More about: David Bowie

50 years ago David Bowie changed the course of music with the release of ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’. Whilst the songs are revered, the place of the persona “Ziggy Stardust” in the album’s success is rarely discussed beyond surface-level awe. But what is the importance of Ziggy as a character? Can a public persona ever really affect the music?

For the purists, you might be screaming no, yelling that the sound is the only thing that matters. But really, that didn’t work for Bowie before.

David Jones had been releasing music since the early 1960s with The Konrads, as Davy Jones, and even as David Bowie, but was yet to experience true success. While 1969’s ‘Space Oddity’ got attention thanks to the well timed moon-landing release, the quick fade of the track at the time suggested he was just a one-hit-wonder, with albums like ‘Hunky Dory’ and ‘The Man Who Sold The World’ being almost entirely ignored. Bowie was set to be just another musician who experienced minor success before fading into obscurity.

That was until 1972. Stepping onto the Top Of The Pops stage with a mullet, paper-white pale skin and a tightly clad unitard - one performance of ‘Starman’ seemed to birth Bowie-mania over night. Die-hard fans were converted, fashion trends sprouted, Ziggy Stardust was born and David Bowie iconised. By the end of the year, all of Bowie’s previous albums were charting, and an almost cultish fanbase had formed.

That 1972 TOTP performance is widely regarded as the moment David Bowie became a star. But why was this performance different? It was the same voice, same song writing - not much had changed musically...

Well, that was the first time he debuted his first fully-realised persona: Ziggy Stardust, the androgynous, bisexual, rock star alien.

Before Bowie, very few musicians had utilised fictional characters, let alone one so unusual and unique. Meeting Ziggy, TOTP viewers were shocked, confused, and awestruck, but most importantly they were intrigued- they had never seen anything like it.

First, viewers were greeted with Bowie’s bright blue guitar, interspersed with intimate shots of the anisocoria of his pupils. Then, suddenly, they received Ziggy in his full glory: the quilted jumpsuit, the shock of orange hair, his arm around Mick Ronson as they shared the microphone... Bowie performed the uncanny, the taboo, and the strange with confidence. He reached out, pointing down the camera and breaking the 4th wall to sing “I had to phone someone so I picked on you”, and suddenly you, the viewer, were implicated. It was at that exact moment that Bowie gripped the nation, with fans everywhere referring to it as “a religious experience”.

It’s one of those rare performances that’s widely regarded as a pivotal moment in music, one that changed the course of history, with a slew of musicians including the likes of Boy George, Bono, and Robert Smith considering the performance formative.

However, ‘Starman’ is seldom ranked as Bowie’s greatest track, rarely even appearing in his top 10. So while the music on its own is undeniably great, it was Ziggy Stardust, his persona, that propelled Bowie to fame.

A Closer (Scientific) Look At The Ziggy Stardust Person:

Persona: the personality, image, and small world around an artist. This includes gestures, costumes, and even facial expressions.

When humans form new connections they create mental portfolios called “schemas” that foster the feeling of “knowing” someone. However, when this process is one-sided, such as with a celebrity who can’t respond, a parasocial relationship forms. This intimacy at a distance allows for vulnerability without the fear of rejection, and since a persona functions like a premade portfolio, a fan can intimately know an artist and form a stronger connection, which in turn creates more dedicated fans.

There is a historic tendency toward adopting personae that challenge dominant culture during oppressive times- the mask of a character provides freedom of expression, and the bravery of abnormality affirms/validates the viewer's feelings of “otherness”. Ziggy Stardust truly exemplified this balance of aspiration and escapism, with his “alienness” being the product of unapologetic androgyny, bisexuality, and alternative dress. This vulnerability in sharing the taboo parts of oneself is normally reserved for close personal friendships, so Ziggy’s proud uniqueness fabricated the illusion of closeness with fans who had already felt chosen as Bowie pointed down the camera on TOTP.

Through the creation of Ziggy Stardust, Bowie told fans that it was okay to be different. Subcultures emerge from the alienation of mainstream tastes and, through Ziggy, David Bowie was essentially orchestrating a cultural revolution. Fans identified with Ziggy Stardust, spending time exploring the dense world surrounding the persona, collecting and immersing themselves in as much material as they could. Fans even dressed like him, with Bowie’s then-wife, Angela, noting that the “Ziggy Stardust haircut was the single most reverberant fashion statement of the seventies”.

Ziggy carved out a fanbase of weirdos who celebrated the taboo parts of themselves. Social Identity Theory would explain that those who feel like outsiders are more likely to strongly defend their “in-group”, with the expansive lore of Ziggy Stardust creating a knowledge barrier that only made his “in-group” fanbase more dedicated and immersed, desperate to dig into the backstory that was slowly created through live performances and lyricism.

However, the power of an iconic image cannot be ignored, and the true driving power of Ziggy Stardust is visual. With Bowie noting “this whole thing is ... about clothes”, it feels apt that one quick Google search of “David Bowie” displays a slew of Ziggy outfits before all else, each more iconic than the last. Bowie created a visual feast that generated buzz through simply existing- pushing colour, shape, and gender boundaries whilst still telling a compelling story.

Without the persona of Ziggy Stardust, perhaps the album’s story would have felt less real, and fewer people would have cared. Creating a dense visual, audio and lyrical world on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars, the album is as thorough and full as any other Bowie release. Singing about hope, future technology, social stigma and youth revolution - the packed lyrical content would be a lot and no doubt some part of it would be lost if it wasn’t for Ziggy, the captivating narrator. 

Groundbreaking topics are densely packing into the album - take Lady Stardust as an example. The perspective angle of ‘Lady Stardust’ discusses LGBT+ characters as they are, not through the eyes of the stigma at the time. Lady Stardust’s androgyny is not questioned, with lines like “Lady Stardust sang his songs” not requiring further explanation. There is solace in lines such as ”he was alright, the band was altogether”- as whilst his authentic self was frowned upon, everything would be okay as long as the band played on. There is a comfort in the unfaltering acceptance as characters “emerge] from the shadows to watch”, enchanted. And with all the weirdness and visual offers of Ziggy, there’s almost something protective about it. For a moment, you can be outside of the real world and it’s stigmas, you can just be with him. By the time you get to ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ with Bowie telling the listener directly “you’re not alone / No matter what or who you’ve been” - the character feels like a friend you’ll listen to and believe.

It’s not hard to understand how one can get completely engrossed in the world of ‘The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’. For listeners, Ziggy Stardust was tangible proof that the unconventional and taboo parts of themselves didn’t make them broken or any less lovable. The existence of the Ziggy Stardust persona created an extra aspect to connect with- something physical, something... “real”. It was Bowie’s balance of both sound and vision (pun intended) that revolutionised what an artist could be, changing the future of music for good.

David Bowie is recieving a stone in the Music Walk Of Fame on September 22nd.

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More about: David Bowie