Happy Anniversary: David Bowie, Hunky Dory

43 years ago today, David Bowie released the album that would give him his first top-five placing on the UK album charts, kicking off a series of ch-ch-ch-changes in the public’s appreciation of his music that would, only two years later, lead him to earn his first #1 album in the UK.

While the success of Hunky Dory no doubt had quite a lot to do with the music, which found Bowie’s confidence sky high (as well it should have been, given that this is the album that featured “Changes,” “Oh! You Pretty Things,” “Life on Mars?” and “Kooks,” among other classics), the value of Bowie making the jump to a new label must be taken into consideration as well: having concluded his contract with Mercury after The Man Who Sold the World failed to set the charts alight, RCA signed him to a three album deal after hearing the tapes of Bowie’s still-in-progress effort, and they maintained their optimism through its initially-minor success to see him through to his full-fledged commercial breakthrough. As for Bowie himself, he has rarely hesitated to cite the album as being a major turning point in his career.

"Hunky Dory gave me a fabulous groundswell,” Bowie told Uncut in 1999. “I guess it provided me, for the first time in my life, with an actual audience – I mean, people actually coming up to me and saying, 'Good album, good songs.' That hadn't happened to me before. It was like, 'Ah, I'm getting it, I'm finding my feet. I'm starting to communicate what I want to do. Now: what is it I want to do?' There was always a double whammy there."

What he wanted to do, apparently, was play off his unique production assistant credit on Hunky Dory – “Produced by Ken Scott (assisted by the actor)” – and take it to the next level by creating a character for himself to play: a fictional rock star by the name of Ziggy Stardust. But that’s a story for another time. Right now, you should just sit back and celebrate this great album by giving it another spin.