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

BY DAVID BOWIE

Bowie found his most perfect avatar in Ziggy and in the process did perhaps more to awaken the world to the idea of gender fluidity than anyone in 20th-century culture. A sense of authenticity was key: while decadent campness was everywhere in the rock scene at the time, Bowie “never made his sexuality anything more than a completely natural and integral part of his public self, refusing to lower it to the level of gimmick,” wrote Rolling Stone at the time.

There were immediate hits -“Starman”, “Suffragette City” -- but also an all-encompassing vision: futuristic and otherworldly, yet also rooted in the grimy, twisted world of cabaret that kept it firmly Earthbound.