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Glam Rock
Stylistic origins:	rock and roll, garage rock, folk rock, art rock, hard rock
Cultural origins:	1970s England.
Typical instruments:	Guitar - Bass - Drums - Piano - Saxophones - Synthesizers - Strings
Mainstream popularity:	Largely popular in the United Kingdom during the 70s and varying levels of success in many developed nations.
Derivative forms:	Punk rock, Gothic rock, New Wave, Pub rock, J-Rock/Visual kei, Schaffel
Fusion genres
Glam metal, Glam punk
Other topics
Protopunk

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Glam rock (also known as glitter rock), is a style of rock music, which initially surfaced in the post-hippie early 1970s. Those who participated in the genre drew on several past youth cultures, musical styles, movie images and art movements to produce a distinct sound and aesthetic which essentially combined science fiction, nostalgia, camp, theatre, and a hard rock sound.

Largely an English phenomenon, glam rock peaked culturally during the period 1971-1974, and was made famous by artists such as Marc Bolan and his band T.Rex, David Bowie, Queen, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Slade, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Mott The Hoople, Alvin Stardust, Mud, and Cockney Rebel. In the United States, glam made far less of a commercial impression and was largely confined to enclaves of fans in the cities of New York, Detroit, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. American glam performers included Alice Cooper, Sparks, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, Kiss, Iggy Pop, Jobriath, and Wayne County.

Contents 1 Key stylistic themes 2 Glam rock in theatre and cinema 3 Subsequent influence 4 Glam rock acts 5 Further reading 6 See also 7 External links

The music was characterised by languid, narcotic ballads and raunchy, high-energy Rolling Stones–influenced rock n‘ roll stylings. Lyrically, the genre's emphasis was most often centred on standard hedonistic pop/rock themes, but other key subjects included classic literature, mythology, esoteric philosophy, science fiction and "teenage revolution" (such as in T.Rex's "Children of the Revolution", Sweet’s "Teenage Rampage", and David Bowie's "Rebel Rebel").

Glam fans (usually referred to in the music press as "glitter kids") and performers distinguished themselves from the denim-clad hippiedom with a deliberately "artificial" look. This was derived in part from a fusing of transvestism with futurism.

Evoking the glamour of 'Old Hollywood' whilst wallowing in the mire of 1970s drug and sleaze success, the stars of Andy Warhol's films and his stage play Pork were crucially influential on the nascent glam movement. The Warhol coterie were provocatively camp, flamboyant, intelligent and sexually ambiguous. In hindsight, Edie Sedgwick may be seen as a very early 'look good/live fast/die young' glam star, but other Warhol Superstars like Jackie Curtis, Viva, Cherry Vanilla and Holly Woodlawn were also influential on the glam rock visual style.

With then-recent homosexual reforms in the United Kingdom and the militant Stonewall Riots in the U.S., sexual ambiguity was briefly in vogue as an effective cultural "shock tactic". In actuality however, genuinely gay glam musicians were rare. David Bowie caused an outrage in early 1972 when he told the press he was "gay", but he actually meant "bisexual". The late Jobriath was among rock's first openly gay stars, while Queen's Freddie Mercury stayed mostly "in the closet" until he, too, died of AIDS.

Science fiction was a key strand of glam rock. Themes of spaceflight and alien encounters were prevalent at the more cerebral end of the Glam rock spectrum, and even the pop stars often dressed in futuristic drag. The Apollo moon landings (1969-1972) took place simultaneously with glam's appearance and rise to popularity, and the Apollo Missions were popularly held to herald the dawn of the "Space Age". Glam style strongly referenced this anticipated age with silver astronaut-like outfits, multicoloured hair and allusions to a new multi-gender social morality.

However, by the early 1970s, the social upheavals of the 1960s had produced a fertile post-hippie era in which not only "futuristic" glam rock could exist, but the undercurrent of nostalgia which had run throughout the 1960s (after all, 1950s celebrants Sha-Na-Na had played at Woodstock amongst all the blues-rockers) could surface and even become a mainstream concern. 1973 had the New York Dolls' debut album, the launch of Skylab, and the American Grafitti alike.

