Glam rock (also known as glitter rock) is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1970s and was primarily defined by the hairstyles, makeup, and flamboyant clothing of its musicians, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists drew on diverse sources, ranging from bubblegum pop and 1950s rock and roll to cabaret, science fiction, and complex art rock. The flamboyant clothing and visual styles of performers were often camp or androgynous and have been described as playing with other gender roles.
The UK charts were inundated with glam rock acts from 1971 to 1975. The March 1971 appearance of T. Rex frontman Marc Bolan on the BBC's music show Top of the Pops—performing "Hot Love"—wearing glitter and satins, is often cited as the beginning of the movement. Other British glam rock artists included David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Sweet, Slade, Mud, Roxy Music, Alvin Stardust, Wizzard and Gary Glitter. In the United States, the scene was much less prevalent, but US artists such as New York Dolls, Sparks, Suzi Quatro, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Lou Reed and Jobriath achieved success in the UK and/or US. Glam rock declined after the mid-1970s, but influenced other musical genres including punk rock, post-punk, gothic rock and glam metal. The new romantic movement, which began as an underground fashion subculture movement in nightclubs in the late 1970s before becoming mainstream in the early 1980s, was also inspired by the visuals of the glam rock era.
Characteristics
Glam rock can be seen as both a fashion and a musical subgenre. When it emerged in the 1970s, it was primarily defined by the flamboyant clothing, makeup, and hairstyles of its musicians, particularly platform shoes and glitter. Glam artists rejected the revolutionary rhetoric of the late 1960s rock scene, instead glorifying decadence, superficiality, and the simple structures of earlier pop music. In response to these characteristics, scholars such as I.Taylor and D. Wall characterised glam rock as "offensive, commercial, and cultural emasculation".
Artists drew on such musical influences as bubblegum pop, the brash guitar riffs of hard rock, stomping rhythms, and 1950s rock and roll, filtering them through the recording innovations of the late 1960s. Ultimately, it became very diverse, varying between the simple rock and roll revivalism of figures like Alvin Stardust to the complex art pop of Roxy Music. In its beginning, it was a youth-orientated reaction to the creeping dominance of progressive rock and concept albums – what Bomp! called the "overall denim dullness" of "a deadly boring, prematurely matured music scene".
Visually, it was a mesh of various styles, ranging from 1930s Hollywood glamour, through 1950s pin-up sex appeal, pre-war cabaret theatrics, Victorian literary and symbolist styles, science fiction, to ancient and occult mysticism and mythology; manifesting itself in outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots.P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), , pp. 57, 63, 87 and 141. Glam rock is most noted for its sexual and gender ambiguity and representations of androgyny, besides extensive use of theatrics.[ "Glam rock"], AllMusic. Retrieved 26 June 2009.
It was prefigured by the flamboyant English composer Noël Coward, for example his 1931 song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", with music writer Daryl Easlea stating, Showmanship and gender identity manipulation acts included the Cockettes and Alice Cooper, the latter of which combined glam with shock rock.P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), , p. 34.
History
Glam rock emerged from the English psychedelic and art rock scenes of the late 1960s and can be seen as both an extension of, and a reaction against, those trends.R. Shuker, Popular Music: the Key Concepts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2nd edn., 2005), , pp. 124-5. Its origins are associated with Marc Bolan, who had renamed his acoustic duo T. Rex and taken up electric instruments by the end of the 1960s. Bolan was, in the words of music critic Ken Barnes, "the man who started it all". Often cited as the moment of inception is Bolan's appearance on the BBC music show Top of the Pops in March 1971 wearing glitter and satins, to perform what would be his second UK Top 10 hit (and first UK Number 1 hit), "Hot Love".Mark Paytress, Bolan – The Rise And Fall of a 20th Century Superstar (Omnibus Press 2002) , pp. 180–181. The Independent states that Bolan's appearance on Top of the Pops "permitted a generation of teeny-boppers to begin playing with the idea of androgyny"."Box-set billed as the definitive guide to Seventies music genre has further ostracised its disgraced former star". The Independent. Retrieved 15 September 2017
Glitter rock was briefly the original name for the genre, but then "glam rock" overtook the previous term in popularity; "glitter rock" came to be associated with a more extreme version of glam rock. T. Rex's 1971 album Electric Warrior received critical acclaim as a pioneering glam rock album. In 1973, a few months after the release of the album Tanx, Bolan captured the front cover of Melody Maker magazine with the declaration "Glam rock is dead!"
