50 years ago, David Bowie ascended the stratosphere with Ziggy Stardust

So far, he has failed in everything he has done since the beginning of his career.tells AFP Jérôme Soligny, author of David BowieRainbowmana reference published in two volumes by Gallimard and the subject of reprints as well as international translations.

Space Oddity (on the album of the same name, released in 1969) was only a short -lived hit, later passed on to descendants, such as Changes on the album Hunky Dory (1971).

And now the Englishman has released a record in 1972 with an extended title and a taste of a single universe: The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.

The piece Moonage Daydream is a mysterious calling card of his double, Ziggy Stardust: I am an alligator […] I am the space invadersung by David Bowie.

A brilliant marketing move

To confuse the issue a little further, Bowie suggests his bisexuality by letting the musical press know that he is homosexual, while he lives with a wife and child. The singer often the night spots associated with gay culture, without him being gay himself, he likes imagerysaid Soligny.

The strategy works. The media is interested in him, without managing to identify him, maintaining his magical aura. On television, the interviewer is bundled in a gray suit, it seems to him hair dyed red, dress with sequins. Black and white one, color the other. Bowie becomes a symbol of modernity, of the world afterwards.

The actor imposes himself in the media as a star when he is not yet. Ziggy’s first concerts in the suburbs of London brought in only 150 music lovers, a third of whom were guests.

It was a kind of pre-season marketing, it was his best creature, which allowed him to hatch, to be something other than a well-kept secret of a rock intelligentsia interested in him. for a year and a halfstudying Soligny.

Bowie opened the doors for a tour of the United States. He manages to impose an effeminate character where Marc Bolan, leader of T.Rex, failed, that is to say to go play in deep America, even though sometimes furious people will wait for him at the doors of the dressing rooms.said Soligny again.

A sponge of influences, starting with Iggy Pop

As this specialist says, Bowie is a sponge and his Ziggy Stardust brings together several influences. Ziggy is the first and foremost in Iggy Pop. Bowie is fascinated with the Stooges singer, particularly seen in a photo where the American is literally walking in public at the concert. The two musicians will be close.

stardust is from the stage name of an American country singer, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, who is obsessed with the cosmos.

There was also Vince Taylor, an English rocker with a turbulent career, known in France. Bowie flirts with him at one point, Taylor feels he can save the stone, he thinks he’s a messiah, Soligny explains. What to feed Ziggy’s character.

On the cover, Bowie poses thugly on a street with boots reminiscent of those worn by a gang of bad boys from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. He always dreamed of being in a gang, but it didn’t happen, he was so goodaccording to Soligny.

With all this fuel, the engine was launched. Then there will be Aladdin Saneanother double for the eponymous 1973 album, and its famous flash in the face.

But Ziggy Stardust keep in mind. This was pointed out by Brian Molko, head of Placebo. At Moonage Daydream became the title of a documentary on Bowie directed by American Brett Morgen and shown at the last Cannes festival.