It’s  been nearly 40 years since the amazing Aladdin Sane first came out onto our radios. The legendary David Bowiecelebrates  his 40th anniversary of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars this year, and he’s on a roll!

Aladdin Sane was a huge hit when it came out, and since then it has captured the ears of a lot of people of all ages. From ‘Panic in Detroit’ to ‘The Jean Genie’, the whole album is just brilliant, capturing the sound of cool New York and London hipsters in the early 70’s. Bowie goes from hard rock to the jazzy extensions of ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ to ‘Aladdin Sane’.

From the first crashing chord in ‘Watch That Man’ is when you know it’s going to be good; it draws you in ato a fantasy world which Bowie describes as ‘Ziggy goes to America’. Not off to the best start though, Aladdin did not receive the best of reviews upon release; people didn’t really get it, but as Bowie says himself it’s different. Bowie was simultaneously shocked yet obsessed by America.

Bowie is still faithful to his original record label, Deram Records. They released Bowie’s first album David Bowie, in 1967, it was his first album that held some joyful tunes that are, ‘Uncle Arthur’, ‘Love You till Tuesday’ and ‘Rubber Band’. Bowie soon had another album out with different labels, Philips (UK), Mercury (U.S), Space Oddity was much more of a success, Bowie let more of his wild side come out with this album as he knew he had followers he just needed a few more.

It’s a classic, and it always will be; it practically gave birth to hard-glam rock and has influenced many more artists to do very much of the same thing. If the album wasn’t released in the 70s but it was released tomorrow I know I’d still like it, I feel that it might be a little bit of an outcast, simply because of how commercial music has become these days with only a few acts that are different, such as Pulp, Placebo, Blur, who were influenced by Bowie and have kept his style of work alive for the past 40 years.

Placebo follow Bowie’s sort of style because of the bond between them; Bowie originally spotted them and promoted them by letting them support him at his gigs, and vice versa, this came from Bowie’s electronica era, from 1992-99.

Bowie has influenced a great deal of bands, many as legendary as Bowie himself, but some musicians could learn from him. Some say his music styles include R&B, in my opinion a few of the R&B artists out there could learn from him, by breaking the mould – don’t be afraid to be different to other R&B artists!

The name of the album, ‘Aladdin Sane’ is a pun of the phrase ‘A lad insane’ because that’s what Bowie was doing; he was trying something different and loving it, even if it seemed a little crazy. The significance of the lightning bolt down Bowie’s face is showing the difference in songs that are on the album, Bowie describes the album as ‘Schizophrenic’, because of the duality of mind that he felt whilst writing it, but it has also been found that not only was Bowie in two minds when he wrote the album, it was also reported that it was because of his half-brother.  Terry (Terrance) was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, and so the song Aladdin Sane was dedicated to him.

‘Billboard’ called the album a “combination of raw energy with explosive rock” when it first Released. With the random flourishes of jazz from pianist Mick Garson, it’s very experimental.

Aladdin Sane was the sixth album Bowie wrote; it was such a success after Ziggy was released because people wanted to have more, by this time ladies, gentlemen, girls and boys were addicted to his husky, unique, exceptional voice, they just wanted more! Maybe it wasn’t what they expected, or maybe they expected it to be different from all of his work, because that’s what Bowie did.

The story of Ziggy was exciting at first, everyone loved this weird persona, and having Bowie’s official band of ‘the Spiders from Mars’ was just pure excellence, even Bowie preferred the new Ziggy Stardust than David Bowie. Bowie loved to get into character, he’d get totally immersed in it, “Offstage I’m a robot. Onstage I achieve emotion. It’s probably why I prefer dressing up as Ziggy to being David.”

You will like this if you like Suede, they have Bowie’s sound, and you can really hear the pain of the subjects they are singing about. Definitely check out ‘Beautiful Ones’.

Lucy Hutchon