And David Bowie created Ziggy Stardust 50 years ago

Five Years

,

: beyond the standards, the

album , released 50 years ago, allowed David Bowie to take off by creating a double, decisive milestone for this chameleon artist.

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Alligator and bisexuality

"So far, he has failed in everything he has undertaken since the start of his career"

, tells AFP Jérôme Soligny, author of

, a reference work published in two volumes (Gallimard), subject of reissues and international translations.

(on the album of the same name, 1969) is only a short-lived hit, later passed down to posterity, just like

on the album

(1971).

And now the Englishman released in 1972 a record with the extended title

with the scent of a singular universe (

).

The track

is a cryptic calling card of his “Ziggy Stardust” double:

.

To confuse matters a little more, Bowie suggests his bisexuality by releasing in the musical press that he is

, whereas he lives with wife and child.

The singer

, specifies Jérôme Soligny.

Marketing, Deep America

Jackpot.

The media are interested in him, without managing to identify him, maintaining his mysterious aura.

On TV, the interviewer is bundled up in a gray suit, seems to him hair dyed red, outfit with sequins.

One is in black and white, the other in color.

Bowie becomes a symbol of modernity, of the next world.

The artist imposes himself in the media as a star when he is not yet.

The first concerts stamped “Ziggy” in the suburbs of London only brought together 150 people, including a third of guests.

"It's a kind of marketing before its time, it's its most beautiful creature, which allowed it to hatch, to be something other than a well-kept secret of a rock intelligentsia who is interested in him for a year and a half”

, analyzes Jérôme Soligny.

Bowie opens the doors of a tour in the USA.

(leader of T.Rex)

, notes Soligny again.

David Bowie in Ziggy Stardust during a concert in London in 1973. Alamy/ABACA

Iggy Pop, A Clockwork Orange

As this specialist says, Bowie is

and his "Ziggy Stardust" brings together several influences.

“Ziggy” is first and foremost Iggy Pop.

Bowie is fascinated by the singer of the Stooges, seen in particular on a photo where the American literally walks on the public in concert.

The two musicians will become close.

“Stardust” (“Stardust”) comes from the stage name of an American country singer, The Legendary Stardust Cowboy, obsessed with the cosmos.

There is also Vince Taylor, an English rocker with a chaotic career, best known in France.

, details Jérôme Soligny.

What to feed the character of “Ziggy”.

On the cover, Bowie poses thugly in a street with boots reminiscent of those worn by the gang of bad boys from

Stanley Kubrick's A

, according to Jérôme Soligny.

With all these fuels, the machine is launched.

Then there will be “Aladdin Sane”, another double for the eponymous album of 1973, and its famous flash on the face.

But Ziggy Stardust makes an impression (reissue on vinyl Friday, May 17).

Brian Molko, leader of Placebo, refers to it.

And

has become the title of a documentary on Bowie directed by the American Brett Morgen and presented at the last Cannes festival.