10 Perfect Rock Concept Albums

From the minute that David Bowie first stormed onto the rock scene, he was always looking to reinvent what it meant to be the traditional rock star. Even though Space Oddity may have seemed like a novelty record at the time, The Starman continued to cultivate different tones in his music, inching closer and closer to the sound that he heard in his head. Bowie was all about changes, and by 1972, the Davey Jones that was underneath all that makeup had been replaced by Ziggy Stardust.

Arriving right in the middle of the glam rock movement, Ziggy Stardust was the real cornerstone album for Bowie, taking all of the off the wall ideas that he had on Life on Mars? and taking them one step further, telling the story of an alien coming down to save humanity with rock and roll after the Earth has been given just five years left to live. With the help of his Spiders From Mars, Ziggy starts to become infatuated with the idea of being a rock and roll savior, thinking that it might help him sleep at night by the end of things.

Just like all rock star stories, Ziggy has to fall to Earth eventually, getting kicked out of the band in the final tracks of the album before offering himself up to the heavens on behalf of Earth on Rock and Roll Suicide. Ziggy may have died for the sins of rock and roll that night, but that just left the door open for many more characters available on the horizon.