Glam Rock

by Simon Philo

  The singer-songwriter or troubadour turn, hymning an acoustic and introspective “comedown” and typified by the output of Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, and Crosby, Stills & Nash also led rock down a path marked by retreat, retrenchment, and withdrawal. Crosby, Stills & Nash’s material was characterized by its high seriousness, its self-importance even, and by its sometime weary commitment to “Carry On” (1970), the track “Almost Cut My Hair”—from the US number one album Déjà vu (1970)—reaffirming the band’s dogged commitment to the countercultural sixties. The quasi-hymnal transatlantic number one single “Bridge over Troubled Water” (1970), by Simon and Garfunkel, fellow travelers down this path, memorably bottled this post-1960s comedown, singing of “weary” lives being lived out in some kind of postapocalyptic world. All the acts noted here, then, represented the high-profile vanguard of the introspective, solipsistic, and confessional mode of the singer-songwriter that would enjoy huge commercial success in the early 1970s. It was also evidently a long way from rock ’n’ roll, something that might not have been said of the third path taken by rock music at the time—hard rock. Concurrent with those acoustic delicacies, some music simply got harder and heavier, its sound typified by British groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple. Yet, it too was undertaken in all seriousness and treated with equal reverence by its many millions of fans. Similarly, the emerging style of progressive rock was also very appealing to musicians, fans, and the business alike, who would all benefit from its emphasis on virtuosity and tendency toward pretension. Like heads-down hard rock, it could be said to have packaged withdrawal in a different form. In this case, via solipsism on a grand scale.

  As the seventies dawned, this was a rock landscape recognizably “made in the USA.” Now back in charge after the blip that was the British Invasion, American record companies appeared to be in full command of what constituted rock music, enthusiastically supported in this by the rock press. As Gillett notes, Columbia, Capitol, and Warner Brothers had “followed the natural instincts of major organisations to try to stabilise their market, to lengthen the careers and spread the appeal of their artists” (402). This meant that the major labels would treat “pop” as distinctly second class at best. Rock was where the big money was: in album sales and long, lucrative careers. So it seemed that “the industry [had] finally won its battle to stabilise the elusive ingredients of popular music, and more-or-less abandoned the young teenagers” (399). And this was a business model that had apparently gained considerable traction in the UK too. Just twelve months after it happened in the States, the UK would report that in 1969 sales of LPs had finally eclipsed those of singles. However, all was not what it seemed. In sharp and audible contrast with the American scene (and so with the market that measured it), it sometimes appeared as if the UK had an entirely different understanding of what constituted rock music. A quick comparison of the two nation’s singles charts in 1973, for example, indicates as much. In this year, glam dominated the British listings, while the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100 told a very different story. While three singles by ex-Beatles—George Harrison’s “Give Me Love,” Ringo Starr’s “Photograph,” and Paul McCartney’s “My Love”—and “Angie” by the Rolling Stones made number one in the States, none of these representative offerings of the rock mainstream could manage a similar feat in the UK. So, as Gillett (377) points out:

  Although there were many parallels between the development of music in Britain and in America in this period, there was one fundamental difference which had repercussions that lasted for at least the next fifteen years. In America, the leading underground bands all signed direct to major record companies, enabling those companies to reinforce their hold on the American record industry and effectively drive out virtually all the independent companies. The result was a drift into conformity, sterility and repetition that destroyed much of the momentum of the previous fifteen years.

  In Britain, however, a similar lockdown did not occur. Here, the four majors—Decca, EMI, Philips, and Pye—were not only challenged by overseas competitors like CBS and Polydor, they were also “undermined from below by independent managers and producers” (Gillett 377). The scope and scale of this challenge can be demonstrated by focusing once again on the situation in 1973 and, specifically, on glam in that year. While the UK majors did have glam acts on their books—notably, Bowie at RCA and T. Rex at EMI—“overseas competitors” CBS and Polydor had Mott the Hoople and the year’s biggest pop act, Slade, respectively. Second only to Slade in terms of singles chart success in ’73, Sweet was signed to RCA, but had done so before they “glammed up.” Otherwise, the year’s hottest musical style was the preserve of the independent labels or imprints—Gary Glitter and the Glitter Band at Bell, Suzi Quatro and Mud at RAK, Roxy Music and Sparks at Island, Wizzard at Harvest. Furthermore, the glam-pop acts would rely on independent writing and production teams to keep the hits coming—like Chinn and Chapman who worked with Sweet, Mud, and Suzi Quatro. All this demonstrates why and how major-label market dominance failed to materialize in the UK. Of course, this was partly a result of industry failures of foresight and faith; but it also happened because Britain’s popular music “scene” was genuinely resistant to the application of corporate intelligence. Simply put, it was nowhere near as predictable as the North American “scene.” Dave Haslam has identified 1970s Britain as “the subculture capital of the world”—“land of a thousand fashions and a thousand dances [where] ideas, especially those disseminated through music, moved quickly” (118). Although there was a sizable audience for mainstream rock, principally among college-age males, British teens—and young girls in particular—rejected this music (and the values it encoded) in favor of something they might call their own. Whereas in the US the industry—aided and abetted by the rock mainstream—had managed to reduce things down to a product that could be packaged for most, the UK stewed in a “febrile atmosphere of innovation” (Miller 298) supported by an infrastructure that could make it all happen. There were three all-powerful music weeklies—New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Sounds—with a combined readership of hundreds of thousands, together with a limited network of radio and TV outlets with a reach of millions. Size, then, did matter. This distinctive scale and scope—marked by a compact music market and the power of a centralized media—allowed for the rapid and widespread dissemination of all these trends and sounds, affording potentially blanket coverage, thus offering both a persuasive explanation for how and why glam should take off so spectacularly in Britain and how and why it should have so singularly failed to fly in the States. Visiting the UK in 1972, a bemused but presumably envious Iggy Pop declared, “This country is weird, man. It’s unreal” (qtd. in Turner, Glam Rock, 91). It was unusual, too, that the country’s music business should service this “weirdness” rather than seeking to actively extinguish or simply ignore it.

  Just as their American peers did, music writers at the British weeklies tended to champion mainstream rock. However, although they may well have disliked what they saw and heard emerging from “the land of a thousand fashions and dances,” they found it hard to ignore and duly reported on it. Furthermore, on UK radio—still broadcasting on the AM frequency—it was pop pretty much all the way. In contrast to the situation in the States, where the industry enthusiastically backed it and the numerous FM stations would play it, there were comparatively few outlets for rock. As for national TV, in prime time at least, it was also all about pop. Top of the Pops.

  Taking this into account, it should come as no surprise to learn that Elvis Presley’s “The Wonder of You” was the UK’s biggest-selling single of 1970. Hardly classic rock ’n’ roll, of course, but then obviously not classic rock either. Neither was it a novelty record. Although we should not have been surprised if the year’s best-seller had been a pop novelty, since the UK did binge on these with addictive regularity in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1970, Presley would be pushed hard by TV artist-entertainer R
olf Harris’s single “Two Little Boys,” whose six-week run as the nation’s best-seller had begun in December 1969 and had followed directly on from the Archies’ two-month tenure at the top of the UK chart with “Sugar Sugar.” There then followed number one singles for the England soccer team’s World Cup sing-along “Back Home,” and two indigenous bubblegum tracks in the shape of Christie’s “Yellow River” and Edison Lighthouse’s “Love Grows.” Each in its frothy optimism was a counterpoint to rock’s miserabilist dominant, subscribers to which would have presumably found even less comfort and even more despair in the following year’s singles chart. For 1971 would deliver UK number ones for TV sitcom actor Clive Dunn (“Grandad”), comedian Benny Hill (“Ernie”), and once again two bubblegum hits for Middle of the Road (“Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep”) and Tony Orlando (“Knock Three Times”). Flighty and “gimmicky” or lively and vibrant. The state of the UK’s pop scene might help explain the enthusiasm for rock ’n’ roll revivalism that was evident in the early 1970s. So, while Presley has 1970’s best-seller, a younger generation of Brit-rockers are embracing the kind of music he introduced to their older siblings a decade and half or so earlier. In December 1970, for example, Dave Edmunds enjoyed a six-week run at number one with a cover of a 1952 Smiley Lewis track called “I Hear You Knockin’”—a song whose title seemed apt for the popular music putsch that was only a matter of weeks away now and which was presaged by the song that would tuck in just behind it at number two on the chart, T. Rex’s “Ride a White Swan.”

  Regardless of whether they were British or American, the album was everything to most rock musicians, rock fans, and record executives. Rock groups could sell millions of records; and, for as long as it was albums that were being sold, they would avoid the critics’ condemnation and scorn. Albums were the product of artistic endeavor, undertaken in all seriousness. Therefore, multiplatinum successes did not constitute “selling out.” This format was associated with credibility. By contrast, singles were mere vehicles for “pop,” only fit for parents and children. Yet, of the two formats, it is the 45 rpm single that will matter most to the story of glam. Responsive and light on its feet, the single has always been a bellwether for the UK’s subcultural verve, where it can be most keenly felt. It is also the case that a vinyl disc’s volume level is dependent on two factors: the length of its sides and the depth of its grooves. The more songs, the quieter the sound. Singles then are just noisier, palpably more exciting.

  While high summer’s high-profile Isle of Wight Festival, with its stellar lineup of ’60s-made rock superstars like Hendrix, the Who, the Doors, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, might have suggested otherwise, by 1970 Britain and America were—with apologies to Winston Churchill—two pop nations divided by a common language. Although the two album markets are more in sync—there are six transatlantic number ones in 1970 (Abbey Road, Let It Be, Led Zeppelin II, Led Zeppelin III, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Cosmo’s Factory, and Bridge over Troubled Water)—this disconnect is particularly evident in relation to the singles market. Here, there would be just two shared number one singles all year—“Bridge over Troubled Water” and the rereleased “Tears of a Clown.” This is a divide that will only widen through the years to come; one that, in the short term, glam will play a lead role in sustaining. For, in being neither what the music industry nor the rock mainstream wanted, glam was a counterculture—representative of a gulf that opens on intragenerational lines, one that typically separated older and younger siblings rather than parents and their kids. “My brother’s back at home with his Beatles and his Stones / I never got it off on that revolution stuff” (“All the Young Dudes”). This countermessage is expressed visually on the cover of Pin Ups, in which David Bowie and the model Twiggy stare out at you with a cold replicant gaze—the thousand-yard stare of the ’60s survivor perhaps. And what has become of the ’60s poster girl? Twiggy, the face and body of swinging London, is now recast, reframed, and re-presented in 1973 as neither unchanged nor a museum piece. Like the music within, she has been glammed up. She is not nostalgically offered to us. She—like Bowie—is pinned up, pinned back, and pinned down, like a plastic surgeon’s patient-victim with the job half-done. The contrast in skin tones here makes her face appear as though it has been sewn back onto her skull like a mask. It is all very unsettling, a visual staging of disconnection that offers further evidence of distancing from “that” ’60s.

  Glam is forged by drivers that are specific to the UK. As the new decade dawned, British music fans were faced with a straight, simple choice of either rock or pop. However, as Thompson notes, this meant that while “eight-year-olds were catered for by the bubble-gum boom [and] eighteen-year-olds by the longhairs playing the colleges” (22), many Brits of high school age felt poorly served. Through its direct address and appeal to a disenfranchised teen constituency, glam simultaneously drove a wedge and plugged a gap—a dual function found as a subtext in pretty much all its songs, but which is more overtly enacted in tracks like “Cum On Feel the Noize” (1973), “The Sixteens” (1974), “Teenage Dream” (1974), “Teenage Lament” (1974), “Teenage Rampage” (1974), and of course “All the Young Dudes” (1972). All these (self-)consciously reach out to speak both to and for those Marc Bolan referred to as “the children of the revolution.” These are the same “children” Bowie invited to “boogie” in “Starman,” of course, but in whom the rock mainstream had apparently no interest at all. When asked in 1972 whether the Stones appealed to the younger teenage T. Rex fan, Mick Jagger told Melody Maker, with a mixture of relief and disdain, that “we don’t have to go back to those people” (qtd. in History 1972, 75). Although he was aware of a significant difference between the band’s US and UK audiences—in America it is fifteen-year-olds who “dig” the Stones, whereas it is “students” who do the same in the band’s homeland—Jagger is adamant that he will not be attempting to woo those pesky glam kids anytime soon. “I’m not interested in going back to small English towns and turning on the 10-year-olds. I’ve done all that” (qtd. in History 1972, 75). (Two years later, he and his band will court the glam fan on vinyl [It’s Only Rock ’n’ Roll] and in live performance.) By contrast, David Bowie was genuinely reaching out to “those people.” He was more than happy to be associated with teenage fans, frequently expressing his respect for that demographic in interviews. Such declarations help us to understand why glam would take the single so seriously, and possibly why the dividing line between it and “teeny-bopper” pop could sometimes appear indistinct. As Slade’s plain-speaking lead singer, Noddy Holder, explained, “We don’t want no underground leftovers. We are after the kids” (qtd. in Reynolds, Shock, 163)—a statement that enables us to get a measure of glam’s unashamed and strenuous commitment to a young audience.

