You would never know it to look at me, but I love glam rock so much it hurts. Aesthetically, I'm pretty devoid of pigments, opting to wear black 9 times out of 10. But inside, there is a Technicolor 70's NYC hipster with skinny pants and glittery eyeliner, pretending to be an alien from the future. Scratch that...I'd be a British version of that. But the creator did not grace me with the form, temporal placement, or geography to pull it off. And I'm straight. But hey, we all have our cross, right? All of that is to say that it is a subject dear to my glittery heart. So along the next couple of paragraphs, I will touch on some of the things that make it such an incredible era of music which spawned a cultural revolution, particularly for the Lesbian/Gay/Bi/Transexual community.
You cannot begin this conversation without touching on what exactly the glam rock era is in relation to rock history as a whole. It all started with this cat named Mark Bolan in 1970-71...you might have heard of his band, T-Rex. He more or less established the look and tone of the era - a theatrical and campy world of androgynous aliens from the future , platform shoes and outlandish costume, which was quickly adopted by the popular subculture. After Bolan pushed open the door, artists such as David Bowie, Lou Reed, Sweet, Slade, and The Stooges would adapt elements into their own styles in 71 and the years to follow. Bowie was most famous for his incarnation which took the imagery literally, spinning off into the Ziggy Stardust persona. Lou Reed, on the other hand, opted not for the space opera, but for a purer NYC drag scene with his landmark album Transformer. Iggy Pop would take his garage rock sound to new levels with his Bowie-produced epic Raw Power, which was the genesis of punk rock. Other notable acts would include the proto-punk band New York Dolls, the British prog-rock of Roxy Music, the Bowie produced Mott The Hopple, and Brian Eno, the famous producer of U2 and countless other acts.
Later Queen would take up the mantle and take it into the 80's to help produce the glam metal movement which spawned the androgynous hair band, the progeny being Poison, Warrant, Bon Jovi and countless others. Bands like The Damned and The Ramones carried on Iggy Pop and The Stooges legacy and spawned NYC punk, which in turn produced British punk giving us legendary bands such as The Clash and The Sex Pistols and eventually Billy Idol and new wave...granted most of the glitter had disappeared by that point. Pop acts such as Duran Duran, The Cure, Culture Club and others were direct decedents as well, perhaps in the cultural sense more than recognizable musical conventions.
Clearly, the shadow of glam rock was cast long and dense over music, but it was just as influential to the greater cultural zeitgeist. Pop culture would be altered forever as the 70's and 80's would be dominated by the vivid color palate and androgynous styles that saturated art and design through Andy Warhol and the Pop art movement, film and stage. Gay, Bi, and Transsexual movements would also benefit from the greater cultural recognition and acceptance the glam era provided. Stage productions such as Rocky Horror Picture Show and Hedwig and the Angry Inch became cult classics, giving the straightest of boys the chance to go drag one night out of the year. There is liberation in that, I suspect. In fact, I think many straight guys yearn for a chance to run around in dresses...thousands do every year at events like New Orleans' Red Dress Charity Run. Maybe they were just born in the wrong place in the wrong era. Kinda like me.
But while we're all sorting that out, I highly suggest you check out the film Velvet Goldmine by Todd Haynes. It essentially tells the story of David Bowie and the Ziggy Stardust persona; his relationships with Iggy Pop, Marc Bolan, and Lou Reed; and his eventual mainstream, heterosexual "sellout." While the names have been changed for the innocent, and the personalities have been scrambled into more archetypal representations, the film tells the story of glam better than any other piece I've consumed to date. The soundtrack is phenomenal, featuring covers of glam classics and original tracks by musicians from Radiohead, The Stooges, T-Rex, Placebo, Elastica, and Grant Lee Buffalo, as well as the legendary Lou Reed, Mark Bolan, and Roxy Music's Brian Ferry. It is currently available for instant streaming on Netflix.
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