by Simon Philo
In the late 1990s, American ex-pats Placebo would find a more receptive audience and considerable commercial success in the UK. “Nancy Boy” would reach number four in Britain in the spring of 1997, with two more Top 10 singles—“Pure Morning” and “You Don’t Care about Us”—to follow. Placebo would also record a cover of T. Rex’s “20th Century Boy” for the Tod Haynes movie Velvet Goldmine (1998), which told the story of bisexual glam rock star Brian Slade—a fictional character heavily influenced in the creation by David Bowie, Marc Bolan, and Jobriath.
January 2018. “There is Old Wave. There is New Wave,” ran a famous record company ad in the late ’70s. “And there is David Bowie.” Yet, Bowie is “for life,” not just for a specific decade or era. As one of Anglo-American popular music’s most influential artists, he has demonstrated that glam can be a rich and nourishing resource—“a velvet goldmine”—rather than a time-limited, rigid musical style or practice. For this reason, it is possible to identify its presence in some unexpected, possibly even unlikely, late twentieth- and early twenty-first-century places. In grunge, for example, where there was a kinship belying its spiky conscious counter to “hair metal,” a real anxiety of influence could be found in, say, Nirvana’s raw cover of Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World” (1994). There was an easier spot, of course, with Brit-pop. Here, glam’s sensibility was even on occasion tied to something musically familiar—on Oasis’s Gary Glitter–referencing “Hello” (1995) or on Supergrass’s buoyant and cocksure “Alright” (1995). And what are changelings Marilyn Manson—the self-styled “Pale Emperor”—and Lady Gaga, if not glam-franked superstars for the twenty-first century, continuing to practice transformation and reinvention in direct response to the challenge Bowie set? In the words of the Starman himself, “Who can I be now?”
Further Reading
Appleford, Steve. The Rolling Stones: It’s Only Rock and Roll; Song by Song. New York: Schirmer Books, 1997.
Auslander, Philip. Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009. Excellent, academic study that comes at glam from an illuminating angle.
Barker, Hugh, and Yuval Taylor. Faking It: The Quest for Authenticity in Popular Music. London: Faber and Faber, 2007.
Bayles, Martha. Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Beckett, Andy. Promised You a Miracle: UK 80–82. London: Allen Lane, 2015.
———. When the Lights Went Out: What Really Happened to Britain in the Seventies. London: Faber and Faber, 2010.
Berkowitz, Edward. Something Happened: A Political and Cultural Overview of the Seventies. New York: Columbia University Press.
Bernstein, George. The Myth of Decline: The Rise of Britain Since 1945. London: Pimlico, 2004.
Blake, Andrew. The Land without Music: Music, Culture and Society in Twentieth-Century Britain. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1997.
Boucher, Caroline. “Roxy: Glamourous Paupers.” Disc, September 16, 1972, web.
“BowieNet Live Chat Transcription—4/6/01 with David Bowie.” www.bowiewonderworld.com/chats/dbchat0601.htm. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
Bracewell, Michael . Re-make/Re-model: Art, Pop, Fashion and the Making of Roxy Music, 1953–1972. London: Faber and Faber, 2007.
Brooks, Rosetta. “1980: Blitz Culture.” In The Faber Book of Pop, edited by Hanif Kureishi and Jon Savage, 537–39. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Browne, David. Fire and Rain: The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the Lost Story of 1970. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2011.
Buckley, David. “On ‘Time.’” Mojo no. 255 (February 2015): 54.
———. “Station to Station—the 100 Greatest David Bowie Songs.” Mojo no. 255 (February 2015): 54.
———. The Thrill of It All: The Story of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. Kindle edition, 2013.
Cagle, Van. Reconstructing Pop/Subculture: Art, Rock and Andy Warhol. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Outlines a persuasive case for Bowie as cultural politician, but arguably overplays the influence of Warhol et al. Perhaps understandable, given the rather US-centric nature of the study.
Chambers, Iain. Urban Rhythms: Pop Music and Popular Culture. London: Macmillan, 1986.
Chapman, Rob. “They Came From Planet Bacofoil.” Mojo, December 1995, web.
———. “The Waiting Game.” Mojo no. 106 (September 2002): 44–50.
Cochrane, Rob. “I’m Ready for My Close-Up Now.” Mojo no. 60 (November 1998): 68–70.
Cohn, Nik. “On the Pop Song.” Daily Telegraph Review, January 23, 2016, 4–6.
Collins, Andrew. “Sweet’s Blockbuster.” Circles of Life (blog). February 7, 2017. https://circlesoflife143.wordpress.com/2017/02/07/the-sweet-blockbuster-1973/.
Contributor in Music (Anon). “The Unbelievably True Story of Jobriath, Music’s First Openly Gay Rock Star.” https://www.highsnobiety.com/2017/04/25/jobriath-gay-rock-icon/. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
Doggett, Peter. Electric Shock: From the Gramophone to the iPhone—125 Years of Pop Music. London: Bodley Head, 2015.
———. The Man Who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s. London: Bodley Head, 2011. Song-by-song analysis that does for Bowie what Ian MacDonald did in A Revolution in the Head for the Beatles.
Doyle, Tom. “On Roxy Music.” Mojo no. 252 (November 2014): 44–49.
Du Noyer, Paul. “Bowie on Bowie.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 72–78.
Dyer, Richard. “In Defence of Disco.” In On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, edited by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, 410–18. London: Routledge, 1990.
Easlea, Daryl. Everybody Dance: Chic and the Politics of Disco. London: Helter Skelter, 2004.
———. Talent Is an Asset: The Story of Sparks. London: Omnibus, 2009.
Echols, Alice. Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. New York: Norton, 2010.
Egan, Sean, ed. The Mammoth Book of the Rolling Stones. London: Robinson, 2013.
Elms, Robert. “The Cult with No Name.” In Night Fever: Club Writing in the Face 1980–1997, edited by Richard Benson, 15–17. London: Boxtree, 1997.
Ennis, Philip. The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rock ’n’ Roll in American Music. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992.
Fricke, David. Mojo no. 236 (July 2013): 68.
Frith, Simon. “1973: A Year in Singles.” In Penguin Book of Rock and Roll Writing, edited by Clinton Heylin, 486–95. London: Penguin, 1993.
Gahan, Dave. “What an Amazing Legacy.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 88.
Gilbert, Pat. “On ‘The Jean Genie.’” Mojo no. 255 (February 2015): 60.
Gillett, Charlie. The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. Rev. ed. London: Souvenir, 1983.
Harris, John. Guardian, January 12, 2016, 33.
———. “Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?” Mojo no. 156 (November 2006): 48–56.
Haslam, Dave. Not ABBA: The Real Story of the 1970s. London: Fourth Estate, 2005.
Hawkins, Stan. The British Pop Dandy: Masculinity, Popular Music and Culture: Male Identity, Music and Culture. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2009.
Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Routledge, 1993.
Hepworth, Dave. 1971: Never a Dull Moment. London: Bantam, 2016. By the author’s admission, it’s all about “rock” and mostly about albums. Perhaps why, though setting out to challenge “the cliché that the early 70s were a mere lull” before punk hit hard, glam’s significance is rather downplayed. Almost dismissive of Marc Bolan, 1971’s biggest “thing.”
Heylin, Clinton. All the Madmen: Barrett, Bowie, Drake, Pink Floyd, the Kinks, the Who and a Journey to the Dark Side of British Rock. London: Constable, 2012.
———. The Act You’ve Known All These Years: The Life, and Afterlife, of Sgt. Pepper. Edinburgh: Canongate, 2007.
———. From the Vel
vets to the Voidoids: A Pre-punk History for a Post-punk World. London: Penguin, 1993.
History of Rock 1972. London: Time, 2016.
History of Rock 1973. London: Time, 2016.
History of Rock 1974. London: Time, 2016.
History of Rock 1975. London: Time, 2016.
History of Rock 1981. London: Time, 2017.
Holdship, Bill. Mojo no. 236 (July 2013): 68.
Hoskyns, Barney. Glam! Bowie, Bolan and the Glitter Rock Revolution. London: Faber and Faber, 1998. As its title suggests, this brief and largely Bowie-Bolan-Roxy-focused study persuasively documents glam’s rock revolt.
Hotten, Jon. “One Vision: The Unseen Queen, As Photographed by Mick Rock.” https://www.loudersound.com/features/one-vision-the-unseen-queen-as-photographed-by-mick-rock. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
Inglis, Ian. “Synergies and Reciprocities: The Dynamics of Musical and Professional Interaction between the Beatles and Bob Dylan.” Popular Music and Society 20, no. 4 (1996): 53–79.
Jackson, Andrew Grant. 1965: The Most Revolutionary Year in Music. New York: Thomas Dunne, 2015.
Jones, Dylan. iPod, Therefore I Am: A Personal Journey through Music. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005.
Kaufman, Will. American Culture in the 1970s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009.
Kureishi, Hanif. “The Bromley Contingent.” Guardian Review, August 12, 2017, 2–4.
Kureishi, Hanif and Jon Savage, eds. The Faber Book of Pop. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Loui. Post under “Teenage Rampage: Mary Whitehouse, the BBC and Sweet.” The Sweet Glam Forum. August 26, 2016. http://www.tapatalk.com/groups/thesweetglamforum/mary-whitehouse-teenage-rampage-the-bbc-and-sweet-t9846.html. Retrieved August 16, 2017.
Maconie, Stuart. The People’s Songs: The Story of Modern Britain in 50 Records. London: Ebury, 2013.
Marcus, Greil. “Roxy Music: Manifesto.” https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/manifesto-20021018. Retrieved June 21, 2018.
———. Stranded: Rock and Roll for a Desert Island. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2007.
Marr, Johnny. “What an Amazing Legacy.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 87.
Marsh, Dave. The Heart of Rock and Soul: The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made. London: Penguin, 1989.
McCormick, Thomas. America’s Half-Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.
McKay, Alastair. “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust.” In Uncut Ultimate Music Guide: David Bowie, 28–29. London: Time, 2015.
Melly, Jim. “Last Orders, Please”: Rod Stewart, the Faces and the Britain We Forgot. London: Ebury, 2003.
Middlehurst, Mick. “Bringing on the Clones.” In Night Fever: Club Writing in the Face 1980–1997, edited by Richard Benson, 18–21. London: Boxtree, 1997.
Miller, James. Almost Grown: The Rise of Rock. London: William Heinemann, 1999.
Millward, Steve. Fast Forward: Music and Politics in 1974. Kibworth Beauchamp, UK: Matador, 2016.
Moore, Suzanne. “We Wanted to Know What He Knew.” Guardian, January 12, 2016, 33.
Morley, Paul. “1982: A Salmon Screams.” In The Faber Book of Pop, edited by Hanif Kureishi and Jon Savage, 551–59. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Mueller, Andrew. “Pin Ups.” Uncut: The Ultimate Music Guide: David Bowie. June 2015, 38–39.
Mulholland, Gary. This Is Uncool: The 500 Greatest Singles Since Punk and Disco. London: Cassell Illustrated, 2002.
Palmer, Tony. All You Need Is Love: The Story of Popular Music. London: Futura, 1977.
Paytress, Mark. Bolan: The Rise and Fall of a Twentieth Century Superstar. London: Omnibus, 2002. Definitive biography.
———. “Yeah, I Want That Sound.” Mojo no. 138 (May 2005): 72–88.
Peacock, Steve. “The Case of the Vanishing Image.” Sounds, July 1972, web.
Penman, Ian. “Wham Bang, Tea-Time.” London Review of Books, January 5, 2017, 21–26.
Philo, Simon. British Invasion: The Crosscurrents of Musical Influence. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.
———. “Not Sucking in the Seventies: The Rolling Stones and the Myth of Decline.” Rock Music Studies 2, no. 3 (2015): 295–314.
Reynolds, Simon. “Is Politics the New Glam Rock?” Guardian Review, October 15, 2016, 14.
———. Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to Its Own Past. London: Faber and Faber, 2011.
———. Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978–1984. London: Faber and Faber, 2005.
———. Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy from the Seventies to the Twenty-First Century. London: Faber and Faber, 2016.
Reynolds, Simon, and Joy Press. The Sex Revolts: Gender, Rebellion and Rock ’n’ Roll. London: Serpent’s Tail, 1995.
Rigby, Jonathan. Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning. London: Reynolds & Hearn, 2008.
Rimmer, Dave. “1981: The Birth of the New Pop.” In The Faber Book of Pop, edited by Hanif Kureishi and Jon Savage, 539–42. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Rogan, Johnny. Roxy Music: Style with Substance—Roxy’s First Ten Years. London: Star, 1982.
Sandbrook, Dominic. Seasons in the Sun: The Battle for Britain, 1974–1979. London: Penguin, 2013.
———. State of Emergency: The Way We Were; Britain 1970–1974. London: Penguin, 2011. Perhaps surprisingly, doesn’t really “get” glam. What he does “get,” however, is the context out of which it grew and to which it responded. As ever, a story told with clarity and élan.
Savage, Jon. England’s Dreaming: Sex Pistols and Punk Rock. London: Faber and Faber, 1991.
———. “Kiss and Tell.” Mojo no. 60 (November 1998): 82–84.
———. 1966: The Year the Decade Exploded. London: Faber and Faber, 2015.
———. “A Work of Art.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 84–85.
Schulman, Bruce. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society and Politics. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2002.
Shaar Murray, Charles. Shots from the Hip. London: Penguin, 1991.
———. “The View from Seat T39.” In The Faber Book of Pop, edited by Hanif Kureishi and Jon Savage, 406–10. London: Faber and Faber, 1995.
Shapiro, Peter. Turn the Beat Around: The Secret History of Disco. London: Faber and Faber, 2005.
Shuker, Roy. Key Concepts in Popular Music. London: Routledge, 1998.
Sioux, Siouxsie. “What an Amazing Legacy.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 84.
Sounes, Howard. Seventies: The Sights, Sounds and Ideas of a Brilliant Decade. London: Simon & Schuster, 2006. Offers buzzy, wide-ranging snapshots in myth-busting defense of “brilliant” 1970s.
Stanford, Peter. “Queen: Their Finest Moment at Live Aid.” Daily Telegraph, September 24, 2011. telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved December 17, 2017.
Stanley, Bob. Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop. London: Faber and Faber, 2013.
Strong, M. C. The Wee Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate, 1996.
Stump, Paul. Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music. London: Quartet, 1998.
Thompson, Dave. Children of the Revolution: The Glam Rock Story 1970–75. London: Cherry Red, 2010. Sparky, blow-by-blow account of the peak glam years.
Trynka, Paul. “Man and Spiderman.” Mojo no. 255 (February 2015): 62–67.
Turner, Alwyn. Crisis? What Crisis? Britain in the 1970s. London: Aurum, 2008.
———. Glam Rock: Dandies in the Underworld. London: V&A, 2013.
Visconti, Tony. “Hype Man Cometh.” Mojo no. 255 (February 2015): 65.
———. “We All Thought He Had More Time.” Mojo no. 268 (March 2016): 86–87.
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Waldrep, Shelton. “Introducing the Seventies.” In The Seventies: The Age of Glitter in Popular Culture, edited by Shelton Waldrep, 1–15. New York: Routledge, 2000. Revisionist challenge to the crowded anti-’70s lobby.
Walters, Barry. “David Bowie, Diamond Dogs.” Pitchfor
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Whatley, Francis, dir. David Bowie: The Last Five Years. BBC2, January 7, 2017.
Wheen, Francis. Strange Days Indeed: The Golden Age of Paranoia. London: Fourth Estate, 2010.
Wyn Jones, Carys. The Rock Canon: Canonical Values in the Reception of Rock Albums. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2008.
Further Listening
Arranged chronologically to capture the “glam years.” UK record labels unless otherwise stated.
1966–1970, “Children of the Revolution”
“Have You Seen Your Mother Baby, Standing in the Shadow?” the Rolling Stones (September 1966), Single, Decca. And have you seen the promo video?
“We Love You,” the Rolling Stones (August 1967), Single, Decca. More cross-dressing in the Oscar Wilde–referencing promo.
“Debora,” Tyrannosaurus Rex (April 1968), Single, Regal Zono. Minor UK hit for Bolan.
“Jumping Jack Flash,” the Rolling Stones (May 1968), Single, Decca. “It’s a gas, gas, gas.”
“Yummy Yummy Yummy,” Ohio Express (May 1968), Single, Pye. Bubblegum.
“One Inch Rock,” Tyrannosaurus Rex (August 1968), Single, Regal Zono. Bolan reached the UK Top 30 with this single.
