Glam rock (also known as
glitter
rock) is a style that developed in the UK in the
post-
hippie early 1970s that was "performed
by singers and musicians wearing outrageous clothes, makeup,
hairstyles, and platform-soled boots." The flamboyant costumes, and
visual styles of glam performers were a
campy, theatrical blend of
nostalgic references to
science fiction and old movies.
Largely a
British
phenomenon,
glam rock visuals peaked during the mid 1970s. According to
many researchers, the most famous exponents of the fashion were
David Bowie,
Marc
Bolan and
T. Rex,
Gary Glitter,
and
Slade. Other influential British and
American performers include:
Queen,
Sweet,
Wizzard,
Roxy Music,
Mud,
Mott the
Hoople,
The Glitter Band,
Elton John, and
Suzi Quatro.
Visual style
Glam fans (usually referred to in the contemporary music press as
"glitter kids") and performers distinguished themselves from
earth-toned
hippie culture with a
deliberately "artificial" look. This is derived in large part from
a fusing of
transvestism with
futurism. Evoking the
glamour of 'Old Hollywood' whilst
consciously wallowing in 1970s drug and sleaze success, the stars
of
Andy Warhol's films and his stage
play
Pork were crucially influential to the nascent glam
movement. The Warhol coterie were provocatively camp, flamboyant,
and sexually ambiguous. Mid-1960s Warhol
Superstar Edie
Sedgwick cultivated an androgynous, ultra-hedonistic
image.
With recent homosexual reforms in the United Kingdom and the
militant
Stonewall Riots for gay
rights in the US, sexual ambiguity was briefly in vogue as an
effective cultural "shock tactic".
David
Bowie caused a media uproar in 1972 when he told the UK press
he was
bisexual. While glam rock denied
traditional gender-representation, genuinely gay glam rock
musicians were rare. The late
Jobriath was
amongst rock culture's first openly gay performer, while Queen's
Freddie Mercury stayed mostly
"
in the closet".
Science fiction imagery was a core strand of glam rock's stylistic
weave. Themes of spaceflight and alien encounters were prevalent at
the more cerebral end of the glam rock spectrum. Glam style
strongly referenced this anticipated era with silver astronaut-like
outfits, multicoloured hair and allusions to a new multi-
gender social morality. This trend was often
musically represented with
science-fiction-oriented lyrics and music
tinted with early
synthesizers such as
the
Moog. Glam performers and fans
combined nostalgic, "decadent" and "space age" influences alike
into a uniquely "glam" synthesis of Victorian, cabaret, and
futuristic styles.
History
While makeup and androgyny had featured in rock culture before the
1970s (most notably in the work of
Little
Richard,
Pink Floyd,
The Kinks, and
The
Rolling Stones), glam rock proper is generally agreed to have
first been synthesised by
Marc Bolan.
During the late 1960s, Bolan performed psychedelic-folk music with
his two-piece band Tyrannosaurus Rex, with limited commercial
success until their song "
Ride a White
Swan" became a UK hit single. "Ride A White Swan" was released
in October 1970, but topped the UK charts early in 1971. For the
band's radically reworked
T. Rex incarnation, Bolan simplified the music, using
elements of 1950s and 1960s styles, and loud, distorted guitars.
This approach was realized in full on the album
Electric Warrior released in 1971.
Bolan also changed his professional image by wearing makeup and
glitter, first seen during an appearance on
Top of the Pops in late 1970. This
appearance laid the foundation for early glam rock's 'faux gay
space alien' image. Bolan's 'futuristic' stage outfits further
distinguished him from his old 'hippie' persona, and the
combination of loud pop songs with camp visuals appealed greatly to
a large younger-teen audience. By 1972, Bolan and T. Rex boasted a
fanatical popularity amongst British teenagers not seen since
The Beatles, which the press dubbed "T.
Rextacy".
In Bolan's wake, previously existing pop-rock bands and artists
such as
David Bowie,
Slade and
Sweet would
emerge and consolidate their commercial success over 1971-72. Pure
pop artists like
Gary Glitter and Alvin
Stardust would also rise to fame in 1972-73, making glam a national
music phenomenon in the UK.
