Listen up, glam rockers. It’s your favorite intergalactic rock star’s 50th birthday. David Bowie‘s iconic persona Ziggy Stardust marked half a century of existence Thursday (April 28), the date “Starman” was released in 1972. The song was the first single from Bowie’s fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders.
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To celebrate the landmark record’s upcoming anniversary, it was announced Thursday that two special edition vinyls containing all 11 of the original’s tracks will be made available online by Parlophone Records this summer on June 17 — 50 years plus one day after it was originally released. Using the same master recordings and promotional artwork from the original album, the first of the limited vinyls will be a picture disc displaying Ziggy Stardust himself posing in a blue jumpsuit.
The second will be a half-speed mastered LP, which means the music takes twice as long to be etched into each disc, producing a fuller, more accurate sound. According to a release, these records were cut by John Webber at AIR Studios.
Ziggy Stardust was the record that changed everything for Bowie. Peaking at No. 21 on the Billboard 200, it rocketed the late pop pioneer to superstardom, and was led by the shooting star success of “Starman.” The sound and artistry curated by Bowie on the album continues to serve as inspiration and source material for some of today’s biggest names in music, from Lady Gaga to Arcade Fire to Lorde.
“There’s been a lot of younger artists who admire the stuff I’ve done over the years,” he told Billboard before his passing in 2016. “A lot of them have been, like, a voice for me so that other people hear about it.”
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