album #7

the rise and fall of ziggy stardust and the spiders from mars (david bowie)

Until now, I'd only heard the most famous tracks ("Sufragette City" and "Ziggy Stardust.") Something that surprised me was the enormous presence of influences and resemblances to other musicians. "Moonage Daydream" evokes Led Zepplin, "Sufragette City" is kinda like the Beach Boys, "Five Years" sounds like a Beatles track with Lennon-solo-era screaming, and "It Ain't Easy" makes me think of southern rock for whatever reason, although it also kinda sounds like a late-Beatles, Let It Be era McCartney track. "Starman" made me think of a rock opera. The general theme of this album was, classic 70s rock with a weird, cool, space age twist. My favorite tracks are "Five Years," which has this really interesting, insane, frantic pulse of desperation that grows at the end, and ultimately overtakes the steady, almost doo-wop rock demeanor. "Lady Stardust" is also a great one, and also sounds a bit like a rock opera (which I guess makes sense- Ziggy Stardust, thematically, sort of is a rock opera.) A lot of other tracks made me think of bands and songs that came long afterwards- there's a bit of punk rock to it, a bit of the 2000s new wave revival. There's no doubt that this was an influential album, both for capturing a lot of contemporary sounds, and it's creative, weirder innovations, and the influences it lent to future music movements.

"Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" is a great song and a great closer. It brings back some of the screaming and broken energy of "Five Years," a nice circular turn.

The bonus tracks are generally really good. "Sweet Head" is one of my favorite tracks on the whole album. With the bonuses included, the album ends on demos of "Ziggy Stardust" and "Lady Stardust." The album itself is this very bold and weird thing, like it's literally coming from a creature from outer space. So the demos are striking because they remind you that these are songs, crafted and drafted and planned by humans. The "Lady Stardust" demo is a great album closer, a soft but encouraging epilogue.

Altogether I didn't love this album but it was pretty cool. And I liked it more the more I heard of it (though that'll probably be true of most albums.)