The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

Bowie Good.

Only listened to half of the songs, liked almost all of them. Preferable with good speakers/headphones.

The infamous queer glam pop masterpiece on which Bowie out-Eltons the John. 🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

Has a 70's feel... Suffergette city is the best track. Though i love bauhaus' version of ziggy

i really liked this one and i wasn’t even listening for the concept, just good songs

Este es mi estilo de música, así que me gustó bastante el disco.

Not his best but damn close.

Kanye west?!?!

couldn’t follow the story but starman is an all time banger

stardust...

the panflute or whatever in Moonage daydream goes so hard for no reason. I really like his story telling in this, never really listened to david bowie and this was a nice introduction. Overall, this grew on me each time i listened..im starting to get rock opera

Enjoyed this full album more than I thought I would. My expectation was that I’d like the tracks I’m familiar with but be bored with the rest. I liked it all.

Not bad.

Great stuff from a great man, grows with every listen

I’ve always found this album overrated in Bowie’s canon and prefer plenty of his other LPs… but it’s still peak Bowie and has some of his best tracks. A-

Excellent album gets better with age

mmmmmmm space man yes. nice start. beautiful start.

Weird, quirky and very good. More people should sing about Martian spiders.

Great album with a whole lot of classics. For general enjoyment, I personally would rather spin Blackstar. He is clearly early on in his career here and the songwriting to me reflects it. This album is incredibly influential though and deserves all of the praise it gets. So many great tracks. Five Years, Moonage Daydream, Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City, all classics I'll turn up the radio for when they come on.

The genius of David Bowie can’t be overstated, and this is a perfectly crafted album and a fantastic glam rock opera. 4.25/5 rounded down to 4/5 just because I don’t think I’ll keep it on heavy rotation as I do to 4.5-5 star albums.

This album absolutely shocked me, I have always been around Bowie's music but this is just front to back brilliance. The funk, the groove, the ever-present reverb/distortion on the guitars. Just brilliant, his vocals are impeccable...

A unique artist. Classic material.

Strong 4, pretty groovy

BOWIE IS THE MOST OVERRATED ARTIST EVER!!! Now that I have your attention, let me explain. People suck on his nuts because he’s that perfect amount of weird where they aren’t freaked out by him but he’s not normal enough to be considered too basic. At the time his music was revolutionary, but now? It gets lost in the shuffle to me. He wrote a pretty good rock opera album here and rested on his laurels after that in my opinion. He became just another pop-star. And for all the Green Day haters in this group, I’d like to say that when Green Day wrote a rock opera, they actually got it produced. Bowie couldn’t do that even though he wanted to. Green Day literally got American Idiot on Broadway. There are levels here people. This album is definitely Bowie’s best, and it’s very well done. He has real artistry in here. But this ain’t a 5. I’ll never understand why everyone was so obsessed with space back when this was made. It was all aliens and asteroids and that hoopla. So I will end by saying this album is great, but not one of the best things I’ve ever heard like everyone tries to say.

3,5

Really enjoyed essentially every song on this record. Great vocals from Bowie and songs that sound fresh.

A great album with vivid storytelling from David, a few different styles woven throughout gives a good amount of variety that's needed. Overall a lovely rock opera with an interesting story. Favourite track Moonage Daydream.

Good, inspirational and brave for the time but not sure the whole album stands the test of time.

There's a starrrrrMAAAAAAAANNNNN

Barring a few tracks that get in the way, this is a great album, with lots of innovation and cohesion. One of his best

I first heard this album as a child and loved it greatly. There is so much emotion in this album. I really love Bowie's music,

Overall I enjoyed the album. My two favorites were, of course, 'Star Man' and 'Ziggy Stardust' (and the only two adds to my list). There were several others I also enjoyed, but I really didn't care for the remaining 2-3. I'm pretty 50/50 on his voice; some tracks I do enjoy it and others I find it kind of grating. My favorite part of the album is 100% how well the guitar shines through - imo the songs end up feeling catchy, yet still creative. As opposed to our previous album, I enjoy the slower/midtempo stuff a lot more than his 'upbeat' songs. 7/10

was okay. jammed along with it a bit

Haha, imagine not connecting at all to one of the most beloved albums of all time

Classic album from an amazing artist doesn't mean it's flawless. Still good, but not great.

Although there are a couple lesser effort songs in the mix, the album is packed with classics. I love the off-the-wall lyrics.

Maybe a low 4 now with high 4 potential

It's a great album. People like Ziggy and it's a fine track but Suffragette City is the star. I wouldn't say it's perfect since there are some boring filler tracks mixed in but the good tracks compensate for those.

Finally a Bowie album where I can HEAR why he is revered. The music has bones that can stand on its own, without glitz and glam. Ironic because the over-the-top dramatic Ziggy character is what people remember about this album the most. And he didn’t even need it. Sure, Ziggy helped raise the profile for the concept. But the music would be good no matter what. I’m glad I finally got to this album and realization because I was starting to think Bowie’s flare only served to cover up music lacking the same stature.

Listened to the 2012 remaster of this and it was crisp 😍 I really like the style of Bowie's music and could listen to it all day. Starman is such a classic track but I don't feel that same magic from the rest of the album. The other tracks are not bad at all, just not quite as special. There were a couple of songs on here that I hadn't heard before that I really enjoyed (Rock N Roll Suicide and Moonage Daydream). Really torn between 4 and 5. I would give it 4.5 if I could. I enjoyed this more than Station To Station.

great record, would listen on repeat

always fantastic

Klassiker, rock opera, konceptuelt, innovativt

Extremely good, and basically every song on the album is very on point. An excellent starting place.

Bowie at his best. The showmanship and storytelling silliness is de-emphasized, with a more sincere-seeming and serious-sounding commitment to actual, you know, musicmaking. The playing and tone are great throughout and there are no major lulls or tracks that are outright/obvious fillers.

bra opplegg

moonage daydream, starman ve rock n roll en sevdigim bowie sarkilari arasindalar ama en iyi albumu bu degil

An enjoyable space rock opera which encompasses varying sub-genres like glam rock, punk and a hint of rockabilly sensibility. This album is sonically reminiscent of the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack (although it predates the film by three years). Very kooky yet sentimental, with some songs dealing with the facets of the human condition; in regards to holding on to hope in an apocalyptic landscape.

I'm a sucker for a good rock opera and I've been trying to get into Bowie for a while now. Didn't disappoint. Standouts: Five Years, Moonage Daydream, Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City

Good album. Listened three times and will probably revisit it again. Bowie's imagery in the songs is interesting and worth further exploration. Solid composition as well.

Liked it a lot. I had heard it before but never listened really just in the background. Loved five years, starman, it ain't easy, and hang on to yourself especially.

The peak of 70s glam rock. It's a coherent album about the strange rock star persona Ziggy Stardust. Songs have an eery jazz-influenced vibe supported by Bowie's smooth and yearnful vocals. There's also gospel influence in plenty of tracks like "It Ain't Easy" and "Lady Stardust". It has some insane hooks, with some catchy choruses (especially "Starman"), and a range of unusual instruments, such as the acoustic guitar, string arrangements, and a sax. I think all the songs are pretty good, although I found a few to be weak (e.g. "Hang on to Yourself"), and hardly any of them blew me away like his other albums, but it does grow on me. For example, I hated "Star" until my 5th listen. It gets extra points for being one of the most influential pop rock albums of the 70s, but I'm not crazy enough about it to regard it among his other masterpieces.

