Photographer: Brian Ward | Illustrators: Terry Pastor, George Underwood A more direct instruction appeared on the rear sleeve: вЂњTO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUMEвЂќ. While the colouring gives the extraterrestrial rock messiah an otherworldly appearance, fans were all too eager to read their own meanings into the image: the вЂњK WestвЂќ sign, actually indicating a place of business for the furriers of the same name (then situated at 23 Heddon Street, off LondonвЂ™s Regent Street, where a flu-ridden Bowie posed for the shot), was often interpreted as a coded declaration that Bowie had set out on a вЂњquestвЂќ of his own. Aiming for a cross between William S BurroughsвЂ™ 1971 novel, The Wild Boys: A Book Of The Dead, and Stanley KubrickвЂ™s adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, Bowie once claimed that вЂњeverything had to be infinitely symbolicвЂќ.

But where BowieвЂ™s Hunky Dory pose found him mimicking old-Hollywood glamour, the Ziggy Stardust album cover would turn him into an icon in his own right, immediately marking itself out as one of the best David Bowie album covers of all time. That design ended up in wider use on the 2020 reissue of the album, which also reverted to using The Man Who Sold The WorldвЂ™s original title: Metrobolist.ДҐ: вЂThe Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From MarsвЂ™ (1972)ДЄs with the Hunky Dory album cover, the photo used for The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars was taken by Brian Ward and later coloured in by Terry Pastor and George Underwood. One of the earliest David Bowie album covers to fall foul of the censors, the artwork was rejected by his US record label, who instead used a cartoon illustration Bowie had originally commissioned вЂ“ and himself rejected, in favour of the вЂњmanвЂ™s dressвЂќ sleeve вЂ“ from a friend, Michael J Weller. At the start of the 70s вЂ“ and on the cusp of a revolution in gender experimentation вЂ“ Bowie, now sporting a curly blond mane reportedly inspired by a Pre-Raphaelite painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, posed on a chaise longue in his Haddon Hall home for the cover of The Man Who Sold The WorldВ wearing a вЂњmanвЂ™s dressвЂќ made by British fashion designer Michael Fish. In an early example of BowieвЂ™s canny media manipulation, in 1964 he formed the Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Long-haired Men and soon found himself (then still trading as Davie Jones) on the BBCвЂ™s Tonight show, defending his shoulder-length locks with members of his first band, The Manish Boys, in tow.

Stay with me goblin ost album cover