David Bowie Remembers His Ziggy Stardust Days in Animated Video

When you think about Zig­gy Star­dust this week, you’ll prob­a­bly think first about the sto­ry mak­ing the rounds — that Cana­di­an astro­naut Chris Had­field­’s cov­er of Bowie’s “Space Odd­i­ty” has dis­ap­peared from the web, thanks to a copy­right claim by David Bowie. Bowie gave Had­field per­mis­sion to use the “Space Odd­i­ty” track for a year. The time is now up. The viral video, gone. We mourn. But not for too long. Yes­ter­day, Blank on Blank released the lat­est in its series of ani­mat­ed videos. Based on an inter­view record­ed by Joe Smith in 1988, the video (above) ani­mates Bowie’s reflec­tions on his Zig­gy Star­dust days, from whence “Space Odd­i­ty” came. He recalls how Zig­gy was “half out of sci-fi rock and half out of the Japan­ese the­ater.  The clothes were, at that time, sim­ply out­ra­geous. And sim­ply… Nobody had seen any­thing like them before.” We have much more on Bowie’s Zig­gy Star­dust peri­od in our archive. See the posts below.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

David Bowie Recalls the Strange Expe­ri­ence of Invent­ing the Char­ac­ter Zig­gy Star­dust (1977)

The Sto­ry of Zig­gy Star­dust: How David Bowie Cre­at­ed the Char­ac­ter that Made Him Famous

David Bowie’s Final Gig as Zig­gy Star­dust Doc­u­ment­ed in 1973 Con­cert Film