Glam rock

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Glam Rock
Stylistic origins:	rock and roll, garage rock, folk rock
Cultural origins:	1970s England.
Typical instruments:	Guitar - Bass - Drums - Saxophones - Synthesizers - Strings
Mainstream popularity:	Largely popular in the UK during the 70s and to a lesser extent the United States.
Derivative forms:	Punk rock, Gothic rock, New wave, Pub rock, J-Rock, Schaffel
Fusion genres
Glam metal, Glam punk
Other topics
Protopunk

Glam rock (also known as glitter rock), is a style of rock and roll music, which initially surfaced in the post-Hippie early 1970s. Largely an English phenomenon, glam rock had its peak between the years of 1971 and 1973, and was made famous by acts such as David Bowie, T. Rex, Gary Glitter, Queen, Slade, Sweet, Alvin Stardust, Sparks, Mud, Roxy Music and Mott The Hoople. A late-era example is Kiss. In the USA, Glam made far less of a commercial impression and was largely confined to enclaves of fans in the cities of New York, Detroit and Los Angeles. American bands included Alice Cooper, New York Dolls and Wayne County.

Glam fans and performers distinguished themselves from the denim-clad hippie-hordes with sci-fi/Hollywood glamour/ambisexual-inspired costumes, which were perceived as glamourous by the press. The music was characterised by languid, narcotic ballads and raunchy, high-energy Rolling Stones influenced rock n‘ roll stylings. Lyrically, the genre's emphasis was most often centred on sexual matters, but drugs, science fiction and "teenage revolution" (such as in T. Rex's "Children of the Revolution" and Sweet’s "Teenage Rampage") were also key subjects.

Glam performers and fans often dressed in make up and glittery 'space age' costumes to portray an 'alien' persona. The best-known example is David Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane phases, 1972-73. With then-recent homosexual reforms in the UK and the militant Stonewall Riots in the US, sexual ambiguity was briefly in vogue as an effective 'shock tactic'. Some bands took to playing in drag. In early 1972, Bowie told the press he was 'Gay' (although even at the time this was demonstrably untrue). Genuinely gay glam musicians were actually quite rare. The late Jobriath was among rock's first openly gay stars, while Queen's Freddie Mercury stayed mostly 'in the closet' until he, too, died of AIDS.

1 Progenitors
2 Glam rock in theatre and cinema
3 Subsequent influence
4 Glam rock acts
5 See also
6 Books
7 External links

[edit] Progenitors

Although owing a considerable debt to pioneers like Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones, Little Richard, the Kinks, Pink Floyd's Syd Barrett and others, credit for the genre's crucial crystallisation of camp, glamour and raunch is given to Marc Bolan of T. Rex (David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust persona became a daring and highly successful synthesis, but actually appeared well after Bolan and T. Rex had become household names). Other UK proponents included Queen, Elton John, Slade, Mud, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Mott the Hoople and early Roxy Music including Brian Eno.

In America, glam rock was most prominently represented by the proto-punk New York Dolls, whose Rolling Stones-influenced rock and roll was matched by their frilly yet macho 'dandified street gang' look. Fellow New Yorker Wayne County took the whole thing to its logical extremes and had far less success. On the other hand, the premiere female glam rocker Suzi Quatro cultivated a 'tough chick' image, appearing in black leather biker outfits.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, another key American influence to the development of the glam rock genre was Iggy Pop who came out of the Detroit and Southeast Michigan rock scene. However, Alice Cooper, also from the Detroit rock scene, had arguably sketched the first hints of glam rock when they used a transvestite look and an overtly sexual attitude as part of their image. Cartoon-like metal-pop act Kiss were easily the most enduring of the glitter bands, and formed in New York, 1973. Aerosmith also had an influence on glam rock in the 1970s.

A trend amongst some of the more chart-oriented Glam rock groups was releasing a Christmas single, examples of this are Slade's "Merry Christmas Everybody", Wizzard’s "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" and Gary Glitter's "Another Rock N' Roll Christmas". These tracks receive heavy rotation in the United Kingdom every Christmas.

With the popularity of Glam as a rock genre, several local variants appeared. In Australia there was Skyhooks, in New Zealand, Space Waltz, Belgium had Downtrip, Brazil Edy Star, Canada had Sweeney Todd, Mabel from Denmark, Tiger B. Smith from Germany, Catapult from the Netherlands, Brakaman from Spain and Sweden chimed in with Tears. In Italy, Renato Zero had already sported an androgyne appearance (including heavy make-up) in the late 1960s, but with little success (when he became popular in the late-1970s, he was criticized as having 'borrowed' the look from Bowie and Cooper). The glam rock movement even made the shores of Japan at the close of the 1970s, with local bands the Sadistic Mika Band and Vodka Collins recording for EMI.

[edit] Glam rock in theatre and cinema

Theatre and Cinema played an important role in the Glam rock movement.

The stars of Andy Warhol's stage play Pork are considered influential on the movement. Wayne County was in particular an influence on David Bowie. Another Andy Warhol Superstar, Jackie Curtis, was influential on the look and dress of glam rock.

Some examples of movies that reflect Glam Rock include:

Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise;
The Rocky Horror Picture Show;
Hedwig And The Angry Inch;
T. Rex's documentary Born To Boogie;
David Bowie's The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust;
Alice Cooper's Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper and Welcome To My Nightmare;
Gary Glitter's Remember Me This Way;
Slade's Flame;
Robert Fuest's Final Programme (1973);
20th Century Oz (1976);
Side By Side (1975);
Never too Young to Rock (1975);
Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine (1998);
John Cameron Mitchell's film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001);
Fenton Bailey's Party Monster (2002);
Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto (2005);

[edit] Subsequent influence

In the late 1970s, glam rock was a major influence upon the punk rock movement in the United Kingdom; bands such as the Sex Pistols, The Damned (with whom Marc Bolan toured during 1977) and Siouxsie And The Banshees conspicuously referenced glam in both image and sound.

It was also linked to the United States proto-punk movement, although not a direct influence as both were happening at the same time. In the United States during the late 1970s bands who were influenced by the New York Dolls and glam rock in general included Dolls off-shoot the Heartbreakers, Ramones, and Dead Boys.

Many of the movements which followed punk rock during the late 70s and all through the 1980s took some influence from Glam rock, with Los Angeles's Sunset Strip producing such glam bands as Faster Pussycat and L.A. Guns, as well as Stars From Mars, The Babydolls, The Dum Dums, Juicy Miss Lucy, The Glamor Punks and more (as well as Pretty Boy Floyd, Tuff, et al., although the latter were far more influenced by metal acts Mötley Crüe and Poison than they were 70's glam). The Gothic rock movement, particularly the bands who played at the Batcave in London (such as Specimen) took obvious cues from glam, in particular Roxy Music and David Bowie. Another movement from around the same time was dubbed the "New Romantics" and included the likes of Adam and the Ants, Culture Club, Dead Or Alive and Soft Cell.

In the 1990s, United States grunge act Nirvana took some influence from glam rock, occasionally playing in drag, and covered David Bowie's The Man Who Sold The World. A movement which happened in the United Kingdom at the same time; Britpop strongly referenced glam rock, with bands like Oasis taking Slade and Mott The Hoople among their primary influences. Placebo, Suede, Manic Street Preachers and Spacehog are other notable United Kingdom bands from this time, with heavy glam rock leanings.

Marilyn Manson's album Mechanical Animals was strongly influenced by glam rock, and Manson created the androgynous space alien "Omega".

Although glam rock in the purest sense is rarely played anymore, Robin Black and the I.R.S. and the British band The Darkness are examples of its modern day incarnation.