Bolan may have hit upon the crucial synthesis of '
bisexual' glam image with a 1950s-futurist hard
rock-pop sound, but the image was further explored by David Bowie,
albeit with less commercial success. Despite having a hit in 1969
with the song "
Space Oddity", Bowie's
albums
The Man
Who Sold the World and
Hunky
Dory did not gain much recognition in the British
mainstream. Though nominally a hippie in appearance, Bowie
experimented with androgyny during the late 1960s, as evidenced
both on album covers and his public image.
Following Bolan's successful change of image, in April 1972 David
Bowie altered his own professional persona to fit the new concept
character for his new musical project named Ziggy Stardust.
Strongly influenced visually by Stanley Kubrick's movies
A Clockwork
Orange and
2001: A
Space Odyssey, the music was harder-sounding and more
aggressive than his previous work. Encompassing the rock and roll
of the late 50s and early 60s, various literature, esoteric
philosophy and other influences, the 'Ziggy' concept extended
beyond the vinyl album and spilled into real life. When the album
The
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
and its attendant singles were released, Bowie experienced great
commercial success in the UK.
Both Bolan and Bowie's images became more extreme over the years
1971-74, as did those of their fans. Their musical scope also
widened to include American soul and funk influences (as
represented by Bolan's
Tanx and
Zinc
Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow and, to a lesser
extent, Bowie's
Diamond Dogs,
both artists fully abandoning glam for "plastic soul" with their
following albums:
Bolan's Zip
Gun and
Young
Americans, respectively). In addition, Bowie promoted and
collaborated with
Lou Reed and
Iggy Pop - two then-obscure American artists who
both took on some glam influence in their music and image - as well
as British band
Mott the Hoople, for
whom Bowie produced the album
All the Young Dudes, for which he
also contributed the title track. In 1972 Bowie produced
The Stooges album
Raw
Power and Reed's album
Transformer, which (along with
Bowie's own work of the era) were influential in the history of
hard rock music in general, but particularly glam and punk.
English band
Roxy Music belonged more to
the art- and
progressive rock end
of the glam rock spectrum than most of the others, yet they had a
run of successful chart singles and four top ten albums during the
period. These were
Roxy
Music,
For Your
Pleasure,
Stranded and
Country Life. Roxy Music were one
of the few bands to have been formed during the glam period itself,
first performing publicly in late 1972.
Also from England, Slade's remarkable series of successive UK
number one singles over the mid-1970s rivaled the Beatles', and the
Sweet also became a strong 'singles band'. The pure-pop 'show
business' side of glam included many artists with already-long
careers who brought themselves up to date with a few sequins and a
raunchy guitar riff. Gary Glitter amassed a wide popularity during
the early 1970s. His backing ensemble the Glitter Band began to
release their own material in 1973. Similar 'updated' pop acts
included Suzi Quatro, Mud and
Wizzard, all
of whom had great UK success during this time.
Though primarily a UK-centred genre and of somewhat nebulous impact
in the US, glam rock rapidly influenced popular culture to the
point where acts as disparate as
The
Osmonds and the Rolling Stones wore some glitter or makeup.
Even though their sales-oriented work had little if any connection
to science fiction, sexual ambiguity or high art, the genre's pop
stars also wore makeup and 'futuristic' garb. However, as the genre
progessed, it became stylistically diluted and
commercialised.
In America, glam rock was much less successful as a commercial
genre. The
New York Dolls formed in
1971, and over the next three years they became the premiere
American glam rock band. They were based musically in Rolling
Stones raunch and girl-group pop.
In 1973 the New York Dolls released their debut album and
American Graffiti hit the
screens. In the US, the Dolls' album attracted uniformly low sales,
whilst the 1950s-60s '
Rock and roll'
soundtrack to "American Graffiti" was a
phenomenon, outselling any and perhaps all glam rock albums put
together. The Dolls' debut was another heavily-influential album on
hard rock, and indeed
Malcolm
McLaren, who later went on to engineer the career of the
notorious punk band
Sex Pistols, briefly
managed the Dolls. Although the band were actually in the process
of imploding, McLaren rallied them and insisted they switch from
glam outfits to politically provocative red leather and Communist
symbolism, but this pre-Pistols experiment in outrage failed and
the Dolls folded soon afterward.
Over 1974, a surge in nostalgia for the 1940s and 1950s and the
rise in popularity of
Reggae and
Disco music supplanted Glam in music culture. Science
fiction, perhaps because of the recently-completed series of NASA
moon missions, was also falling from favour as a mass concern.
However, some notable bands appeared during this twilight period,
the most enduring being
Cockney Rebel and Queen.
Although presenting a classically 'camp' glam image at the time,
Queen's four musicians were all adaptable pop songwriters and
eventually their run of hits exceeded that of Slade.
Although lacking a crucial 'political' core (in contrast with that
of punk), by 1974 Glam had become a quasi-
subculture.
However, the social upheavals of the 1960s
had produced a fertile post-hippie era in which not only
"futuristic" glam rock could flourish, but the undercurrent of
nostalgia which had run throughout the 1960s (after all, 1950s
celebrants Sha Na Na had performed at
Woodstock
amongst the hippies and blues-rockers) could
surface and become a mainstream interest. As it unfolded
with a disconcerting slowness, the "space age" gradually fell from
popular culture currency, and by 1975 the future was out of style,
and glam rock itself subsided in popularity. Though much of glam
rock and pop was intended to be dance-friendly, the
dancefloor-specific new soul and disco music dominated both
American and British sales charts.
Bowie officially announced his retirement of the 'Ziggy' character
in July 1973, with a "farewell concert" at the climax of which he
announced (somewhat ambiguously) that "this is the last show that
we'll ever do". With Ziggy in 'retirement', Bowie went on to create
the album
Diamond Dogs, which
many interpreted as his farewell to the glam movement. As evidenced
by his new 'soul crooner' look and his following albums
David Live and
Young Americans, he had again
fundamentally changed his musical style, this time to a combination
of soul and funk.
Likewise, Marc Bolan made a move toward soul music, though less
successfully than Bowie. Over the years, Bolan had continually
failed to build in America the same sort of commercial success he
enjoyed in England. A combination of this lack of success,
substance abuse, and internal strife all helped derail the career
of Bolan and T. Rex, as well as alienating fans with a rapid change
of styles: a brief change to a more hard rock style (heard in
singles such as "
20th Century Boy")
followed less than a year later by a strong leaning toward soul
music in 1974's
Zinc Alloy and the
Hidden Riders of Tomorrow (a sound he first began
experimenting with in 1973 with
Tanx,
which began his commercial descent). The band quickly faded from
the musical mainstream as their album sales and popularity
collapsed. Before his death, though, he had partially returned to
mainstream popularity as he had cleaned up, hosted his own TV show
Marc and toured with new punk bands such as
The Damned.
Slade and the Sweet had hits well into the mid 1970s, but when punk
arrived, both bands eventually became passé. In 1977, the Sweet
changed their image and sound to be more 'progressive,' while Slade
carried on as they were, at club level until they found more
commercial success (albeit sporadic) in the 80s.
Roxy Music carried on until their 1976 split, although a reformed
band experienced their greatest period of commercial success in the
New Wave movement of the early 1980s.
Former keyboardist
Brian Eno released a
few albums of glam leanings before becoming a pioneer in
ambient music and a popular producer.
In the United States, the New York Dolls split in 1975, with the
most visible results being singer
David
Johansen's decidedly non-glam, basic rock solo career.
Film
Some examples of movies that reflect glam rock aesthetics include:
Subsequent influence
Even after glam's immediate mark on mainstream music, the
performers' decadent aesthetic styles, unusual clothes and
behaviour, and hard pop-rock sound were a major influence upon the
punk rock movement of the late 1970s.
Bowie, Bolan, and the New York Dolls influenced early punk bands
such as
The Heartbreakers (which
included two ex-Dolls),
Ramones,
Sex Pistols,
Voidoids,
Dead Boys,
The Damned (with whom Marc Bolan toured
during 1977) and
Siouxsie
& the Banshees, who covered T-Rex's '20th Century Boy' as
well as material by Roxy Music and Sparks. Post-punk bands would
even take a bigger influence, especially bands such as
Joy Division and
The
Cure.
German
1980s New
wave/Post-punk artists often had a
glam-oriented image: German Nina Hagen
and Klaus Nomi, Bosnian Lene Lovich and others.
Gary Numan became hugely popular in the
UK during the late 1970s, strongly influenced by glam in both image
and sound even though his music was synthesizer based, making
synthpop popular.
