1972年初，David把自己变成了Ziggy Stardust，这个只存在了短短两年的“太空”幻想生物，成为David一生中最为重要的形象。《The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars》是公认的，David最出色的专辑之一，而且，可以说，此后David再也没有如Ziggy时代一样的出色——虽然也许比Ziggy时代更成功。
David开始改变了，无论是音乐还是造型，Ziggy名字的来源取自一个同名裁缝店，这是个近乎玩笑的随意名字，David自己说用了这个名字的原因仅仅因为“Ziggy”要换很多套衣服。
Ziggy看上去夸张又怪异，卖弄风情，和早期David甜蜜的感觉完全不同，但是给人留下了更深印象。他的服装是由日本人Kansai Yamamoto制作的，所以常常可以非常古怪和不自然地找到日本感觉乃至中国特色。
David受日本艺术影响很大，也许这从他研究佛学的时候就开始了。他甚至在左边小腿内侧纹了一个美丽而怪异的纹身：裸体的男人骑在海豚上，在海中腾越，男人双手向上，似乎在做祈祷。底纹映衬着几行日本汉字的铭文。
Ziggy时代，David得到了全英国狂热崇拜，他成为了名副其实的真正的超级巨星。
火红头发的Glam巨星
火红的短发，剔掉眉毛，衣服绚烂多彩到光怪陆离，乃至浓重的情色成份，Ziggy在舞台上穿着挑逗的衣服唱歌，和吉它手模拟口交和性爱动作——不过身体全裸只穿了内裤的一回表演倒并非David刻意所为，那是一场事故：当时狂热的歌迷们撕烂了他的演出服，把碎片拿回家做纪念了。
David宣称自己是双性人，摆出性感和诱惑的姿势，歌曲不再那么忧郁和尖锐。基本上，《The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars》是一张折衷性的专辑，有讨好听众的一面，然而，前几张专辑中始终贯穿的死亡与梦幻的歌词本质却没有变，Ziggy依然是沉浸在飘渺和不满中的遁世者，面对现实无能为力，寂寞地消失湮没。
这张专辑在滚石杂志选出的500张历代最强专辑中排名第35位。
Borrowing heavily from Marc Bolan's glam rock and the future shock of A Clockwork Orange, David Bowie reached back to the heavy rock of The Man Who Sold the World for The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Constructed as a loose concept album about an androgynous alien rock star named Ziggy Stardust, the story falls apart quickly, yet Bowie's fractured, paranoid lyrics are evocative of a decadent, decaying future, and the music echoes an apocalyptic, nuclear dread. Fleshing out the off-kilter metallic mix with fatter guitars, genuine pop songs, string sections, keyboards, and a cinematic flourish, Ziggy Stardust is a glitzy array of riffs, hooks, melodrama, and style and the logical culmination of glam. Mick Ronson plays with a maverick flair that invigorates rockers like "Suffragette City," "Moonage Daydream," and "Hang Onto Yourself," while "Lady Stardust," "Five Years," and "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide" have a grand sense of staged drama previously unheard of in rock & roll. And that self-conscious sense of theater is part of the reason why Ziggy Stardust sounds so foreign. Bowie succeeds not in spite of his pretensions but because of them, and Ziggy Stardust -- familiar in structure, but alien in performance -- is the first time his vision and execution met in such a grand, sweeping fashion.