GETTIN' ZIGGY WITH IT

Meet the man who fell to earth...and onto your iPhone.

In the 35 years since David Bowie first came out as Ziggy Stardust, music has morphed from vinyl records to cassette tapes to CDs to MP3s. But technology hadn’t been nearly as transformative when it came to the electrifying photos of Bowie, snapped by Mick Rock; though you could pick up a book with the renowned rock photographer’s prints, you couldn’t really interact with them.

Which might make the Ziggy Stardust eBook App the most revolutionary moment in Bowie’s career since dying his hair red. The iPhone app features more than six hundred images from the Mick Rock archive, all shot between March 1972, when Ziggy was first introduced, and October 1973, when the ZIggy persona was retired.

It’s not just the photos—many of them never published before—that make this app so cool; you can also find out where and when it was shot, as well as notes from Rock on everything from where Bowie bought his platform shoes to how he applied his makeup.

And if there’s an image you particularly like, the email function lets you send yourself a copy. Whether the print ends up hanging on your wall, hovering on your desktop, or cut into a card is up to you—just as long as you remember to add glitter.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS

$2.99 at Apple’s iTunes App Store



This story was published on August 5, 2009.