The alien just fell to the ground. And, like almost every sci-fi story, he was waiting for his landing America.

Calendar shows 1973. A year earlier Mr. David Bowie was baptized Ziggy Stardust and with them Spiders from Mars he discovered the glamor of glam, changed his image from the introverted eccentric to the androgynous hero of rock and roll, and finally entered the pantheon to which he rightfully belonged.

He immersed himself in some of the clichés that dictated the lifestyle of this new world and traveled to the US – literally, as the ship was the primary means of transportation during the year and a half Ziggy Stardust tour.

As a keen observer, Bowie, when he was not on stage in colored leggings and with a metallic blush, studied and assimilated snapshots of the American temperament. Meanwhile he continued to repeat: “crazy guy, crazy guy, crazy guy.”

Until this “crazy” turned into “Aladdin Sein” like another “all right” Saul Goodman. It’s not that Ziggy went completely mad, but rather that he acquired a sense of acquired speed – but not sloppiness – in this new adventure that Bowie took him on with his sixth album and his first mighty name in the rock universe. .

But what kind of America are we talking about, you say, when from the first notes of the record his ghost Mick Jagger hovering there – which is later confirmed by this location in “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and works together as a pre-economy for “Pin-ups”, the record that Bowie “fell” on with the arrangements a few months later.

Of course, with the help of the jump, Bowie parked. “Check in on Saturday” with doo-wop romance, it unfolds a hazy narrative from the future to idealize those evenings in open-air cinemas. Before he caught it “Panic in Detroit” remember your good friend Iggy Pop and then indulge in his blues disgusts “Jin Jin”.

On the one side, everything sounds complete in Aladdin Sun in relation to his predecessor. Sexuality does not have the otherworldly form of “Ziggy”, it is transformed into lust, leaves itself and is transferred to another – let’s turn again to the arrangement, the Rolling Stones and the mischief of Jean Gini. Generally, fast is a virtue.

As long as it’s not. Because the real trump card in Aladdin Sane’s sleeve is the points where he throws turns, or rather, he exchanges rock madness for a rare grace and softness that cannot be immediately deciphered.

The title track is trying in every way to seduce you, “Smirking Lady Soul” it almost cancels out any previous crude endeavor to paint the figure of the “mother-Madonna”. Time he approaches timeless philosophical concepts with a theatricality you don’t know, whether he wants to scare you or just laugh along with you.

The lungs of these moments are his piano Mike Garson without whom nothing on this record would be the same. Because he brings the essence of academicism, which, nevertheless, crumples anarchically, and, finally, his keys become that matte movement that turns simple ballads into elegies.

Aladdin Sane of course this is not Ziggy Stardust’s “identity crisis” moment, not the jet lag of a rock hero. It is also a work that has sown the seeds of unrest that will bear fruit in a few years. “Berlin Trilogy”. (namely the records “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”), which sent Bowie back across the Atlantic for something more soulful with “Young Americans”.

And let’s not forget: this The record that struck David Bowie with lightning a symbol that has become synonymous with the musician, his own “language of the Rolling Stones”. Even if a few months after the release of Aladdin Sane, he dropped his mantle along with Ziggy Stardust and Spiders From Mars off the stage at the Hammersmith Odeon in London.

“Aladdin Sein” was one of the strongest heroes created by the unwavering Bowie. And, like many heroes, he dies at the end. But not his story, which can go on forever. Like myths, that is.