🤥

Almost everything has already been said about this album. It’s a classic melding of musical influences. You can hear the jazz, the hillbilly, the folk, the glam-rock but it feels cohesive not a muddled hotch-potch. It is seminal and inclusive and the poetic lyrics are an aural joy. It also never dates. How topical is ‘Five Years’ now? I’m not giving it 5 stars though because I would, on further listening, always skip a couple of tracks to get to the meatier ones, scoop the filling out of the pie crust if you like. There also other Bowie albums that for me are just a bit better. But a great way to start your day! Or just inject a bit of dynamic to a Wet Wednesday.

Not perfect, but great. I think the concept that was promised went a bit off track, but it was a fun ride. I always forget how much I like Moonage Daydream. I really want to give it a 5, but my finger tapped the 4th star and that seems right.

Hey — thanks Nicole. Seeing you rate albums that were served up earlier made me realize this was possible. I listened to this album when it appeared in our feed, but I was late to the party to review and was shut out. Great album, might be a five-star if this weren't David Bowie whose body of work sets a high bar, and somehow that seems to factor in. Iconic as it it is, I don't love "Five Years," so opening with that sets me off on shaky ground. But god damn, Bowie sure found his Ziggy spaceman groove on this album and puts on something of a alt-songwriting clinic. What a fantastic artist, love this guy.

It’s good, a couple of great songs on there but a step down from Hunky Dory as far as I can tell. I would probably give it 5 stars if I wasn’t expecting much more. Top 100 but nowhere near the top 10 for me.

Really went back and forth between 4 and 5 stars on this. On one hand, it’s an all-time classic that’s excellently written and sung, but on the other hand, I thought a lot of the non-iconic tracks were forgettable. I guess I’ll do a high 4 stars for this.

Is this the longest titled album in music? 3 classic songs, Starman, Suffragette City and Ziggy Stardust, but my 2 favorites were Five years and It ain't easy. It ain't easy because I'm convinced this a southern fried rock kinda song. Serious. Anyway, my favorite of the Bowie stuff I have listened to and would listen again 3.5

I dropped the ball on the last two albums. Sorry, guys. Anyways, 4.5 I admit I’d never heard this album all the way through either, and like with Hunky Dory I loved almost everything off of this. It had a lot of the rock and roll shit that I love The Who for but with a light psych twist. I’ll be listening again and probably buying on vinyl

Bowie's biggest album is also one that can't live up to the hype. While not a bad album it just never captured you completely and made you say "Wow" like others of his albums and other albums that are commonly named in the same sentence, did

I own this on vinyl. Twas good.

4.5 stars. Formative highschool album.

Glad to have listened to this album all the way through but don’t think it has much replay ability for me out side of the big hits, which are very good. The sound does seem to meld together a bit throughout the album but the song writing is good.

Nice slice of Bowie's earlier work, including a few classics. Some clunkers in the mix, too.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 love the obvious picks like Starman, and Ziggy Stardust. the rest was great as well!

Kanye West is on the album cover. That is SOOOO cool! Also some great tunes on this album. Definitely a listen to-able again album.

Går ju inte tycka illa om det här. Kanske inte är en femma men en stark 4, absolut.

Love!

Probably Bowles best album, shit bangs

While I feel like there is too much Bowie on this list, this is the one that I would include.

it's most impressive feat is managing to make all that glam 70s shit with the weird singing voices tolerable. got amazing tracks on and they're all pretty good, but listening to them all in a row turned it in to a slog, this album is best listened to in small bitesize chunks.

I definitely want to give this album more listens to fully judge how I feel about it but my initial reaction is I liked what I heard. Excited to explore more of his discography too.

3rd Bowie album. Gotta say I like the guy. Each album give a better look at his career. This one had some great showy theatrics to it. Loved all the space theming. Album came out not too long after the moon landing. Good stuff

A very well known and probably Bowies most famous album. The depth to this album is impressive as there are so many different themes inside the story of the album. The songs themselves are pretty great, not so many big hits but a very consistent album. As with most Bowie albums I’ve had on this list this one is also better than average and a great piece of work by Bowie. 7.8/10

Classic, a little of key for my ear

rock 'n' roll flute. Starman. Nice.

I feel like i’ve listened to every song on this album without realizing what I was listening to. Hit after hit!

The "hits" on this album really stand out. I'm also noticing how full Bowie's vocal range was. I'm digging the 2nd half more than the 1st half...perhaps because of the pianos?

Ein af þessum sem ég kann utanað. Vel gerð þemaplata og þó nokkrir bangerar.

Finally - a Bowie album I can get behind! This has to be his best album right? I have no complaints.

Enjoyed it!

Very good, with Starman and the title song as the main highlights. Not my favourite Bowie album, though.

Good songs

Listened to on 8/23/22 4/5 Favorite song: Starman I enjoyed this album and thought it was super easy to listen to - Starman was definitely a cut above the rest though

Great to listen to in full.

There are some albums that you can recognize as incredible even if you don't necessarily like them so much. There was a lot of talent and creativity that went into making this but it would not be very high on the list of albums I'd want to sit down and listen to.

I listened this quite a bit when I was in my mid teens (90's) and remembered likening it back then. Then about a year ago I gave it a try and wasn't a fan. And now listened to it again and like it Weird

A classic. One of those must listen to albums, and since you likely know several of the tracks, your work is half done!

Listened to this on RS500 and didn’t get the fuss. The listen this go around I really appreciated it.

Love the raw and powerful voice

For me, this is the glam rock album par excellence. Bowie, who started off as a folk singer, made the switch to rock and decided to create alter egos he could explore on stage. In later interviews, he said it was because he didn't know himself and was searching--fair enough! We all reap the benefit of his quest for self discovery. On stage, in the 1970s, Bowie was a very different person than he was off. He became a new person as he adopted each disguise. And Ziggy is perhaps his most famous disguise: a rock-star alien doomed in his quest to save the Earth, an alien complete with orange hair, fantastic makeup, and futuristic costumes. Ziggy Stardust is musical role-playing at its finest without being musical theater. The lyrics of the album create vivid images in the mind of the listener as the vocals shift from person to person within a song. The music is more subtle, though it is full of vocal and instrumental hooks that make every song memorable. Ziggy is mysterious but demands attention, he is simultaneously accessible and ambiguous, and in this creation, Bowie raises role-playing to an art form.

Such an interesting songwriter, performer, and person. Great album. PS -- never occurred to me until just now as I listened to this album that David Bowie and John Lennon can sound a lot alike when they sing -- not sure why I never made that connection (and I'm guessing it's one of those observations that pretty much everybody makes and I'm just super-late to the party...not the first time! ;-)

It's a great album. I didn't love EVERY track, but it's well worth a listen. You ever listen to an album and you can just hear the creativity in every track? That's how this one is. Fave track: Suffragette City

Moonage Daydream - best song from this album.

Great album, and a must listen. I'm not on the Bowie bandwagon, but do admire his constant reinventing of himself and his sound. 4/5.

I enjoyed this album well enough. Nothing too memorable though.

Super fast paced, no misses, cool classic rock type stuff

listened to again such a classic

Really great album. So theatrical and colorful in the mix of music. And the Ziggy Stardust concept adds to the history of it as well. 8/10

A good album. I didn’t love it enough to give it 5 stars but it definitely deepened my appreciation for me Bowie

Un disco muy del estilo de David Bowie. Excelente voz y melodías.

Great voice, great music! It always impresses me how many different kinds of music David Bowie does so well!

If all of Bowie’s stuff had this vibe I’d be a fan. Starman, Moonage Daydream and Lady Stardust were major highlights for me.

