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

Kind of Blue

Miles Davis

A jazz milestone that changed the scope and speed of the art form.

In the years between the dissolution of Miles Davis’ first great quintet and the formation of his second, the trumpet master ventured into something new in 1959—not knowing it would become one of jazz’s biggest albums ever. The fast-moving progressions of bebop and post-bop required improvisers to jump hurdles—something Davis knew all about as Dizzy Gillespie’s successor in the Charlie Parker Quintet. But on Kind of Blue, there were longer durations between chords, opening up space in the music; the soloist had the option of taking a breath.

“We’re still listening to it today as if it’s the most modern jazz record of all time.”

Stephan Moccio

Even as Miles brought the temperature down, he introduced new textures and tonal colors, drawing on the harmonic thinking of Gil Evans and George Russell, or even Debussy and Satie. In that sense the album was a continuation of Birth of the Cool, recorded 10 years earlier, and perhaps a harbinger of the ethereal In a Silent Way 10 years later. Two striking ballads, “Blue in Green” and “Flamenco Sketches,” are key examples of Davis’ work with the Harmon mute, yielding a metallic and intimate sound that jazz trumpeters have emulated ever since.

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

David Bowie

Glam rock as mythmaking, subversive performance art.

The decadent-alien-rock-star concept behind David Bowie’s fifth album was revolutionary, but the subversion was in the music: nasty but glamorous (“Moonage Daydream,” “Suffragette City”), theatrical but intimate (“Five Years”), primordial punk (“Hang On to Yourself”), and cabaret for an audience who would’ve never deigned (“Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide”). Bowie talks about himself in the third person but is so arrogant his fans kill him for it (“Ziggy Stardust”), so deluded he thinks rock ’n’ roll can save the world but so brave he’s willing to die trying (“Star”). The artifice brings him down, but it also sets him free.

The album helped loosen binaries around gender, sexuality, performance, and identity. But it also helped broaden the vocabulary of mainstream rock more generally, drawing on concepts from the underground. Calling him flighty or inauthentic missed the point: Like Andy Warhol, Bowie treated his art in part as a synthesis of his interests. For all the ways it was radical at the time, Ziggy Stardust also pointed to a referential, hyperlinked future we’re all familiar with—curation as creation.

“This was his song about Jimi Hendrix. First time he saw Jimi Hendrix in London, everybody hating on Jimi, but he was so open he could admit it and make a hit out of that man.”

Q-Tip

on “Ziggy Stardust”

Apple Music 100 Best Albums

Kind of Blue

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