of the album, but I always got reissues, first the 1990 reissue vinyl, which contained 5 bonus tracks, and later I got the 30th anniversary CD, which has a bunch more bonus, and is the version I'm currently listening to. And while they don't have much relation to the story of Ziggy, there are a lot of cool tracks there, and in some cases I had to actually check to make sure that their original dates weren't a bit later on, because a few, like "Holy Holy", or "John, I'm Only Dancing" make me think of a later Bowie.
And then there's one of my favourite non album Bowie songs, "Velvet Goldmine", which I'm putting here.

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth - Everything else

• The "to be played at maximum volume" was printed in the back cover of the original release. According to Wikipedia, it was removed from later releases, which seems weird to me because I distinctly remember reading it in the cover of, at least, my 1990 vinyl. At any rate, it's as true and valid as it was back then. This album should be played as loud as possible.
• Whether it was printed or not, I certainly knew about the line in 1998, when the movie Velvet Goldmine was released. The movie starts with the following disclaimer: "Although what you're about to see is a work of fiction, it should nevertheless be played at maximum volume". The movie is filled with oblique references to Bowie and the glam years, and I'm not going to talk about it now, because I will cover it a long time from now. Just go and watch it. It's a gem.
• The beautiful "Starman" has always reminded me of "Somewhere over the rainbow" when it gets to the chorus. It makes sense. This is the closest to Oz you can ever get. 
• After all this I've written (all that squawking like a pink monkey bird, I know), I still feel I haven't done this album justice. So go, get it, and play it at maximum volume. And if you still can't see why this album is so great, just play it again. 
• I mentioned before how this album makes me think of mythical live performances. The closest I've seen to my imagination was, of course, by Ziggy and The Spiders themselves, the version that was released in the movie. The clip here doesn't contain the introduction, in which Bowie says "not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do". The performance gives me goosebumps every time, and there's no way to finish this post.