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Ziggy Stardust 30th Anniversary
jonerik writes "Any short list of influential rock albums of the '70s is likely to include David Bowie's 'The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,' the story of a futuristic alien rock star and his demise during the Earth's final years. Originally released in June 1972, Ziggy is celebrating his 30th anniversary this year in fine style. First of all, the album is being reissued today in a limited edition 2-CD set. Secondly, the 1983 documentary, 'Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,' directed by filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker ('Don't Look Back,' 'Monterey Pop') is being re-released this month and John Cameron Mitchell has an interesting interview with Pennebaker about the re-release in this week's Village Voice."
Try this link:
g gy+stardust&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8
http://www.google.com/search?q=who+the+fuck+is+zi
Why are influential albums reissued as double CDs? Could it be anything to do with money? We just had 'The Velvet Underground and Nico' released as a double CD so that you can listen to the mono version of the album, or the stereo. Also annoying was the 'Live at Leeds' debacle: First there was a version for CD, then a version with extra tracks (the remaster), then a deluxe double CD version.
Having said that ZSatSFM is a great album. And actually the single version CD seems to be still available.
My other favorite Bowie album: Low.
-Andrew
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
I was four years old when my older siblings played Ziggy Stardust, Alladin Sane, and Space Oddity all day every day. They must have worn out a ton of albums not to mention turntable needles. They also wore out my Dad's patience as I can still hear him yelling at them to "Turn that shit down!"
Now whenever I hear these songs I get that strange deja-vu feeling you get when you hear some childhood lullaby. They're burned into my brain like bits on a ROM.
if you consider /.'s 7-8 year old readers "everyone"
sic transit gloria mundi
Around here (Seattle) we have a radio station that once a year or so plays "Classic Rock A to Z" and as they say, "It isn't over until Ziggie plays guitar," because "Ziggy Stardust" is the only Classic Rock song that begins with Z.
Seriously, visit the album's page and learn a bit about how, with this album, David invented Glam Rock and turned the music world on its ear.
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
It might be worth downloading one or two of these songs to a.) find out what all this is about (I never heard of Ziggy Stardust) and b.) see if the album is worthwhile to the younger generation.
:)
Disclamer: I love mp3's, and spend about 10 hours a day or more listening to them.
But let me be frank - your post underscores everything that's wrong about mp3's. A lot of the great albums (particularly those from the 70's) are albums, things best listened to as a musical whole. Especially with Bowie, who had a fantastic visual aspect, the album cover and artwork is an important part of what makes these albums special.
I'm not saying there aren't some great singles on those albums - the "Ziggy Stardust" song itself is a great single - but with a lot of classic albums, "downloading a couple of singles" to see if you'll like it is like watching a couple of scenes from a movie to see if it's good. You're missing a big part of the experience!
If it's a good album, the songs WILL stand on their own because the music is of course the most important part... just saying that you'd be missing some of the magic that separates a couple of catchy songs from an actual cohesive whole that's greater than the some of its parts.
And don't paint me as an old fart. I'm only 26, and I think some of the best music ever has been produced in the past ten years, though much of it is underground... thanks to the radio sucking so badly.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
Of course, the guitarist of the title track was not the fictional Ziggy, nor Bowie himself, but Mick Ronson, one of the greats of the era who sadly died in 1993.
Anybody want a peanut?
The best albums of the era were Concept Albums, a unified product, each track set up the next song. Some of the Albums were a Musical story, with each song as a chapter of the story. You could buy singles that had a hit song from the album, but few people wanted the single, because the rest of the album enhanced that song making it part of the experance.
One area that CDs can't compete with those old LPs is the cover art. The covers were huge compared to the size of a jewel case and the graphic artists took advantage of size creating covers that were works of art capable of standing on their own, apart from the album.
This is something the idiots at the RIAA need to get through their thick skulls. It is possible to create Albums (or CDs) that are so good that people won't give a shit about a pale imitation like a single in 1972 or a couple of MP3 tracks in 2002.
Before about 1967 albums were just a collection of songs of assorted quality. Then the Bands introduced the concept album, and these albums damn near destroyed the market for Rock singles.
Now we have returned to the style that existed prior to 1967. Most CDs are just a collection of songs with no unifiying theme, and often the quality is so spotty that there is only a track or two worth listening to. Now that the concept albums of the late 60s early 70s are dead the market for the singles that they killed has revived, this time in the form of MP3s.
Ziggy is one of the better concept albums from that era. Try it and you'll see how the the RIAA could cut into their "Piracy" problem, by releasing an album that is so damn good that it's still worth buying 30 years after it was recorded.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
I realize I'm coming in late in the game (and I don't know whether this has been mentioned yet), but this is some rather hideous marketing on EMI's part. To elaborate:
a) This album has been released countless times on CD. The RCA issue, the original Rykodisc, the Rykodisc "Collector's Edition," the gold Rykodisc edition, the "regular" Virgin version, and now this.
b) Apparently, the bonus tracks are mostly stuff that has been out before. On the above mentioned Rykodisc versions, most of David's albums came with bonus tracks that were cut for the recent Virgin reissues. Apparently, these "new" Ziggy bonuses are mostly comprised of those tracks, with a few things from the Sound and Vision boxed-set thrown in. There might be a few new items, but I doubt that they're many.
c) Another remastering? The regular Virgin issue isn't all that hot (no-noised, and subjected to the Prism noise-shaping system, which I've always felt adds an odd "texture" to the sound), so I can't imagine what they've done with this one. Possibly brutalized it and re-recorded the bass and drums (yeah, I'm talking to you, Ozzy).
-D
The surviving spiders, 2 members from Def Leppard, and a keyboardist tour occasionally as the Cybernauts.
The band is a tribute to Bowie and to Mick Ronson. They basically do covers from all the albums that the spiders were involved in, which obviously includes Ziggy.
They have a privately released CD that will quit being sold sometime this year. It's a 2 disc set. One live disk and one studio disk. The live stuff is about 5 years old now, but the studio stuff is fairly recent. They quality is excellent and so are the performances. There are audio samples on the website.
Stupider like a fox! - H.S.
Actually, the mono versions of these discs are quite interesting, because they are in no way 'Left + Right speakers sticked together' versions.
Remember the LP's albums from the late 60's were the first to use the stereo technology. As many new technologies, this technology was at firtst misused and misunderstood: nobody knew how to use it well and often did an awful work with it (think: the drums left, all the other tracks right).
Take for instance Jefferson Airplane's masterpiece 'Surrealistic Pillow' (1967): the new, remastered edition comes with both mixes (on only one CD, though). You can hear that the mono mix is by far superior to the stereo mix, because, as stated in the sleeve notes, the sound engineer completely misunderstood what stereo was about. He added tons of flanger and 'cool' effects to the music, which just sounded awful in stereo. Errors he didn't make on the mono mix.
Another exemple is The Beatles's 'Sgt. Pepper's' (1967, too): the mono mix was made by the Beatles themselves and the stereo mix was left to some obscure sound engineer: so, the mono mix is really the way the artists intended it to be heard !
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)