Pretty fun!

The Bowie I know and love. Not that Heroes malarkey! Solid tunes with a few absolute bangers! 4.5/5 rounded down.

Love it

C’est excellent cet album.

Great album, pretty much peak Bowie

A proper good album.

Hadn't sat and listened to this in a long time.great LP.

I’ve always liked Bowie but this is the first time I listened to an album of his from start to finish and it made me appreciate how well the entire album was done.

good album, enjoyed it a lot.

4.5

Muito bom, 4/5

Classic for a reason. I don't - at all - like this era of music. However Bowie is a class above, inventing so others can follow.

I'M AN ALLIGATORRRRRRR No but really what a fun album.

I'd heard most of Bowie's hits but never listened to an album straight through. Did not disappoint! Standout tracks: "Five Years" and "Suffragette City"

Fantastic!

Great album. Everyone knows this one.

Want a weird album that is fun and just rocks? Listening I felt like my 6 year old dancing in the kitchen when no one is watching. Doesn't matter if the moves are good, just feel it. If you are looking for perfect pop gems, this isn't your album. If you want something that grabs you and is just beyond your reach of understanding why... this is your home. A younger, teenage version of myself wouldn't get it. Bowie's voice, the twang of the guitars, the general sound are rough and unkempt. But it isn't dirty. It isn't without discipline. It's magical and magic is strange.

This is the 2nd Bowie album I've listened to from start to finish (the other being his first). It was pretty good and I know this album is rated super high, but it's a 4.5/5 stars for me. Maybe it'll grow on me over time as I become more of a fan, but it's just not quite there for me.

Such a delight! I love how one song can sound like a Led Zepplelin jam, followed by a Beatles pop tune, and then a stomp n clap soul track, all with the same dreamy space concept.

Pros: - WOW what an opener. Love the performances, love the production. - Most of the songs are quite good with elements to like from each track. Cons: Misc: - Another artist i have not fully listened to. Haven't heard a full album through, and ashamed to say I've probably only heard around 10 songs of his.

Compelling rock, evoking themes reminiscent of an HG Wells novel

I really dig it

Great, but not greatest.

First off, one of the best titles for an album of all time. Songs back it up too!

The first time I heard this, some 30 years ago, I didn't understand. I had seen it on another essential records book, had seen a vinyl copy for real cheap, and bought it. I was in Italy at the time.  Although I brought back to Montreal most of my physical music, this record didn't make it; I just wasn't able to find it, as my parents too had moved around a bit during the years.  Then, with the streaming services and the such, I heard it again. What a fabulous album this is! I don't think I can add anything new to all that was already said both about Bowie and this album, other than it wasn't immediate for me, and if you listen to it for the first time and, like myself, find yourself not "getting" it, all I can suggest is that you patiently stick with it, it takes work but it is a really rewarding work. 

Was really good. The songs flowed so well with one another effortlessly.

A really good album some good songs but for me not quite perfect

Really fun album. Starman and Moonage Daydream back to back is an amazing 1/2 punch. Not sure it is as great cover to cover as a few other Bowie albums. 4/5

excellent early bowie. so many great songs on this album

About what I expected from Bowie

This is very 80s, very Bowie. He's one of those rockstars that you have to know, simply because of his outfits, and other technical bits about his music that I don't know about because I'm not music educated. Sorry. The famous songs are Ziggy Stardust, obviously, and Moonage Daydream, but I liked getting to know the other songs, even if I didn't quite understand what they mean. An overall consistent sound that has its place in the Hall of Rock.

Boom! Joo tää on näitä ns peruspilareita jonka päälle taiderokki ja alteregopohjainen rokkiteatteri rakentuu. Jos tätä levyy ei olis niin kyllähän koko rakennelma olis killissä ku kapitalistin sielu ja valuis suoraan palavana romuna aurinkoon tai mereen. Hiton siistii on että vaikka osaan joku 6/10 tän levyn biisest about ulkoo, tää silti yllättää ja noi hieman unohtuneetkin biisit on jotenki megaherkullisii ja jotenkin vaan vitu-hyvää-muzaa... Kivaa myös se että tää paranee ja paranee ja paranee loppua kohti

En oo juurikaan kuunnellu Bowieta, mutta tää oli kyllä tosi hyvä ensikuuntelemalla. Tarttuvat melodiat ja korkeelentonen konseptimeininki kelpaa. Voi olla että enemällä kuuntelulla vois olla jopa 5/5.

Lol tää hukkas mun notesit. 4/5 ei muuta sanottavaa enää

Soul love & Moonage daydream stand out. Feel like they have really interesting instrument use Very dramatic Starman is also really fun!!! Definitely feel like I'm appreciating the album more in full, rather than single songs I don't like it ain't easy's intro, but when it gets to the chorus it slaps??? Lady stardust kinda meh (too repetive and what's repetitive isn't particularly interesting) Loving the piano in star Really dig the classic rock n roll feel of "hang on to yourself" Sufragettr City slaps!! Rock n roll suicide feels like a bit of a hard break (in terms of style) compared to the songs before it, but I can vibe with it

An LP that manages to build whole worlds out of nothing but some sparse arrangements and a healthy dollop of personality. While Bowie plays fast and loose with the actual narrative structure here, near every song thrums with a life, ego, and damnably catchy melody of its own.

Splendid. K. West

9/10

Favorite songs: Ziggy Stardust and Moonage Daydream

So many classics! Great album.

A really fun and wonderfull journey, that Ziggy tells us!

4.13 It's Bowie what's not to like?

Top Tracks: Five Years, Moonage Daydream, Starman, Ziggy Stardust. Start of the album is a little stronger than the second half for me, but man what an awesome album overall. Good closer in Rock'n'Roll Suicide as well.

V good

3.5

Nice space-y Bowie, with only a few songs I've heard before. Soaring choruses, far-out lyrics, and of course, letting the kids boogie.

big bucks for starman. as an album i dont think i am in

Great album. Definitely one I enjoyed listening to

It’s good; don’t get me wrong.

Mooi album, ooit gekocht vanwege Moonage daydream. Moddervette cover gemaakt door Zen Guerilla (voor de liefhebbers)..

Love David Bowie. Te gek album. Vooral Starman, Ziggy Stardust en Suffragette City springen eruit.

Behoorlijk goed. Had ik niet verwacht want ik heb niet zoveel met Bowie.

Very good!

Me gustó mucho ya q solo había escuchado a conciencia starman, y el disco me ha sorprendido para bien. BT: Five Years (1) Soul love (2) Starman (4) Hang on To Yourself (8) Ziggy Stardust (9)

Geht öde los, und dann kommt völlig unvermittelt Starman und man ist mit Bowies teilweise unerträglichen Idiosynkrasien wieder versöhnt. Wird dann ok bis gut.

Good. I prefer other music, though. There was nothing that made me get really involved. Can understand the appeal.

mr starman does it again!

Classic.

Solid. Has some good ones

A classsic album which showcases some of the brillance of Bowie. Hard to give it anything other than high priase

Loved it.

I could listen to this over and over again. It's one of my favorite records, and Bowie is one of my favorite artists. The story told on this record is wonderful and heartbreaking. 4.5*

AGUANTE EL PITY, AGUANTE INTOXICADOS

This absolute beast of an album opens with, 'Five Years' - an epically cathartic anthem featuring that unmistakable Bowie scream. From that bold opening, it doesn't diminish. The pace is maintained throughout, with classics ('Starman'), bangers ('It Ain't Easy') and all out rock n roll ('Suffragette City'). This record is dripping with fierce guitar hooks and now-legendary riffs ('Ziggy Stardust'); the cry of the Gibson SG heard throughout. Mick Ronson's finest moment. Not a bad one for Dave, either. Wham, bam, thank you mam.

