1972年初,David把自己变成了Ziggy Stardust,这个只存在了短短两年的“太空”幻想生物,成为David一生中最为重要的形象。《The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars》是公认的,David最出色的专辑之一,而且,可以说,此后David再也没有如Ziggy时代一样的出色——虽然也许比Ziggy时代更成功。
David开始改变了,无论是音乐还是造型,Ziggy名字的来源取自一个同名裁缝店,这是个近乎玩笑的随意名字,David自己说用了这个名字的原因仅仅因为“Ziggy”要换很多套衣服。
Ziggy看上去夸张又怪异,卖弄风情,和早期David甜蜜的感觉完全不同,但是给人留下了更深印象。他的服装是由日本人Kansai Yamamoto制作的,所以常常可以非常古怪和不自然地找到日本感觉乃至中国特色。
David受日本艺术影响很大,也许这从他研究佛学的时候就开始了。他甚至在左边小腿内侧纹了一个美丽而怪异的纹身:裸体的男人骑在海豚上,在海中腾越,男人双手向上,似乎在做祈祷。底纹映衬着几行日本汉字的铭文。
Ziggy时代,David得到了全英国狂热崇拜,他成为了名副其实的真正的超级巨星。
火红头发的Glam巨星
火红的短发,剔掉眉毛,衣服绚烂多彩到光怪陆离,乃至浓重的情色成份,Ziggy在舞台上穿着挑逗的衣服唱歌,和吉它手模拟口交和性爱动作——不过身体全裸只穿了内裤的一回表演倒并非David刻意所为,那是一场事故:当时狂热的歌迷们撕烂了他的演出服,把碎片拿回家做纪念了。
David宣称自己是双性人,摆出性感和诱惑的姿势,歌曲不再那么忧郁和尖锐。基本上,《The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars》是一张折衷性的专辑,有讨好听众的一面,然而,前几张专辑中始终贯穿的死亡与梦幻的歌词本质却没有变,Ziggy依然是沉浸在飘渺和不满中的遁世者,面对现实无能为力,寂寞地消失湮没。
这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第35位。
Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust -- familiar in structure, but alien in performance -- is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion.