It really doesn’t get much better than a concept album about an androgynous bisexual alien rock star who falls to the excesses of celebrity after falling to Earth. The prepackaged persona of Ziggy Stardust and his Spiders from Mars were unlike anything the music industry had ever seen in 1972, and much like the Stanley Kubrick films that inspired David Bowie’s alter ego, it is still a little ahead of its time.

Completely the brainchild of Mr. Bowie, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a deliciously kitschy testament to the joys of glam rock. Lyrics describing apocalyptic visions of doom which cast reference to an unwanted future of terror are punctuated with thrillingly glitzy music, highlighted by the glowing hooks and riffs from guitar maverick Mick Ronson.

It is Bowie, however, who comes with his command performance on what was his fourth studio album. Delivering his dooming imagery with trademark inflections, Bowie showers it all with a devoted sense of theater that comes through in the band’s live performances, captured on the recently released and refurbished DVD Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture.

From the thrilling album opener “Five Years” to the closer “Rock & Roll Suicide,” the story of the arrival and departure of Mr. Stardust is held together by the sing-along choruses that Bowie has turned into his own invention.

“Moonage Daydream” fires away with tremendous feedback while alternating both electric and acoustic riffing, signifying Ziggy’s arrival and acceptance. High-pitched singing and sexually charged lyrics bolster Bowie’s charge at the supposed “manliness” of rock with tongue-in-cheek references to his homosexuality.

“Starman,” the album’s first single, follows with a slow acoustic intro that slides into a beautiful groove before exploding into a cascade of keyboards and climbing strings. The words of the Starman character heed warning to a desperate future, but he is too afraid to come down to earth for fear of “blowing our minds.”

Truly a story too extraordinary to take seriously, but again, the theatrics allow us to approach the song a little differently. And all is forgiven when those choruses lock the listener in; it’s hard to deny their charms.

The album builds to the epic “Ziggy Stardust,” an expanding rocker with herky-jerky distortions Ronson tastefully borrows from Hendrix. Bowie’s searing series of lyrics touch the spectrum from sex and death to dissidence and self-absorption before ending in his character’s splendid epitaph.

“Suffragette City” and “Rock & Roll Suicide” close out the album in campy fashion, the first a glowing rocker showcasing Ronson’s skills. “Suicide” builds into a thick, rolling groove highlighted by a horn section and strong bass line. Bowie pleads to the listener, “Give me your hands,” and with the listener tacked into the spectacle and all its grandeur, it’s impossible not to hold on to the album’s curtain close.

Bowie followed Ziggy with a series of glam-rock albums cut with the same band. Aladdin Sane and Diamond Dogs are the standouts, but Ziggy, like all characters, ran his course. Bowie dumped the band in 1975 and began flirting with R&B, cutting the seminal Young Americans album before moving to Amsterdam and creating a series of albums examining early electronica.

Ziggy was re-released last year in a limited-edition 30th-anniversary double-disc package with early workings and original cuts of the album’s song. You can find the 25th-anniversary release, with all 11 tracks, at just about any record store.