David Bowie Rock Roll

Announcing DAVID BOWIE ROCK ‘N’ ROLL STAR!, a 5CD and 1 Blu-Ray Audio set that explores David Bowie’s journey from February 1971 through the creation of the Ziggy Stardust character, the recording of the iconic THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS album, and captures the international mania that surrounded the Ziggy phenomenon in the form of UK radio sessions and TV performances, as well as live tracks from Ziggy and the Spiders’ October 1st, 1972 show at the Boston Music Hall.

"Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour, spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as "Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century, its influence is immeasurable."

The album companion to the critically acclaimed film by Brett Morgen. Features unheard versions, live tracks and mixes created exclusively for the film.

"Of all David Bowie's many distinctive personae, none have done more to lodge this most ingenious of British artists in the world's consciousness than his 1972 amalgam of the alien visitor and Christ-like rock star: Ziggy Stardust. Cheap glamour, spacemen and ambiguous sexuality surface throughout the loosely conceptualised collection that is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. If its premise sounds faintly ludicrous, then inspired and dramatic songs such as "Starman" and "Five Years" dispel all doubts about Bowie's genius, and the theatrically tragic "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" brings the album and it's fictional protagonist to a close. As a cultural and musical signpost, Ziggy Stardust points simultaneously backwards to early rock & roll and forward to the simpler, tougher inclinations of late-1970s punk and New Wave rock. As one of the defining rock albums of the 20th century, its influence is immeasurable."

Diamond Dogs is the eighth studio album by the English musician David Bowie, released on 24 May 1974 by RCA Records. Thematically, it was a marriage of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and Bowie's own glam-tinged vision of a post-apocalyptic world. Bowie had wanted to make a theatrical production of Orwell's book and began writing material after completing sessions for his 1973 album Pin Ups, but the author's estate denied the rights. The songs wound up on the second half of Diamond Dogs instead where, as the titles indicated, the Nineteen Eighty-Four theme was prominent. The album is ranked number 995 in All-Time Top 1000 Albums (3rd. edition, 2000) and number 447 in NME's The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.