Principally recorded at Trident Studios, London, England.

This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.

Personnel: David Bowie (vocals, guitar, saxophone, keyboards); David Bowie; Mick Ronson (vocals, guitar, piano, background vocals); Rick Wakeman (harpsichord, keyboards); Trevor Bolder (bass instrument); Mick "Woody" Woodmansey (drums); Dana Gillespie (background vocals).

Audio Remasterers: Nigel Reeve; Peter Mew.

Recording information: Trident Studio, London, England; Trident Studios, London, England.

Photographers: Mick Rock ; Brian Ward; Brian Ward .

Arrangers: David Bowie; Mick Ronson.

Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust -- familiar in structure, but alien in performance -- is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Every track on ZIGGY STARDUST & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS sounds like it was pulled from the rock 'n' roll bible. The album created a mythology that reached beyond the Chuck Berry folklorisms of the everyday rocker to create a new type of rock star. With ZIGGY, Bowie created a viable alter-ego to descend onto the planet and wreak havoc on rock's fertile soil. In doing so, he created the most original rock creation since the music's inception 20 years before.

Musically, the album was as inspired as Ziggy's persona. Mick Ronson's snarling guitar evoked the triumphant power of the late '60s guitar heroes, but added a flash so dynamic fans knew why the Spiders were labelled "glitter rockers." As an album, ZIGGY STARDUST told the story of rock through the eyes of Ziggy, an alien--with a narrative that was equally sensational and intimate.

Any doubts as to Bowie's intentions to take over rock were displaced on a closer listen to "Star." At the end of the song Bowie (as Ziggy) whispers, "just watch me now," and his determination is eerily obvious. Combining skills as a mime artist and top-rate vocal dramatist, Bowie created Ziggy, the bisexual space man, who sang "songs of darkness and disgrace." The planet was dying, something made evident on the first track "Five Years," and the only way to survive was to "Hang On To Yourself."

In the end, "they had to break up the band," according to the tale told in ZIGGY STARDUST, but the inevitably tragic strains of this "Rock 'N' Roll Suicide" had left their mark on the dying planet. They are still being felt today.