The Gothic rock
movement spawned from post-punk associated with the Batcave
club in London (such as Specimen) took cues from glam, in particular
Roxy Music and David Bowie. Bauhaus took a large amount of
influence from Bowie and covered his hit
Ziggy Stardust, and T. Rex with a cover
of the hit "
Telegram Sam". Some bands
and artists of the early 1980s such as
Adam and the Ants,
ABC,
Culture Club,
Depeche Mode,
Ultravox,
Japan,
Duran Duran, and
Soft Cell were strongly influenced by glam rock in
both image and music, some even starting out as glam bands. New
Wave united these artists of post-punk, gothic rock, synthpop and
blue eyed soul under one banner and both Roxy Music and David Bowie
played and would play a large part in shaping its sound. Both used
the genre and their retrospective influence to gain large
commercial success in the early 1980s.
Hanoi Rocks was formed in 1979, widely
regarded as one of the first
glam punk
bands. The American
glam metal movement
would at first take huge influence from glam rock bands like the
New York Dolls.
Quiet Riot had their
first huge commercial success by covering Slade's "
Cum on Feel the Noize" in 1983, which
peaked at number 5 on the Billboard chart.
Mötley Crüe also took a huge amount of
influence as most of the members were in glam rock bands
beforehand. However as time went on there was less of a pure glam
rock sound in glam metal and it began to be more influenced by a
number of different styles of 1980s pop music. Nonetheless, the Los
Angeles music scene spawned many glam metal bands, including
Poison,
Ratt,
Warrant and many others who
had a vaguely glam-influenced appearance, coupled with metal
attitude and sound that dominated MTV for several years. Waves were
also being made in the U.K. with bands such as The Quireboys,
Tigertailz and many unsigned acts such as Spoilt Bratt and City
Kidds.
Alternative rock would be
influenced somewhat by glam, particularly in the UK. In the 1990s,
Britpop referenced glam rock, with bands
like
Oasis using
Slade and
Mott the
Hoople as primary influences.
Placebo,
Suede,
Manic Street Preachers,
Spacehog, and
Morrissey's album
Your
Arsenal also had glam rock leanings.
In
2000, American band
Cherry Poppin' Daddies (best known
for their smash
swing revival hit
Zoot Suit Riot) attempted a glam rock revival with their
follow-up single, the
Tony
Visconti-produced "
Diamond
Light Boogie". Despite critical acclaim, the single failed to
chart. In 2003, the Daddies' lead singer started the glam/hard rock
side project
White Hot
Odyssey.
In
Japan
, Kenji Sawada was the
pioneer of glam in the mid 1970s. Later he was crowned
"Pioneer of
visual kei" after the term
"visual kei" was identified. Visual kei would come to prominence in
Japan in the early to late 1990s, influenced strongly in appearance
by glam and New Wave or goth but usually playing a blend of many
different styles, from heavy metal to pop rock. Some representative
bands are
X Japan,
Luna
Sea,
Kuroyume,
Malice Mizer and
Glay among
many others.
Bands like
Italy
's Dope Stars Inc,
Sweden's Deathstars, France
's Undercover Slut and America's Deadstar Assembly are also strongly
influenced by glam in their appearance, combined with aggressive
Industrial-oriented music. Finnish dark rock bands like
HIM and
The 69 Eyes
mention glam rock as influence. The 69 Eyes started as a glam punk
band, moved to a goth-like
Sisters of
Mercy sound, and then to a glam/hard rock style in later
works.
Although
glam rock's outrage value has long passed in the eyes of the
mainstream, Sweden
's The Ark, Finland
's Negative, Private Line and Canada
's Robin Black and the I.R.S. are
continuing the glam style.
Glam rock acts
Further reading
- Philip Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and
Theatricality in Popular Music Ann Arbor, University of
Michigan Press, 2006 ISBN 0472068687
- Rock, Mick, Glam! An Eyewitness Account
Omnibus Press, 2005 ISBN 1.84609.149.7
See also
References
- http://www.5years.com/glam.htm
- http://www.70sglamrock.com/David_Bowie.html
-
http://www.cobizmag.com/articles/storytellers-set-offers-glimpse-behind-david-bowies-glam-rock-muse/
- http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1159843_3,00.html
- http://www.nme.com/artists/queen
-
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:jifpxqr5ldje
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