THE RISE AND FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST AND THE SPIDERS FROM MARS

It doesn't take too long listening through this album that this was definitely an album made in the early seventies, definitely one made with an overtly "edgy" experimental sort of quality to it, and most of all, one that hasn't aged well in the slightest. To be fair, many aspects of the music sound like a legitimate attempt at making something creative. However, as a guy in his early twenties and one of the proud bearers of the prog-rock fan-base torch looking for some timeless music, there are far too many parts that have a stench of dated 70s stoner-ish super- lame later hippy era dribble that can be found in much of the music on the charts at the time. This was further confirmed after asking some people who were around during that time about the album. As much as I appreciate the occasional use orchestral and jazz instruments, the sometimes-nice arrangement of parts is so often covered up by the jarring and jagged rock composition around it that it looses its charm, at least for me. One of the other main problems that I have about the album is the sense of complete whimsical thoughtlessness that the music often conveys, as if the composer did not take his art seriously in the slightest, or evidently anything else for that matter. What we have here is nothing more than a direct manifestation of the "social liberation" "cutting-edge" "anti-establishment" ideology of the times, which today conjures images of those old washed-up hippy types with whom we southern Californians are all too familiar. This is an album that already hasn't stood the test of time, and likely no one will have even heard of it with the passing of the next few generations, save as a historical music footnote, not unlike the more superficial operas from the early-mid 19th century. I'll give an extra star for Bowie's attempt at breaking out of the mold of one- dimensional pop music, but that's hardly enough to consider it an album for the ages, as is the opinion of this young person.

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