Every song on this album is CRACKIN’!

Pretty good

Solid bob album

Ah, a total classic! Favourite track: "Ziggy Stardust"

not bad

Another classic

Magífico, de los mejores discos de David Bowie

Classic, enjoyed

Some great classic Bowie tracks 4*

A classic album with a huge influence. Some great tunes on here too..however not my favourite Bowie album. But it was good to put this album on and try to appreciate it for what it is.

You're out of this world and we miss you, Mister Bowie. Could really have used your spirit this past year. Thanks for gifting us all these lasting pieces of you.

Mad props for the influence and legacy. Heard Blur and Supergrass all the way through, two of my fave bands. I enjoyed the music more than I thought I would, some Bowie bangers on here too. Wouldn't be in a mega rush to hear it again but scoring highly for the respect. 8/10

Good but not my jam

Definitely the best of the Bowie albums we've had so far.

Topp

sempre estarrrrrr laaaa e ver ele voltar nao era mais o mesmo mas estava em seu lugar

Hay canciones muy buenas, clásicos de 5 estrellas como Starman o Star. Con Bowie tengo el problema que he escuchado muchas de sus canciones famosas pero no sus discos, así que no sé en cuales están y aunque conozco las portadas confundo el contenido. En cualquier caso, David Bowie en su conjunto merece formar parte del Olimpo de la música moderna. Además de las 2 canciones mencionadas yo destacaría "Moonage Daydream" y "Ziggy Stardust".

Classic

Deliciously refreshing. My favorite Bowie.

love Bowie

tremenditiritillo

9/10

Great overall sound, this album has some very well known and used songs. Highly recommended for a good listen, but the first two songs may require two or more listens.

Ziggy played guitar

Those last few tracks are just amazing. I always forget how much I love this album.

I mean it’s David Bowie come on 4.5

ZIGGY PLAYYYEED GUITARRRR

I mean, Bowie... it's good...

Great easy listening, and a ton of absolute classics! I'm glad to have listened through this, and I grabbed a song for my playlist.

Classic

Just good music

Nice album! Starman is a classic and a favorite of mine, but also very nice opener and many other good songs.

Was good

UUU Boy! Never was one for David Bowie, but as of late I'm really getting into his stuff. Ziggy Stardust for me is top Bowie, but then again I haven't yet listened to his other stuff. But this album was a really cool mix of rock and weird rock. Starman, C'mon, that shit is awesome!

Great album. As usual, Bowie isn't always my cup of tea. This album has plenty of goodness going for it though, so it falls into my 4 star range.

