David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (US RCA Dynaflex Promo) Vinyl rip in 24 Bit/ 96 Khz + CD

Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust — familiar in structure, but alien in performance — is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion. –Allmusic.

Track listing

All tracks written by David Bowie except as noted.

Side one

1. "Five Years" – 4:43
2. "Soul Love" – 3:33
3. "Moonage Daydream" – 4:35
4. "Starman" – 4:16
5. "It Ain't Easy" (Ron Davies) – 2:56

Side two

1. "Lady Stardust" – 3:20
2. "Star" – 2:47
3. "Hang on to Yourself" – 2:37
4. "Ziggy Stardust" – 3:13
5. "Suffragette City" – 3:19
6. "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" – 2:57

Personnel

* David Bowie – vocals, acoustic guitar, saxophone, piano, harpsichord
* Mick Ronson – guitars, piano, backing vocals, string arrangement
* Trevor Bolder – bass
* Mick Woodmansey – drums

Additional personnel

* Dana Gillespie – backing vocals on "It Ain't Easy"
* Rick Wakeman – harpsichord, keyboards
* Lindsay Scott – violin on 12

Technical personnel

* Ken Scott – producer, recording engineer, mixing engineer
* David Bowie – producer