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. [The 1990 edition features five bonus tracks: {&"John, I'm Only Dancing,"} {&"Velvet Goldmine,"} {&"Sweet Head,"} {&"Ziggy Stardust,"} and {&"Lady Stardust."}] ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide