Life on Mars - Our other favorite Martians; Part 1 - Ziggy Stardust

Ziggy Stardust - In 1972, David Bowie transformed himself into the extra-terrestrial  psychedelic, bi-sexual leader of the alien rock band, The Spiders From Mars(themselves named after a 1954 UFO sighting above an Italian soccer stadium that was later credited by officials to migrating spiders).  

The height of early 1970's Martian fashion

Ziggy came to earth to warn the population that it needed to get its act together before the planet's impending demise. Unfortunately, hedonistic Ziggy became consumed by the rock and roll lifestyle and was destroyed by drugs, sex and the adulation of his fans before his job was done.

Alien fashion icon.

Ziggy may have failed in his mission to save the human race, but what was accomplished was Bowie ascended to icon status and became the kind of Pope of Glam. His time as Ziggy set Bowie on a course of ever changing stage personas and constant musical experimentation that has made him one of the few rock stars of his era that are as still as prescient as they were in their youth.

The cultural impact that Ziggy had can not be overlooked. His sexual ambiguity and androgynous looks inspired numerous pop stars that came after. The 1980s was the decade where Ziggy's offspring really sprang into the public eye. Robert Smith of The Cure, Adam Ant, Boy George, Morrissey, Annie Lennox and other pop stars of the Reagan/Thatcher era who played with gender and sexual identity through either behaviour or eye-shadow can all trace their lineage to Ziggy Stardust. The effect these sexually ambiguous performers had on culture as a whole was to help soften views on sexual conformity and create acceptance of LGQBT people within the mainstream. Flash-forward a few decades and you have a world in which Marriage Equality is the law of the land in the vast majority of the USA and Europe. Without Ziggy Stardust, none of this may have been possible.

Perfection captured on vinyl

Musically, the impact of the two Ziggy Stardust albums, The Rise and Fall Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and Aladdin Sane, are two of the most influential albums of all time, representing an evolution of rock music as transformative as the one caused by The Beatles in the 1960s. The sound of these albums, especially that of Spiders' guitarist Mick Ronson, can be heard throughout the punk and later alternative rock movements.

Bowie really, really likes Ronson's guitar playing. I mean, really likes it!

Pretty good stuff for a failed space-age messiah.