From late 1971, already a minor star, David Bowie developed his Ziggy Stardust persona, incorporating elements of professional makeup, mime and performance into his act.P. Auslander, "Watch that man David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London, 3 July 1973" in I. Inglis, ed., Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), , p. 72. Bowie, in a 1972 interview in which he noted that other artists described as glam rock were doing different work, said "I think glam rock is a lovely way to categorize me and it's even nicer to be one of the leaders of it". Bolan and Bowie were soon followed in the style by acts including Roxy Music, Sweet, Slade, Mott the Hoople, Mud and Alvin Stardust. The popularity of glam rock in the UK was such that three glam rock bands had major UK Christmas hit singles; "Merry Xmas Everybody" by Slade, "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday" by Wizzard and "Lonely This Christmas" by Mud, all of which have remained hugely popular.""PRS for Music announces top 50 Christmas Songs (United Kingdom)". 14 December 2012 PRS press release. Glam was not only a highly successful trend in UK popular music, it became dominant in other aspects of British popular culture during the 1970s.
A heavier variant of glam rock, emphasising guitar riff centric songs, driving rhythms and live performance with audience participation, were represented by bands like Slade and Mott the Hoople, with later followers such as Def Leppard, Cheap Trick, Poison, Kiss, and Quiet Riot, some of which either covered Slade compositions (such as "Cum On Feel the Noize" and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now") or composed new songs based on Slade templates. While highly successful in the single charts in the UK (Slade for example had six number one singles), very few of these musicians were able to make a serious impact in the US; David Bowie was the major exception, becoming an international superstar and prompting the adoption of glam styles among acts like Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, New York Dolls and Jobriath, often known as "glitter rock" and with a darker lyrical content than their British counterparts.P. Auslander, "Watch that man David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London, July 3, 1973" in Ian Inglis, ed., Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), , p. 80.
In the UK, the term glitter rock was most often used to refer to the extreme version of glam pursued by Gary Glitter and the independent band with whom he often performed known as the Glitter Band. The Glitter Band and Gary Glitter had between them eighteen top ten singles in the UK between 1972 and 1975.V. Bogdanov, C. Woodstra and S. T. Erlewine, All Music Guide to Rock: the Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul (Milwaukee, WI: Backbeat Books, 3rd edn., 2002), , p. 466. A second wave of glam rock acts, including Suzi Quatro, Roy Wood's Wizzard and Sparks, had hits on the British single charts in 1973 and 1974. Quatro and T.Rex directly inspired the pioneering Los Angeles based all-girl group the Runaways.P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), , pp. 222-3. Existing acts, some not usually considered central to the genre, also adopted glam styles, including Rod Stewart, Elton John, Queen and, for a time, the Rolling Stones. After seeing Marc Bolan wearing Zandra Rhodes–designed outfits, Freddie Mercury enlisted Rhodes to design costumes for the next Queen tour in 1974. Punk rock, in part a reaction to the artifice of glam rock, but using some elements of the genre, including makeup and involving cover versions of glam rock records,S. Frith and A. Goodwin, On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word (Pantheon Books, 1990), , p. 88. helped end the fashion for glam from about 1976.
Influence and legacy
While glam rock was exclusively a British cultural phenomenon, with Steven Wells in The Guardian writing "Americans only got glam second hand via the posh Bowie version", covers of British glam rock classics are now piped-muzak staples at US sporting events. Glam rock was a background influence for Richard O'Brien, writer of the 1973 London musical The Rocky Horror Show. Although glam rock went into a steep decline in popularity in the UK in the second half of the 1970s, it had a direct influence on acts that rose to prominence later, including Kiss and American glam metal acts like Quiet Riot, W.A.S.P., Twisted Sister, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe and Ratt.R. Moore, Sells Like Teen Spirit: Music, Youth Culture, and Social Crisis (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009), , p. 105.
New Romantic acts in the UK such as Adam and the Ants and A Flock of Seagulls extended glam, and its androgyny and sexual politics were picked up by acts including Culture Club, Bronski Beat and Frankie Goes to Hollywood.P. Auslander, "Watch that man David Bowie: Hammersmith Odeon, London, July 3, 1973" in I. Inglis, ed., Performance and Popular Music: History, Place and Time (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006), , p. 79. Gothic rock was largely informed by the makeup, clothes, theatricality and sound of glam, and punk rock adopted some of the performance and persona-creating tendencies of glam, as well as the genre's emphasis on pop-art qualities and simple but powerful instrumentation.
Glam rock has been influential around the world. In Japan in the 1980s, visual kei was strongly influenced by glam rock aesthetics.I. Condry, Hip-hop Japan: Rap and the Paths of Cultural Globalization (Duke University Press, 2006), , p. 28. Glam rock has since enjoyed continued influence and sporadic modest revivals in R&B crossover act Prince,P. Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), , p. 227. bands such as Marilyn Manson, Suede, U2, Placebo,P. Buckley, The Rough Guide to Rock (London: Rough Guides, 3rd edn., 2003), , p. 796. Chainsaw Kittens, Spacehog and the Darkness,R. Huq, Beyond Subculture: Pop, Youth and Identity in a Postcolonial World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006), , p. 161. and has inspired pop artists such as Lady Gaga.
Relationship to the LGBT community