THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS

In my opinion, The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars is an overrated David Bowie album. In terms of progressive Rock, albums like Space Oddity and especially The Man Who Sold The World are much stronger albums. A couple of the songs here actually originated from the The Man Who Sold The World sessions. On one edition of the latter album, earlier versions these songs appeared as bonus tracks and personally I prefer the earlier versions. These earlier versions are more Rock. The present album already saw Bowie move away from gritty Rock as such and towards the Funk and Soul that would culminate in the terrible Young Americans album. A more slick production and the presence of Pop tunes and Saxophones.

Another thing that brings this album down is the presence of cover songs. Space Oddity and The Man Who Sold The World were more original albums and more distinctively Bowie to my ears. Ziggy Stardust may be Bowie's commercial breakthrough, but earlier and some later albums are more interesting from a Prog perspective. Prog fans are advised to hear Space Oddity, The Man Who Sold The World and even Aladdin Sane and Scary Monsters before they hear the present album. Even the uneven so-called Berlin trilogy are more interesting from a Prog perspective than Ziggy Stadust in my opinion.

Ziggy Stadust is decent, but quite overrated

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