Some glam performers and fans dressed in nostalgic and "space age" costumes (or combinations of the two) ranging from unique interpretations of Victorian, cabaret, and futuristic styles. The best-known exemplar of glam style was David Bowie, a musician and songwriter already given to often-radical revamps of image and sound. In early 1972, Bowie changed again, from long-haired singer-songwriter to short-haired "A Clockwork Orange"-influenced proto-punk. Over the next few years, his image grew more extreme, and so did those of the Glitterkids.

Some examples of movies that reflect Glam Rock include:

• A Clockwork Orange;
• Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise;
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show;
• T.Rex's documentary Born To Boogie;
• Sweet's documentary "All That Gltters"
• David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars: The Motion Picture (1973);
• Alice Cooper's Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper, Alice Cooper: The Nightmare and Welcome to My Nightmare (film);
• Gary Glitter's Remember Me This Way;
• Slade's Flame;
• Robert Fuest's Final Programme (1973);
• Oz (1976);
• Black Moon (1975);
• Side By Side (1975);

• Never too Young to Rock (1975);
• KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (1978);
• Todd Haynes's Velvet Goldmine (1998);
• John Cameron Mitchell's film version of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001)
• Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto (2005)

Although not a hugely successful genre in term of record sales (nothing like Disco, which became immensely popular over glam rock's declining years), glam's air of wilful decadence, society-baiting clothes, near-cultish behaviour and pop-rock sound were a major influence upon the punk rock movement of the late 1970s. Bowie and Bolan held a huge sway but it was the New York Dolls in particular who most influenced early Punk bands such as the Heartbreakers (which included two ex-Dolls), Ramones, Sex Pistols, Voidoids, Dead Boys, The Damned (with whom Marc Bolan toured during 1977) and Siouxsie And The Banshees.

The German The 80'sNew wave/Post-punk-artist often had a glammy image: German Nina Hagen and Klaus Nomi, Bosnian Lene Lovich and others.

The Gothic rock movement, particularly the bands who played at the Batcave in London (such as Specimen) took obvious cues from glam, in particular Roxy Music and David Bowie. Another movement from around the same time was dubbed the "New Romantics" and included the likes of Adam and the Ants, Culture Club, Depeche Mode, Duran Duran, Dead Or Alive, Visage, Norman Iceberg and Soft Cell. Bands in other countries locked onto the glam look and sound, such as Hanoi Rocks of Finland.

In the 1980s, the Los Angeles music scene spawned glam metal bands, including Mötley Crüe, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Poison, Cinderella and many, many others, who were vaguely influenced by Glam in appearance and pop sensibility, but were more akin to metal in attitude and sound. Their look and sound dominated MTV for several years.

In the 1990s, Britpop strongly referenced glam rock, with bands like Oasis taking Slade and Mott The Hoople among their primary influences. Placebo, Suede, Manic Street Preachers and Spacehog are other notable United Kingdom bands from this time with heavy glam rock leanings. Morrissey's album Your Arsenal is also a paradigm example of this trend.

Marilyn Manson's album Mechanical Animals was heavily influenced by 1970s glam rock, and Manson created the androgynous space alien "Omega".

In 2000, Japan's Visual kei scene was heavily influenced by Glam Rock. Jzeil was band that used glam rock as centre for the bands image. The lead singer went solo under the name Daigo Stardust. He used David Bowie as his main influence.

Although glam rock's outrage value has long passed and in the purest sense is rarely played any more, French band Undercover Slut, Canadian band Robin Black and the I.R.S. and Swedish band The Ark are examples of a modern day incarnation.

• List of glam rock artists

• Philip Auslander, Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2006 ISBN-10 0472068687

• Androgyny
• Gender role
• Glam punk
• Glam metal

• A History of UK Glam Rock

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