Glam Rock

Glam Rock

Glam rock is a style of rock music. We got there as a society through some interesting means: 

We start off with country music circa 1920. With the mixing of folk music and traditional music from Appalachian string bands, Irish, Spanish, German and Italian folk music and West African banjo music. Country music borrows very heavily from African music at the time. As does blues from the African work song, ballads and jazz.

All these are building blocks for rock'n'roll. Where blues, jazz and country all began in the 20s and 30s, rock'n'roll comes in the 50s through rockabilly and boogie woogie. This is helped by the rise of the guitar in popular music. 

Rock music is characterised by being in 4/4 time. This is quite an unusual addition to the musical zeitgeist at the time. For the past few hundred years we had worked with tempus perfectum prolatio maior (9/8 time, think Ride of the Valkeries), tempus perfectum prolatio minor (3/4 time, think Scarborough Fair), tempus imperfectum prolatio maior (6/8, or Norweigian Wood) and tempus perfectum prolatio minor (2/4, Darth Vader's leitmotif).

But along comes African music with its tendancy to put the stress on the "back beat." That is one TWO three FOUR. If you're to physicalise this, now, whilst sitting at your computer, with your body. You'll notice you've got what they called at the time "swing" (as in, it don't mean a thing if it ain't got it). That is, you're rocking from side to side. And you're engaged in the physical interpretation of ROCK music. 

Glam Rock is quite a specific type of leaning from side-to-side. Many people are quite fussy about it. For our purposes we'll try and keep it necessarily British and between 1971 and 1976. It came out of Prog Rock and many Yes, Genesis, Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull fans disliked this new "Heavy Metal Bubblegum" as it was called.

It is characterised by short, snappy rock songs as a precursor to punk, but with large theatrical gigs and TV appearances. Extravagant outfits are worn and gender-bending androgyny is employed. This androgyny is the blending of male and female gender identities. In glam rock it took the form of men dressing in extravagent but quite feminine clothes.

Although unusual now for men to wear dresses, between the 1500s and the 1890s - nearly 400 years - it was common for boys under the age of 8 (or so) to wear dresses. It was part of their rite of passage to go through "breeching" whereby the earn their right to wear trousers.

Boys will be... um...

But of course, Glam Rock took it much further.

T-Rex

The Slider

T-Rex pretty much started the whole thing off with Ride A White Swan, in which Bolan appeared in 1970 in very tight rose leggings and a purple blouse. They followed it up with Hot Love.

Bolan appears in silver frills and slacks on TV. Then (The) Sweet crash onto the scene with Co-Co.

Singer Brian Connolly appearing in a lemon jumpsuit on TV, at this point the whole band have very styled, permed, long hair. Previously the Sweet had been producing a lot of Bubblegum pop songs. Now they turned their hand to rock. The public and press never went easy on them. Nicky Chinn - who is responsible for a lot of their songs - brought in session musicians to play on their albums despite the Sweet being able to play. When the story broke in the press everyone was very angry. Now, of course, it's not such an unusual thing.

Sweet wanted to get away from this controversy and into some proper Glam Rock. So what they did was make their B-sides heavier and more rock'n'roll and only play the B-sides at gigs. So, when they turned up in Kilmarnock and play glam rock wearing lipstick and eye-shadow it's fair to say that it caused a big ol' riot. Not entirely a bad thing as they turned their experience into a hit song: Ballroom Blitz

Still in 1971 Slade kick in with Get Down and Get With It. Noddy Holder storms onto our screens in a flat cap, plus fours and platform brogues.

1972

Marc Bolan voted  most popular since Elvis and T-Rex release singles in

January: Telegram Sam

April: Deborah

and May: Metal Guru

By this point, Glam is really catching on and Elton John thought he'd have a go (before the hair plugs) with Rocket Man

Then Gary Glitter steps into the fray. Gary is a huge star throughout the 70s and produces many great songs. But in 1997 he's arrested over child pornography found when his laptop is taken for repair in PC World. He is sentenced to four months in prison for thousands of offending pictures, and on his release flees to Spain. He's discovered by the press and runs to Gibraltar. He's discovered again and again and moves to Cuba, Mexico, South Africa, Zibabwe, Colombia, Portugal, Brazil, Venezuala and settles in Cambodia. He is deported from Cambodia to Vietnam in 2002 for suspected child abuse and then arrested in 2005 for sexual abuse of minors. Arrested again in 2006 and goes to jail. He's released in 2008 and flees to London, then to China where he is arrested again. And deported again. Back to the UK. There he has a travel ban and signs the Sex Offenders registry.

It's a shame as The Glitter band still continue to tour and Gary's behaviour still follows them like the elephant in the room.

Back to 1972. In July Bowie hits us with Starman and wears a multicoloured knitted body stocking on TV.

Also in July Alice Cooper hits us with School's Out

Bowie's a massive hit and shares his sucess with the then floundering Mott the Hoople. Bowie goes to see them play in Croydon (I know, right...) and gives them, a present, the song "All the Young Dudes" which catapults them to the top of the charts again.

Next up comes ELO. They get involved in Glam with the 10538 Overture

and even, implausibly, the Osmonds have a try with Crazy Horses.

Bowie then releases John I'm Only Dancing in October and Jean Genie in December

Just before 1972 ends, Jeff Beck wades in with Hi Ho Silver Lining

1973

Wizzard make headway with increasingly outrageous appearances on Top of the Pops.

Then Mud 

Gary Glitter

Bowie

  Slade

Alice Cooper

Suzi Quattro

Wizzard

Mott the Hoople

Sweet

and even David Essex

gather speed toward the end of '73 and we're treated to a Christmas Number One showdown of

Roxy Music - Street Life

T Rex - Truck on Tyke

Cozy Powell - Dance with the Devil

Mott the Hoople - Roll Away the Stone

Wizzard - Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day

and Slade - Merry Xmas Everybody

Slade won. 

1974. 

'74 brings The Glitter Band out from behind Gary with Angel Face

'74 also sparks off Sparks career.  They're still going to this day.

Alvin Stardust joins in with My Coo Ca Choo

as does Cockney Rebel with Mr. Soft

And Showaddywaddy

Then comes Christmas and it's crowned with Mud - Lonely This Christmas

The End

Then by April '75 it's all over. David Essex undoes all his good work with Rolling Stone, the Bay City Rollers try to join in too late, Bowie's gone disco (Disco!) with Young Americans. Sweet start writing their own songs, christ it's really gone to pot... 

Then in 1977 Marc Bolan dies, and with him Glam Rock. Bolan never wanted to drive as he was afraid of dying, but on his way home his girlfriend crashes the car, killing him. Around the site of the crash a rock shrine grows up. Eerily his T-Rex band mate Steve Currie also dies in a car crash 4 years later. 

Next comes punk, but The Darkness, Suede and David Devant and His Spirit Wife carry the Glam Rock tradition on into the modern day. 

Thanks for listening.