Glam rock

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 flamboyant clothing, makeup, and hairstyles 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.

Glam rock can be seen as a fashion as well as 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. Glam rock is most noted for its sexual and gender ambiguity and representations of androgyny, beside extensive use of theatrics.

It was prefigured by the flamboyant English composer Noël Coward, especially his 1931 song "Mad Dogs and Englishmen", with music writer Daryl Easlea stating, "Noël Coward's influence on people like Bowie, Roxy Music and Cockney Rebel was absolutely immense. It suggested style, artifice and surface were equally as important as depth and substance. Time magazine noted Coward's 'sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and chic, pose and poise'. It reads like a glam manifesto." Showmanship and gender identity manipulation acts included the Cockettes and Alice Cooper, the latter of which combined glam with shock rock.

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. 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". 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". 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. 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. 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.