Freak out in a moonage daydream (David Bowie) (LP 424)

David Bowie The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars (Vinyl, RCA, 1972) *****

Genre: English pop rock 

Places I remember: The RCA Record Club supplied me with this, as they did Hunky Dory at around the same time.

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Starman

Gear costume:  Suffragette City  

Active compensatory factors: I was obsessed with this record in 1972. 

My world view was severely limited in 1972, my 4th form year at Mt Albert Grammar. Bowie really was from Mars as far as I was concerned. So was England. A mystical place that contained my cousin, some Beatles (Lennon was in New York by then), Arsenal football club and David Bowie (in physical form at least).

The music was/is, of course, a revelation. I would listen to it and gaze at the cover in my bedroom and wonder about who K West was, wonder about a wet London street in an England that had old brick buildings (I knew that from Look And Learn), and wonder about how a creature like Bowie had beamed down to Earth.

Starman is what started all this Bowie wonder stuff. That and a poster in Sounds magazine (a Japanese pressing of Hunky Dory, on the left, used the same image) that I had on my bedroom wall (I wonder what my mother thought of that - she never said but I bet there were interesting thoughts in her head).

Then, when I heard the album, every song was like a bucket of cold water over the head! So unique and so right.

For many people, Bowie created an outlet and a basis upon which they could be their true selves. That wasn't my situation, but this album did open up the creative possibilities for me and showed me that it's okay to change and develop and make brave choices.

Where do they all belong? I didn't stick around for Aladdin Sane for some bizarre reason (I loved Jean Genie and bought the single). My next Bowie purchase wouldn't be until the Lennon appearance on Young Americans.