Surprised how much I enjoyed it

Mais um grande álbum de Bowie

A classic of course

pretty good

Classssic

bowie nowhere near as space gay as i remember

It's okay

B, 68% The first thing Ziggy Stardust does is announce the end of the fucking world and the second thing it does is make apocalypse sound suspiciously like community theater. I mean that affectionately, partly. “Five Years” begins with Mick Woodmansey’s drumbeat coming down the street one dull thud at a time, not Armageddon drums, not John Bonham knocking God unconscious, just this almost bureaucratic pulse while Bowie starts reporting catastrophe like somebody reading a newspaper aloud after the pubs have closed. Earth has five years left. People are crying. Children are drinking milkshakes. A cop kneels to kiss somebody’s feet. The entire species has received an eviction notice and Bowie, rather than doing the obvious rock-star thing and screaming immediately, keeps accumulating pathetic human details until the song finally cannot contain him anymore. His voice rises from reporter to witness to hysterical asshole clutching strangers on the pavement, and by the time he is repeating “five years” the vocal has gone beautifully ragged around the edges. This is one of the places where Bowie’s theatricality stops being costume and becomes nervous-system damage. He does not convince me because the apocalypse is plausible. He convinces me because the man singing has abruptly become unable to regulate himself. That final vocal sounds like somebody who started acting and accidentally discovered a real emotion in the middle of the performance, which is a dangerous thing to happen to David Bowie because the motherfucker’s entire career depended on keeping several emergency exits available between himself and sincerity. And then, almost immediately, the record starts fucking around. This is what keeps The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars from becoming the enormous personal revelation its reputation keeps sending ahead like an advance publicity team. I like the bastard. Quite a lot of it works beautifully. Several moments are absolutely lethal. I understand why the album colonized bedrooms, wardrobes, adolescent sexuality and record collections for fifty years. But the myth is bigger than the music, and hearing it now means confronting an album whose concept has been inflated by cultural memory into some kind of queer extraterrestrial Wagnerian rock scripture when the actual record is a compact batch of very good glam songs, several extraordinary performances, some thin connective tissue, one cover that should have been arrested at the border, and a story so barely present that people have spent half a century reverse-engineering a libretto Bowie plainly could not be bothered to write. Ziggy is supposedly an alien rock messiah, except perhaps he is a human receiving extraterrestrial messages, except perhaps none of that matters, except he rises, becomes famous, gets consumed by his own ego and audience, and dies, or gets torn apart by black-hole people, or rock-and-roll suicides himself, or something. Nobody knows because Bowie apparently looked at narrative continuity and said, “Darling, continuity is for heterosexuals.” Fine. Concept albums usually become unbearable the instant somebody starts taking attendance. What matters is that Bowie discovered an image capacious enough to swallow every song whether the song actually belonged there or not. That is different from writing a coherent narrative and much more interesting. Ziggy is less a character than a contaminated atmosphere. Once Bowie places the name on the sleeve, suddenly every cheap little rock-star gesture becomes evidence. Every sexual ambiguity becomes mythology. Every reference to fame sounds prophetic because we know what happened afterward. Every guitar chord Mick Ronson plays acquires silver boots. This is branding elevated into ontology, which is one of Bowie’s genuine superpowers. He understands that if you give an audience the right haircut, the right photograph and three suggestive nouns, they will do several million pounds’ worth of conceptual labor for free. People talk about Bowie as a master of reinvention, but what interests me more is how extraordinarily good he was at getting everybody else to finish the reinvention for him. Ziggy exists because the public agreed to hallucinate him. The hallucination was helped immeasurably by Mick fucking Ronson, who is the actual physical body of this record. Bowie supplies the face, voice, scenario, bisexual extraterrestrial theater and cheekbones sharp enough to open letters, but Ronson supplies weight. Listen to “Moonage Daydream,” which begins with Bowie declaring himself an alligator, a mama-papa coming for you, a space invader, and several other things that would sound like lyrics found written on the wall of a bus station bathroom if Ronson did not immediately make them feel carved into stone. The guitar tone is enormous without being sludge, bright enough to bite but thick enough to have hips. Then the arrangement starts expanding around him, strings climbing, saxophones blowing hot air into the ceiling, Bowie stretching vowels until “freak out” becomes less instruction than sexual weather, and Ronson eventually produces that long closing solo, one of the album’s rare moments where the whole Ziggy fiction stops feeling like Bowie putting on a very good coat and starts feeling genuinely cosmic. Not cosmic like Carl Sagan. Cosmic like someone put amphetamines in the Book of Revelation and gave it a Gibson Les Paul. That song gets to me bodily. The riff has thrust. There is no tasteful word for it and I do not want one. It comes through the speakers pelvis-first. Bowie’s vocal sits on top behaving like he has transcended ordinary sexual categorization, while Ronson underneath is doing something much more primitive, dragging the whole thing forward by the belt loops. Glam’s great trick was never simply androgyny. It was making masculinity so artificial that it became available for play. Bowie could put on makeup, dye his hair, wear a jumpsuit that makes his torso resemble a particularly elegant insect, sing about boys and girls and stars and himself with the pronouns all getting pleasantly slippery, and none of it weakened the rock phallus because Ronson was standing there making the guitar sound like the rock phallus had just discovered lipstick and was extremely pleased about it. That is considerably more interesting than the current museum version of Ziggy, where everybody behaves like Bowie descended in 1972 to personally invent queerness while Britain gasped into its tea. Britain had plenty of queer people in 1972. It had also only partially decriminalized sex between men in England and Wales five years earlier, under restrictions that would look fucking deranged now. Glam’s ambiguity lived inside that tension. Bowie’s famous public declarations about sexuality mattered because they were occurring in a culture where being queer could still wreck employment, housing, family, safety, everything, but Bowie’s ambiguity was also commercial theater, celebrity strategy, genuine desire, provocation, self-invention and bullshit all at once. Trying to separate those strands now is like trying to identify the original ingredients after somebody has baked a cake, eaten half of it, thrown it at Mick Jagger, and sold the remaining slice to the Victoria and Albert Museum. What I love is precisely that the performance will not sit still long enough to become morally tidy. Bowie does not present gender as inner truth waiting to be liberated. He presents it as wardrobe, gesture, appetite, angle, lighting, hair, rumor, voice, posture, commerce. That feels more modern to me than a lot of the reverent language subsequently built around him. Identity here is something you make while everybody watches, then they copy it, then you get bored and kill it. But the songs, the actual fucking songs, keep refusing to become as monumental as this interpretation wants them to be. “Soul Love” is lovely, featherweight, almost lazily seductive, with that saxophone curling around the vocal while Trevor Bolder’s bass keeps the thing moving beneath Bowie’s little anthropology of love. I like the looseness. The groove has air. Bowie sings the different kinds of love as though examining specimens under colored glass, maternal love, romantic love, religious love, stupid human attachment generally, and the arrangement never declares which one is meant to matter. Then “Moonage Daydream” kicks the door open and makes the preceding delicacy look like foreplay. That contrast is smart. But elsewhere the album keeps relying on songs whose charm depends heavily on the accumulated force of the persona. Remove Ziggy from “Star” and you have an enjoyable glam-rock number about wanting to become a rock star, precisely the sort of thing a thousand bands would later write after deciding becoming famous counted as metaphysics. “Hang On to Yourself” is better because the Spiders finally start playing like they have somewhere to be. The rhythm is impatient, compact, almost proto-punk in the way people enjoy saying after the future has already happened. The guitars chatter, the drums run, Bowie spits the lines instead of caressing them, and suddenly the album sounds less like a concept record than four people in a room who could plausibly make your drink fall off the table. Then there is “Starman,” which is probably impossible to hear innocently now because it has spent half a century being transformed from pop single into official state hymn of Wonder, Difference, Childhood, Space, David Bowie Memorialization and every commercial where a car drives through the desert while someone experiences Personal Transformation. The song survives this abuse better than it has any right to. That octave leap on “star-man” is such a shameless little piece of pop architecture, an instant opening in the ceiling, and the chorus has the melodic inevitability of something that seems obvious only because Bowie already wrote it. You can hear bits of “Over the Rainbow” in its upward yearning, you can hear old pop craft underneath the sci-fi lacquer, and that is Bowie all over. He is rarely the alien he claims to be. He is a magpie with fantastic tailoring. The future in Bowie is usually assembled from things sitting around the past, Anthony Newley, Jacques Brel, Little Richard, music hall, Warhol, science fiction paperbacks, Japanese fashion, gay clubs, mime for Christ’s sake. His genius is montage. He takes cultural material that should not coexist, puts it under the same orange hair, and waits until everybody decides the combination must have arrived from Mars. “Starman” is also where the fantasy of rescue works because Bowie keeps it small. The alien does not descend with commandments. He is hanging around the radio, reluctant to blow our minds. Kids hear him. Parents are horrified because parents in pop songs are contractually required to hate anything fun. It is stupid and perfect. The song understands that teenage utopia is not a political program. Teenage utopia is receiving one transmission your parents cannot decode. I never needed the transmission specifically to come from outer space. Sometimes it came from a record, sometimes another weird girl, sometimes a badly compressed video on the internet, sometimes some artifact made twenty years before I was born that suddenly