sickness in society & glitter-crap gaiety

"Metal Guru's in the loo with my glue

Telegram Sam bought some land in Milan"

Just a note to say you won't find any references in these pages to Glam Rock, whatever that may be.

I definitely remember people dressing up on Top of the Pops in bacofoil and varying degrees of embarrassing outfits. However, it would take a fair stretch of the imagination to slot Abba or Mud or The Sweet into a unifying category musically, let alone Bowie, Bolan, Slade, Wizzard, Mott the Hoople and the Rolling Stones, who, by 1974, were clad in satin jackets of pastel hues. Jimmy Page, who clearly would be in most people’s ‘hard rock’ or just ‘rock’ genre, was seen on stage constantly in an array of glamorous outfits, not dissimilar to those worn by Bolan in 72. They were just outfits.
I also remember the music papers referring to Alice Cooper’s stage shows as ‘shock rock,’ because they were ‘shocking.’ It was deliberate. Leo Absey, the MP for Pontypool, wanted Cooper banned from the UK for inciting young people to imitate his outrageous and obnoxious behaviour. Alice these days is another who finds himself confined to the ‘glam rock’ pile. Where does this crap end? Bolan is often hailed as the first King of Glam today. He dressed like that all the time. He was the same on stage as off. It was complete nonsense.

Certainly Cooper and Bowie brought theatricality to contemporary 70s music, which Peter Gabriel continued with Genesis. But would you consider Genesis to be ‘glam rock?’ They were musically progressive, that is ‘Prog rock.’

If you scan wikipedia, you’ll discover even more contradictory bullshit when it comes to genre. Look at this list I found today. Just a small sample. It’s ridiculous.

T Rex: Tanx [Glam rock / soul music] Soul music!!

Ok, there’s a nod to gospel on the final track, but……soul?

Roxy Music: 1st album [Glam rock / art rock / prog rock]
That’s three diverse things. Musical? Roxy would take some defining!

Rod Stewart: Atlantic Crossing [Glam rock]
You have to be kidding.

The Rolling Stones: Goat’s Head Soup [Rock ‘n roll / Blues rock / funk rock]
Blues rock? What the funk? This was their glam period, remember.

T. Rex: The Slider [Glam rock / hard rock]
So T.Rex are now hard as well as glam. By late 73 they were very heavy, but how can you be two different genres simultaneously?

David Bowie (& The spiders, apparently): Ziggy Stardust [Glam rock / proto punk]
Proto punk, for fuck sake! Punk didn’t happen till 76. Only Bolan stuck that on a sign in the US and nobody got it. Seems everyone from the MC5 to Lou Reed has ‘become’ proto-punk in the rewriting of pop music history. Ziggy is fairly light-weight, by rock production standards (even Visconti has suggested it could have been heavier). Ronson and Bolder anyway were very ‘heavy’ on Width of a Circle on the tours, hardly generically similar to the above description.

Roxy Music: For Your Pleasure [Alt rock / art pop / glam rock] Just the three then?
I’m losing track of poor Roxy now. Wonder what they’ll be in the 80s? Oh! Wait!

Roxy Music: Avalon [Sophisti-pop / pop rock / synth pop / art pop] Jesus

What the hell is ‘sophisti-pop?’ Think I prefer ‘sophist pop.’ Philosophy, anyone?

The Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street [Hard rock / rock ‘n roll]

Bizarre, eh?

Led Zeppelin: Houses of the Holy [Rock]
Just ‘rock.’ Remarkable, a unifying term. Guess what, there’s reggae on this record!

Quite a list. Imagine. There are entire magazines and books dedicated to ‘Glam rock.’

"Do they have sickness in society?

Do they have glitter crap gaiety?"

sings Marc in Galaxy, 1974.

He's already consigned his own past to oblivion.