📰 The 200 Greatest Glam Rock Records…Ranked!

FROM THE MAKERS OF UNCUT

By

John Robinson

It was ten years almost to the day since the passing of David Bowie. One of the many delights in Bowie’s career was his ceaseless originality and reinvention, and in this latest Ultimate Record Collection, we celebrate the genre in which – depending from which end of the telescope you view the Ziggy/Bowie/“Starman” narrative – he first truly took off from (or touched down on) Planet Earth. Namely: Glam.

In Glam’s vibrant creative space, there was room to radically remake oneself. Conceptually, like Bowie or his sometime support act Roxy Music. Gaudily, and made for colour television, like Slade. Theatrically, like Alice Cooper or chaotically like the New York Dolls. It was rife with chancers, dead-eyed professionals, some old lags on the make, and even, shamefully, actual criminals. Occasionally something feverish, a gold rush mentality seemed to be in the air.

More hopefully, though, glam could be a key to self-discovery. Roy Wood was a joint-passing hippy before he became the glitter-bearded star of Wizzard. Mott The Hoople were longtime triers about to quit, given another shot when they performed Bowie’s “All The Young Dudes” – essentially glam’s national anthem. Elton John began the 1970s as an earnest balladeer, and was possibly more a glam rocker from expediency than anything else. Still, it allowed him to access elements of his showmanship, sexuality and general high spirits than he had previously been able to display.

And then there was Marc Bolan. A one-time Stamford Hill mod turned – in quick succession – solo artist, psych guitarist and bongo-accompanied hippy minstrel, it’s no wonder Marc sometimes is sometimes painted as the crown prince of opportunism, reaper of Glam’s rewards. As we review his tremendous work with T Rex, whether that’s the enormous-selling singles, or the albums sensitively-arranged by his and Bowie’s mutual friend Tony Visconti, it’s maybe better to alight in a more generous position on how Marc used his opportunity. He was just wild, a rock ‘n’ roll child.

AVAILABLE HERE