Story behind the record cover - Aladdin Sane (1973) - David Bowie

David Bowie's “Aladdin Sane” was to be the successor to “Ziggy Stardust”. David Bowie and his makeup artist Pierre La Roche were talking about the successor to the album cover of “Ziggy Stardust”. Bowie had plenty of ideas, he said in an interview. “Thoughts go through my head like lightning bolts,” he told La Roche. “I wish I could turn them off." Suddenly La Roche's eye fell on the Panasonic rice cooker in the studio, which had a lightning bolt on it as a 'caution' symbol: "Shall we just paint that on your face?”
That is how the idea was born for this particular cover, which is also called the Mona Lisa of record covers. When you mention the name David Bowie at a party, this picture of Bowie, with the lightning bolt on his face, will come to mind for many.
No expense was spared to create the cover art. “Ziggy Stardust” had become a mega success in England and the record company now wanted to make Bowie a global star. Photographer Brian Duffy was hired, portrait photographer for magazines like Vogue and Elle.
La Roche painted Bowie's face and bare torso milky white and applied the lightning bolt to his face. Photographer Duffy shot several images of Bowie and decided that the color picture should be done in seven-color print. That was exceptional in the 1970s. A four-color print was common. Only in Switzerland there was a printing firm that worked with seven-color printers.
Duffy also applied a drop of water to Bowie's left shoulder using airbrush technique. Thus making the image extra mysterious. Is it a tear? Some see a phallus. Others speculate about Bowie's grief over his schizophrenic half-brother. Bowie feared that he, like his half-brother, had a split personality. The lightning bolt and tear would symbolize that. The title could also be a reference. If you play around with the letters you get 'A Lad Insane', a madman.
But according to Bowie, the title track does not refer to schizophrenia but to the insanity of young men enlisting in the military. Bowie was on tour in America at the time and marveled at the US government's propaganda to join the military. "We need you. A job with a lot of adventure, responsibility and patriotism. Become a hero when you join the army!” Insane, Bowie knew then. Growing up in the 1950s, he saw the trauma of his father's generation who came back from the war.
My father-in-law also suffered from what is now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). As a twenty-year-old boy he had served for two years as a soldier in the Dutch East Indies. He never mentioned it, but it was clear that he had experienced horrific things there. “I went for the adventure, but the government let me down,” was all he wanted to say.
Thus, the cover of “Aladdin Sane” manages to refer to a current theme. With beautiful music and hits like The Jean Genie. Just like on “Ziggy Stardust”, guitarist Mick Ronson’s playing is unrivaled. Take the opening track Watch the Man with Keith Richards-like guitar licks. And listen to Mike Garson's jazzy piano playing, especially in songs in which experimentation is not shunned.
Bowie became a global star. He was the ultimate rock chameleon. With every new album he changed his musical style and shape. First as 'Ziggy Stardust', and on this album as Ziggy's cousin, 'Aladdin'. Then as the 'Thin White Duke' on “Station To Station” and so on. His musical style also changed over the years. From straightforward rock music to pop music with jazz and soul influences and experimental music in collaboration with keyboardist Brian Eno.
Bowie passed away six years ago at the age of 69. My neighbor, an avid Bowie fan, spontaneously threw a neighborhood party as a tribute. I knew that his 15-year-old daughter wanted to get a tattoo for her 16th birthday. At the party, she wore the Bowie lightning bolt on her face. For a moment I was shocked. "Hopefully that's not a tattoo?" I asked her. "No," she said with a smile, "It's just make-up."
Then she showed me the Celtic Dara knot that she would have tattooed on her calf for her birthday.

Gerrit-Jan Vrielink