said, there are other freaks, congratulations, unfortunately they are also idiots. That mechanism still works in “Starman,” even after the song has been bronzed by canonization. For three minutes, Bowie remembers that salvation needs a hook. And then we hit “It Ain’t Easy,” where the record turns into a hitchhiker who has climbed into the wrong car. I fucking hate the sequencing more than I hate the song itself. Ron Davies wrote it, plenty of people recorded it, Bowie had already cut it during the Hunky Dory period, and here it sits at the end of side one like somebody wandered onto the stage carrying an entirely different musical. It has its virtues. Ronson’s guitar crunches nicely. Bowie gets to do that strangled upper-register thing in the chorus. The gospel-rock structure has some muscle. But on an album whose later reputation depends so heavily on the idea of coherent persona and world-building, sticking this fairly generic blues-gospel cover in the middle is hilarious. Imagine Sgt. Pepper suddenly including a competent cover of “Mustang Sally” because they had one lying around. This is where the myth and artifact get into a fistfight and the artifact wins. Ziggy Stardust was not delivered on tablets. It was assembled like records are assembled, from sessions, available material, commercial judgment, momentum, accidents. I like knowing that. It makes the album human again. Unfortunately the human decision was still bad. Side two is where the Ziggy mythology finally begins to acquire enough concentration to justify the fucking title. “Lady Stardust” is one of Bowie’s sweetest songs precisely because the theatrical language starts pointing toward tenderness rather than spectacle. The piano is simple, almost old-fashioned, and Bowie sings about this ambiguous beautiful performer from the position of someone watching, admiring, possibly desiring, possibly recognizing himself, probably all three because Bowie never met a mirror he could not convert into a love triangle. The line between attraction and identification gets deliciously useless. Do I want that person, do I want to be that person, do I want other people to want me the way I want that person? Congratulations, you have discovered half of queer adolescence and approximately seventy percent of fashion. Bowie gets this without announcing it. The ambiguity is in the grammar of looking. “Lady Stardust” does more for Ziggy as a figure than half the supposed concept because it lets him exist as an object of fascination before “Ziggy Stardust” converts him into biography. That title track is probably the record’s cleanest piece of rock mythology, which means it has also inspired several generations of people to misread being in a band as the Trojan War. I tease because the song earns it. Ronson’s opening guitar figure is magnificent, not complicated, not trying to impress anyone, just a descending shape with enough harmonic unease to immediately suggest glamour curdling into resentment. Bowie tells Ziggy’s rise and collapse from the band’s perspective, which is the smart move. Celebrity is always more interesting from three feet to the side. Suddenly the messiah is also the asshole hogging the light. “Making love with his ego” remains a tremendous phrase because it gets the physical comedy of narcissism exactly right. Ego masturbation is the central erotic act of rock stardom, and Bowie knows because obviously he fucking knows. The song’s greatest trick is that Ziggy can be Bowie, Bolan, Hendrix, Vince Taylor, Iggy, some invented composite, your singer, your girlfriend, yourself at 2:30 in the morning explaining your artistic destiny to somebody who desperately wants the Uber to arrive. The mythology works because its details are archetypal enough to be portable and trashy enough to remain rock and roll. “Suffragette City” is stupider and more fun. This is not an insult. Stupidity is one of rock’s primary renewable resources, and any critic who cannot enjoy a song for being gloriously dumb should be forced to listen to progressive rock concept albums about agricultural taxation until they develop humility. The guitar bangs, the piano hammers away, the sax gets shoved into the walls, Bowie yelps “wham bam thank you ma’am” like he personally discovered casual sex that afternoon, and for three minutes the record quits worrying about becoming a cultural landmark and behaves like something you might actually blast too loudly. Even here the gender play keeps leaking around the song’s supposedly heterosexual swagger. “Henry” is being told to get lost because a woman is coming over, except this is Bowie and the entire performance is so lacquered, camp and knowingly theatrical that straightforward masculine bragging has already dissolved by the time it reaches the microphone. Bowie can sing a macho line without restoring macho solidity. Everything comes wearing quotation marks, but crucially the quotation marks are drunk. That quality is why I am less impressed by the solemn Bowie cult than by Bowie himself. Bowie was funny. The man understood ridiculousness. Ziggy looks incredible partly because he looks absurd. The costumes are not timeless elegance, they are aggressively specific acts of visual insanity. The hair alone resembles a fox dying heroically in a chemical fire. That is good. Glam understood something subsequent respectable culture repeatedly forgets, namely that transformation without ridiculousness is just personal branding. You have to risk looking fucking stupid. The Top of the Pops “Starman” performance became epochal not because Bowie floated down from heaven but because he put an arm around Mick Ronson, looked into the camera like he knew exactly which children were watching, and made alien sexuality look less threatening than the adults’ panic about it. Yet the entire thing also contains the inherent comedy of two skinny English men dressed like interplanetary prostitutes miming to a pop song on BBC television. Sublime and ridiculous are roommates. Stop evicting one. The album itself sometimes wants sublime status without supplying enough ridiculous life underneath it, which is where I stall out. Ken Scott’s production is strong, clear and muscular without turning the Spiders into an arena-rock refrigerator, but it can also make the record feel smaller than the legend. The guitars are not enormous by later standards. The drums are often dry and straightforward. The bass is functional rather than fetishized. There is piano, sax, strings when needed, but the basic sonics remain recognizably early-seventies rock, not some impossible Martian technology. Again, that should be liberating. Bowie was not beaming transmissions from Alpha Centauri. He had a very good band. But once the extraterrestrial glitter gets stripped away, I am left asking whether every song deserves the reverence, and several absolutely do not. The record has too many patches where I admire the construction while my pulse continues filling out paperwork. “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide” rescues the ending by abandoning subtlety so violently that subtlety should probably file a restraining order. Bowie starts alone with acoustic guitar, singing about aging as though twenty-five were the final stage of terminal decay, which is adorable. “You’re too old to lose it, too young to choose it,” he says at an age when I would now regard somebody as a fucking larva. Rock music has always been catastrophically bad at imagining adulthood because its commercial mythology depends on selling teenagers the idea that turning thirty constitutes spiritual death. Bowie was already smart enough to see through many rock myths while remaining completely infected by this one. Yet the song works because it keeps expanding past the premise. The arrangement grows, strings and horns climb in, the tempo seems to tighten around him, and suddenly he is no longer singing about rock stardom or suicide or Ziggy with any useful specificity. He is singing directly at the lonely bastard listening. “You’re not alone.” There is a reason people carried that out of the record. The sentiment is nearly embarrassingly simple, but Bowie sings it like simplicity has finally defeated cleverness. This man who spent the whole album constructing masks, roles, aliens, performers, stars and mirrors ends by grabbing the listener by the shoulders. The vocal gets huge. The arrangement gets ridiculous. He repeats himself because sometimes repetition is what you do when you are trying to get through to somebody whose brain has become a locked bathroom door. That is the emotional payoff the album keeps being credited with having all the way through, when really it earns it in bursts. “Five Years” earns it. “Moonage Daydream” earns it. “Starman” earns it through pop craft. “Lady Stardust” earns it quietly. The title track earns it through myth compressed into riff and resentment. “Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide” earns it by taking all the theatrical machinery and finally pointing it outward. The rest is often extremely enjoyable scaffolding. Which is enough. More than enough, usually. I do not need every canonized album to rearrange my organs. But Ziggy Stardust has spent so long being treated as one of rock’s sacred organs that encountering the actual thing produces a funny disappointment. I expected a cathedral and found a very good club with extraordinary lighting. The cathedral was built afterward by everyone who came through the doors. Punk kids took bits. Goths took bits. New Romantics took entire fucking truckloads. Queer kids took the permission structure. Indie boys took Bowie’s cheekbones and somehow made them heterosexual again, an achievement of scientific importance. Lady Gaga took the transformations. Suede took the sexual languor. Every singer who realized identity could be stagecraft rather than confession owes something to Bowie, directly or through descendants. But influence accumulates outside the grooves. Put the needle down and there are eleven tracks, not the twentieth century changing costumes in real time. Maybe that is the perversely appealing thing about the record now. Its greatest achievement occurred partly in people’s heads. Bowie supplied enough material for the fantasy to reproduce itself. The songs became costumes and the costumes became songs. Ziggy became more coherent in memory than he ever was on vinyl. A generation of listeners filled the gaps because gaps are erotic. Explain everything and the fantasy dies. Bowie understood this instinctively. He gives you a name, orange hair, a dead world, a starman, a messianic rock singer, some ambiguous fucking, ego, fame, collapse, suicide, and then walks away before anyone can ask whether Act Two is missing. I am still less seduced than history insists I should be. There are stretches where I am having a perfectly good time while waiting for the masterpiece to return from the bathroom. Then Ronson hits that riff in “Moonage Daydream,” or Bowie’s voice tears open at the end of “Five Years,” or that stupid heavenly octave lifts “Starman” right through the ceiling, and for a few minutes the mythology stops being somebody else’s nostalgia and starts operating on me directly. That is enough to keep me from dismissing the cult, and not enough to make me join it. I will come to the service. I will sing several hymns. I will absolutely make fun of the priest’s outfit. The priest, fortunately, would have understood.

