In 1972, David Bowie invented “his most beautiful creature”, Ziggy Stardust, with multiple inspirations, from Iggy Pop to Clockwork Orange.
Five Years, Starman: beyond the standards, the album Ziggy Stardust published 50 years ago, allowed David Bowie to take off by creating a double, a decisive milestone for this chameleon artist.
Alligator and bisexuality
“So far, he has failed in everything he has done since the start of his career”tells AFP Jérôme Soligny, author of David BowieRainbowmanreference work published in two volumes (Gallimard), object of reprints and international translations. Space Oddity (on the album of the same name, 1969) is only a short-lived hit, later passed down to posterity, just like Changes on the album Hunky Dory (1971).
And now the Englishman released a record in 1972 with an extended title The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars with the scent of a singular universe (The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars). The piece Moonage Daydream is a cryptic calling card of his “Ziggy Stardust” double: “I am an alligator (…) I am the space invader”.
To confuse the issue a little more, Bowie suggests his bisexuality by letting go in the music press that he is “gay”, while he lives with his wife and child. The singer “frequents night spots associated with gay culture, without being fundamentally gay himself, he likes the imagery”says Jérôme Soligny.
Marketing, Deep America
Jackpot. The media are interested in him, without managing to identify him, maintaining his mysterious aura. On TV, the interviewer is bundled up in a gray suit, seems to him hair dyed red, outfit with sequins. One is in black and white, the other in color. Bowie becomes a symbol of modernity, of the next world.
The artist imposes himself in the media as a star when he is not yet. The first concerts stamped “Ziggy” in the suburbs of London only brought together 150 people, including a third of guests.
“It’s a kind of marketing before its time, it’s its most beautiful creature, which allowed it to hatch, to be something other than a well-kept secret of a rock intelligentsia who is interested in him for a year and a half”analyzes Jérôme Soligny.
Bowie opens the doors of a tour in the USA. “He manages to impose an effeminate character where Marc Bolan (T. Rex leader) failed, that is to say to go and play in deep America, even if sometimes furious people will wait for him at the door of the dressing rooms”notes Soligny again.
Iggy Pop, A Clockwork Orange
As this specialist says, Bowie is “a sponge” and his “Ziggy Stardust” brings together several influences. “Ziggy” is first and foremost Iggy Pop. Bowie is fascinated by the singer of the Stooges, seen in particular on a photo where the American literally walks on the public in concert. The two musicians will become close. “Stardust” (“Stardust”) comes from the stage name of an American country singer, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, obsessed with the cosmos.
There is also Vince Taylor, an English rocker with a chaotic career, best known in France. “Bowie rubs shoulders with him at one point, Taylor feels like he’s going to be able to save rock, thinks he’s a messiah”, explains Jérôme Soligny. What to feed the character of “Ziggy”.
On the cover, Bowie poses thugly in a street with boots reminiscent of those worn by the gang of bad boys in the film Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. “He always dreamed of being in a gang, but it never happened, he was super well-behaved”according to Jérôme Soligny.
With all these fuels, the machine is launched. Then there will be “Aladdin Sane”, another double for the eponymous album of 1973, and its famous flash on the face. But Ziggy Stardust makes an impression (reissue on vinyl Friday, May 17). Brian Molko, leader of Placebo, refers to it. And Moonage Daydream became the title of a documentary on Bowie directed by the American Brett Morgen and presented at the last Cannes festival.