David Bowie
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars

THE REVIEW

If there is a single, huge, glaring flaw in the otherwise quite respectable career of David Bowie, it is the album that talks about that alien. The “concept” you already know, more or less I do too, but honestly, it burns my tongue to mention the word “concept” once again (I swear it's the last time), so let's get to the point quickly, as we are all in a hurry. Yes, because “Ziggy Stardust” has in fact invented the aesthetic, the sound, and the timing of the modern rock ballad, which is equivalent to overturning colonies and colonies of legionella into the aqueduct of a metropolis, thus infecting practically the entire human race.

Yes, because this album did nothing but legitimize mediocrity, blending in a brainless mix the Beatles (totally misunderstood by the Duke), the T-Rex, and a pseudo-theatrical epic so banal that only Pink Floyd would have had the naivety to emulate. And if the world of music has spawned all that freeze-dried hard rock ranging from Aerosmith to Nickelback to the crappy band you practice with on Friday nights, ultimately, the blame lies with this thing right here.

Plastic and empty sounds (basically like barrels), riffs that draw a big whatever on the sheet music, melodies bloated with self-imposed goosebump-inducing rhetoric. In fact, this is the sound of cocaine strips, megalomania, the shame of realizing you can't measure your own ego. And the most serious thing about this album is that it's actually pretty cool, through and through, although its faults are way too big to shield it from this nice dose of gratuitous hate, and so now it can completely suck it up.