3,5

Pretty great. Bowie was the coolest and this record is no exception. Loved it and will listen again

Enjoyable album, nothing stands out but nothings bad, would listen again

I wished I liked this album more. Starman is always a classic, but overall I was just not connecting with the music.

5 years good! Star man good! Solid album, good? Maybe 6 or 7 HAH

I'm rating this based on my personal enjoyment, and it was cruising for a 2-star rating until Suffragette City came on and upped my enjoyment. Bowie is still not my thing, though.

It was interesting, I've never listened to David Bowie before.

Not my favorite Bowie, but some good songs.

This is an album that I really, really wished I liked more than I do. If I never hear Moonage Daydream again, I will be happy (at least in the moment when I think, "Gosh, I'm glad I'm not listening to Moonage Daydream. Fuck, I hate that song.") Anyway, this album makes me feel bad about being a philistine and a boor, but I still don't like it.

Man, I have been getting absolutely inundated with the heavy hitter albums lately. Within the span of four albums I've rolled Never Mind the Bollocks, Bad and now Ziggy Stardust. This is technically my fifth Bowie album, though I've assembled a pre-written review for The Next Day in the time since my last Bowie album, therefore bumping that number to six. Anyways, Ziggy Stardust. This was the first and only David Bowie album I had listened to before I happened upon this website. Truth be told, I still don't consider myself a fan of his music, though I've felt tempted to revisit Low, Heroes and Black Star. Those albums were pretty solid. Aside from knowing that this is the "Wham, bam thank you ma'am" album I honestly don't remember a single thing about this music. I might as well be listening to it for the first time again. Here goes. Yeah, not bad. I'm certainly more favourable to this music now than when I first listened to it. I like the warm, acoustic sound which defines much of this album. It pairs nicely with Bowie's distinctive vocal style. There's a respectable level of variety in the instrumentation and styles of this album, too. I favoured the brass numbers, strings, organs, ragtime pianos, plucky bass guitars and early synths which define much of this album's sound. There's a surprising level of cohesion to the music despite its grandiose style and wide array of influences. I'm probably going to be put up on a cross for my next take like I have so many times before, but I appreciate Bowie's songwriting chops without being head over heels for them. He's usually on the pulse of a good vocal melody, though what can I say? His songwriting just doesn't resonate with me as much as the other acts that I'm favourable to. All in all, I thought this album was a cohesive and adept listen. There's "Starman" - I forgot it was on here. Great tune. The songwriting and vocal delivery (particularly around the chorus) are the obvious highlights. I'm a big fan of Bowie's swaggering performance. It's gratifying in how effortless it sounds along with pairing very nicely with the preppy, yet restrained instrumentation. On that subject, the instrumental is very solid. The bass is incredibly smooth, the glam rock guitars satisfying in their level of kick and the strumming acoustic guitars effective in guiding the music along, with the strings being the crowning jewel which brings the harmonic sounds of the song together. Overall, a good song. I've been out of work for quite a while on the "researching why these albums are in here" front. I have no faults over taking a break. Anyways, yeah. It's Ziggy Fucking Stardust. Of course we're letting this feller through. I cosign this inclusion.

Yeh it’s fine and good. More theatre than an album to listen to but yeh it’s Bowie.

I just really never understood the hype for David Bowie. I'm not a hater, but I've always found David Bowie's music so basic. The production on this album is so barebones and unedited, and the sound equalization is so unbalanced. That being said, the actual music is pretty decent though I'm not a fan of Bowie's voice. I love the lyricism and the topics as well as how they're presented but Bowie's unique shaky and almost whiney at times voice is very off-putting, personally. I enjoyed this album overall and understand it's place on this list though I'll likely not return in the future. I'll give a 6/10

Bueno

3.5! I really liked Suffragette City.

Pretty good. First and last song ruled. Very cool production. Acoustic guitars sounds so sick also thr drums sound great.

Not my fave Bowie

6. jul 2026. 1.58am it was okej :D 3/5 best: ziggy stardust (shocker nostalgija podsjeca me na srednju) ii rock n roll suicide worst: five years (prva pjesma ovog projekta i IMMEDIATELY sam je mrzjela ne znam iz kojeg razloga)

starman, lady stardust, hang onto yourself

I can appreciate why this is considered one of the most influential albums in rock history, but after finally listening to it I came away more respecting its legacy than impressed by the music itself. Glam rock just doesn’t connect with anything in me. The concept is ambitious and it's easy to see how Ziggy Stardust became such an iconic character. The album's theatrical approach and blend of glam rock, storytelling and science fiction were clearly ahead of their time and I can understand why so many artists cite it as an inspiration. That said, the songs themselves didn't do much for me. Aside from a handful of memorable moments, most of the tracks felt surprisingly underwhelming and I never found myself emotionally invested in the music. I also struggled with Bowie's vocal style. While I recognize his charisma and unique personality as a performer, his voice simply isn't one that resonates with me, making it difficult to fully connect with the album. Maybe this is one of those records that's more important in the context of music history than it is enjoyable for every modern listener. I don't dislike it, but I also don't hear the revolutionary masterpiece that so many others do. I respect what it accomplished and the doors it opened for future artists, but on a purely personal level, it just didn't click with me. A historically significant album that deserves recognition for its influence, even if the music itself left me wanting more.

я не фан Бові. Деякі пісні відверто визивають нудоту, але до деяких і не можу сильно причепитись ахах. Вмикати для прослуховування власноруч не буду, проте якщо десь бути грати - ок, трохи фіолетово

The less well-known tracks sound much like the pop music from that era. Post Beatles and pre-Abba. Glam rock, Bay City Rollers and such stuff which mostly isn't great. A bit surprising, I'd have expected more edgy stuff.

normal, no lo escuché completo

Would I listen again: …no I haven’t connected with Bowie thus far, not sure why.

This was alright. Can't really think of much else to say about it.

Great tunes, performances, production a bit not my bag but I respect it and yet, this whole alternate personae deal Bowie, et al went through has just never connected with me. Simply put: I just feel alienated from the enterprise, which makes sense, he is from space after all. But this character stand-in thing inserts just enough distance to the proceedings that it doesn’t emotionally resonate with me.

3.5

Hang on to yourself is pure rock, star man phenomenal as it always is. Better in context, I must say. Bowie's lyrics are absurd while staying grounded in the grit of an American night during the 1970s. Suffragette City is a banger, and reminds me that Bowie existed during the 60s which? Obviously, but not in my head he didn't.

ambivalent

I just don’t think that David Bowie is for me. Obviously the big songs are great, but every other song on this album fell flat for me. I was wholly uninterested in it, I was really ready for it to blow my mind and it didn’t at all. I get it was influential, but it just didn’t do it for me. Favorites: Starman, Ziggy Stardust, Suffragette City

Not my fav Bowie. The tracks on this that you find in Best Of and Essential playlists are picked out for a reason. Half a great album, half a meh album. Half marks.

#980. If I've learned only on thing from doing this, it's that David Bowie is aggressively mid. Certainly one of the most overrated artists I'm aware of. There are nine Bowie albums on here, and it really should have just been this one and Heroes. All the other ones kinda just suck. 3/5: ok

I don’t see this the same as everyone else. It’s a fine album. There’s nothing wrong with it, but Bowie’s peak was the run of Station to Station, Low, Heroes This is just a handful of good tracks and another handful of slightly less good tracks. I would never hate this album, but I must be missing why even thinks it’s *so* good

Well. Considering EVERY David Bowie album made the cut, there has to be at least one good one, right? Firstly, that is insane. I know the fellow was innovative, but for every one his records to be amongst the most important ever? Insane. Brief catalogue re-review: Blackstar was interesting, if nothing else and everything else has been pretty gruesome. Station to Station? Yeah errm CHANGE the station. Young Americans? Pile of shit. Aladdin Sane? I don't remember anything about it, besides the miserable feeling it left me with. Low? Garbaggio (Shoutout paisano Bowie haters worldwide) (disclaimer: I am not Italian). This is the one that I thought might have a chance. Ol' Ziggy needs to pull through because his British twink alter ego has come up with mostly zeroes thus far. This is really the first time that I've "got" David Bowie. Before today, my lowly intelligence could simply not comprehend the greatness appreciated by the always intellectual mainstream. This record; however, is full of life, passion, and creativity. A true space oddity. Another dismal workday brightened slightly by a reasonably decent rock record. Huzzah. 3 GENRE: Finally, a good one.

3.18

Great conceptual album. I liked it a bit less than Heroes though - preferred the instrumentation and darker undertones there. Still some classics on here and just a very listenable album. I'd go a high three stars.

3/5

Pretty good. I've never been enamoured with Bowie's performances - the songwriting is excellent but it's just not for me. I fully accept that's a me-problem though. Favourite tracks: Moonage Daydream, Starman

Super

Conflicted here, some definetely bangers but overall a weird sloppy feel to it...