  Yet, for all its quarrels with rock, glam’s roots do not lie exclusively in those prelapsarian days before rock ’n’ roll morphed into the more grown-up variant. This is demonstrated on Pin Ups, on which Bowie’s version of Pink Floyd’s 1967 psych-rock single “See Emily Play” would perhaps initially seem to be out of place in a collection of songs otherwise drawn from the British beat boom of 1964 to 1966. Of course, it is significant that the Floyd original was a single, and a stand-alone thing of near-garagey pop beauty at that. “Interstellar Overdrive” it is not. Furthermore, as with the tracks on the rest of the album, to call the Bowie version a “cover” is to do it a disservice. For it might lead us to presume that we are to be presented with a faithful—for which read rather lifeless—copy. When in fact what we have is a reworking, a glam makeover, if you will. Far from being unrepresentative, then, Bowie’s version of “See Emily Play” could well be the most on message of all the tracks on Pin Ups. While the queasy vari-speed vocal—reminiscent of Bowie’s own “Bewlay Brothers” from his 1971 album Hunky Dory—recalls the original, some busy Moonesque drumming and guitarist Mick Ronson’s distinctive figures and riffs, together with Mike Garson’s angular piano lines, all contribute to the maki
ng of a full-on, rather gonzo baroque affair that is far from preserved in aspic. Presumably, intended as a criticism, Simon Reynolds describes the track as “hopelessly mannered, almost comic” (Shock, 368). I would, however, suggest that, while it is undeniably “mannered” and could quite easily be regarded as “comic,” this is surely the point. (Here, Reynolds’s judgment on “See Emily Play” should come as no great surprise, given that his epic glam history often comes across as an apologia—as if the genre is only worthy of consideration by dint of what it might have drawn from the past and, even more importantly, what it gave to the music that followed. In this respect, Ian Penman is correct when he calls Shock and Awe a “pre-punk book to go with [Reynolds’s] post-punk opus Rip It Up and Start Again” [25]. Indeed, strange as it might sound—and particularly so of a six-hundred-page monster—it often reads like a book in a hurry to get to what comes after glam.)

  Bowie’s version of “See Emily Play,” then, demonstrates the live links that existed between glam and the rock music of the late 1960s. His admission that Syd Barrett empowered him to sing in his own voice—or at least to adopt a range of recognizably British voices—rather than offer an approximation of an American one, for example, helps prove this point. Barrett, explained Bowie, was “the first guy I’d heard sing pop or rock with a British accent. His impact on my thinking was enormous” (qtd. in Heylin, Madmen, 199–200). Perhaps more contentiously, photographer Mick Rock has claimed that Bowie “worshipped” Floyd’s Syd Barrett, even going as far as to suggest Ziggy’s androgyny was inspired by the British psych-rock eccentric. Intended as stinging criticism, John Lennon’s appraisal of the 1960s as a time when everyone dressed up but nothing changed surely misses the point. “Dressing up” could be political, and the knowledge that it did not necessarily have to be an empty gesture was something glam rockers shared with the likes of Barrett. Marc Bolan’s exposure as the schoolboy Mark Feld to a biography of the Georgian dandy Beau Brummell would “encourag[e] him to take flight from the habits and conventions of his environment” (Paytress, Bolan, 16). In the late 1960s, dandyism also worked in a similar (no pun) fashion for members of the more playful, less conventionally political British underground, thus making it a meeting point for the counterculture and glam. The dandy, writes Hawkins,