6/10 i dont like the pacing of some of his songs

Few good tracks. Bit hit and miss.

Fuck Bowie, he was a wrong un. Still, this album is better than the others I've been forced to endure so it gets an extra couple of stars...

It is very good. At some point I need to weigh in regarding replay-value, and like, I just don't see myself ever listening to this again. So instead of praise I give this respect. 3.5

el inicio de soul love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Buen album. se disfruto. un solido 3 la verdad.

It’s not really doing it for me too much

Finally, THE Bowie album. And it was just okay. It's generic classic rock, which is fine but not something that really resonated with me

I guess it was fine. I loved Hunky Dory, but this album just doesn’t do anything for me. I'm actually disappointed that I'm disappointed.

so many iconic albums i haven't heard all the way through. reminds me of how much i like this exercise! i like five years a lot also starman is a classic (enough said). how catchy are the melodies and the instrumentals being loudly mixed over the vocals which almost seem background to me - i think it suits the intentions of the album well. i like rock and roll suicide as well, the arrangement is so texturally fun and interesting throughout. don't really feel that deeply about ziggy stardust despite it being the title track / centre piece because of the lyrics. tried hard to get into it :/

Very cool. Creative. I dig.

Its still David Bowie, so its still enjoyable. However it wasn't what I would hope for from a David Bowie album on this list, and thus I was left mildly disappointed. I guess that tells you more about expectations and why you shouldn't have them than anything else.

5/10 Best songs: It Ain't Easy, Suffragette City, Rock 'N' Roll Suicide Some misses/filler; the album doesn't really flow; and David Bowie doesn't exactly have the best voice... but there are some truly outstanding songs, and I'm a sucker for a concept album. I think the album's weaknesses overtake its strengths for me, but I understand why someone might love it.

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust I'm calling Emperor's New Clothes on this. Following the perfection of Hunky Dory, there is no way this collection of weaker songs, lighter melodies, and more cluttered arrangements hits the same heights. The big hitters of Star and Ziggy are over rated, there's filler galore in Hang on to Yourself, Lady Stardust and It Ain't Easy. Suffragette City is the only great tune. And the whole 'concept album' thing was only cobbled together to cover up a collection of stuff with no direction. Best Track - Suffragette City Worst Track - Starman (sounds like a bloody Rolf Harris song or something) 6/10

Very nice 3.5/5

Une revisite après plus d'une dizaine d'année. J'avais à l'époque retenu 2 chansons à garder dans ma playlist: Starman et Ziggy Stardust. Aujourd'hui, la sélection a changé: Moonage Daydream (et son sublime solo final), Hang On To Yourself, (toujours) Ziggy Stardust et Suffragette City. A noter que sur une écoute d'album entier, je préfère le timbre grave de la voix de Bowie.

Before starting this 1001 albums thing, I would discover music on my own or through recommendation, and then save that album to my library to be listened to later. This album was already on that list, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to listen to it. that being said, I wasn't extremely surprised; it just sounded like a decent David Bowie album to me. Of course he's very skilled at composition and arrangement, but this honestly was less interesting to me than the other two albums by him I've heard.

11 songs -- I like (quite a bit) the 4 songs that, to varying degrees, I've occasionally heard on the radio, over the years; the other 7 songs, though, are (to me) not as good. The best 2 (for me) are Suffragette City and Starman, followed by Ziggy Stardust and Moonage Daydream. But, as I say, the other 7 songs seem less interesting (I did go back and listen to at least parts of them again, to make sure). Hard to know how to rate this; I think it's between a 3 and a 4. I do have a vague sense of this kind of marking the end of the 60s, and noticed that Chicago Tribune Greg Kot (quoted in the Wikipedia article about the album) said something similar. So, I guess, kind of significant in the history/development of rock/pop music? But, just focusing on the music, I think I'm leaning slightly more to 3 than 4. The only song I REALLY like is Suffragette City (and some portion of that liking might just be nostalgia). Well, and Starman (which I became familiar with much later than with Suffragette City) is good, too. It's possible, of course, that if I continued to listen to the album, I'd grow to like the other 7 songs more. In that sense, I suppose, albums that come up here that I already know (the whole album) have an (unfair?) advantage - assuming I like the album, of course. ;) Anyway (!) . . . 3 stars.

I don't feel like one listen was enough to do this album justice. I mean it seems like an inspired production with some meaning behind the songs. I liked how snappy the drums are, the variety of vocal deliveries. The album has passion and charm. It didn't make me too eager to listen again so it sits around 3 stars.

i will always prefer bowie’s 76-79 era but this is fine. listened when i was 15

David Bowie is fire

157. theres a staaaarmaaaan

i thought someone else (billy something) sang starman before this point /srs

75

It was a good listen, but nothing too crazy for me

Not my favorite, but I didn't dislike it.

This album is of course one of the best known of all time, but David Bowie has never really done it for me. Not that this album is bad at all, it actually is pretty good, but I just don't really see the hype like most other people seem to do. 3/5

If this guy could/wanted to sing well it’d be a 4/5

I don't get why this is considered so amazing. Solid, but generic, pop rock.

This one was interesting. It's easy to see why David Bowie was as influential as he was. I often pay little attention to the lyrics, but this this time, I paid closer attention. Despite not being my favorite music from Bowie, I'm sure my opinion of this album would be higher if I had grown up around the time it came out. As it stands, I can only appreciate it for what it did.

3.5/5

Its good, but still not my type of music

Really liked starman, but the rest of the album felt poorly mixed and dated.

Really enjoyed this! Rich vocals and deep lyrics.

I'll start off with I'm not a Bowie fan. I know he's rock royalty, but I've just never been into glam or '70's style drug fueled rock. I'm too young to have been around for it when it first landed, and my parents were too old to get into it. The music itself is well done if a little kitschy, and the production quality is great, but I have no connection to the lyrics. And, that's the downfall for me. This album in particular just feels like an extension of music from the Rocky Horror Picture Show; another musical endeavor I appreciate for its impact but can't really connect to in a meaningful way.

obiously great but i wouldnt listen on my own accord

Most hit or miss of the Bowie albums in here so far. Moonage Daydream probably the best

Not really my style but nice

Enjoyed

Very much a classic and I get why it’s on the list, but not my favorite period of Bowie

3.5 Мабуть єдиний альбом Боуі, який справді мені подобається.

i like

Went through the album about 3-4 times trying to see beyond my initial reaction. I like the music, the rock with the piano and synth its all very cohesive and has solid direction, it feels creative and confident. My personal barrier was the vocals and partially that this is indeed something like a rock opera which isnt my taste. Bowie has got a good voice but he can tend to sound frayed or on the edge of breaking (could be a Ziggy persona choice) which puts me off if i'm vibing with the song. I will continue to digest this album as time goes on and see deeper but right now its "just" a good rock album.

Ok so this is below par for Bowie in 70’s but it’s still got Starman and Sufferagette City.

good

I really tried, I listened to this like 6 times, and I really just didn't get it. I guess I appreciated the story but the musical was theatrical without being gripping. If I didn't know any better, this album would not ne memorable to me at all.

A queer icon and experimental rock, love Favourite track: Lady Stardust

I didn’t like every track, but when it’s good ((Starman, Hang onto Yourself and the final three tracks) it’s really good.

My top 3 songs of the album (off first listen) 1) It ain't easy 2) Ziggy Stardust 3) Rock n Roll Suicide Honorable Mention: Lady stardust

solid

Fine, can't really get into David Bowie