The Historical past of Glam Rock and How It Put an Finish to the Hippie Period

Solid your thoughts again to the dis­tant yr 2021 and recall, if you’ll, its music, its fash­ions, the obses­sions of its youth. This prob­a­bly gained’t be a dif­fi­cult job, since in most respects — the damp­en­ing results of the pan­dem­ic notwith­stand­ing — none of these elements of pop­u­lar cul­ture appear any dif­fer­ent in the present day. But tough­ly the identical time span sep­a­rat­ed Scott McKen­zie’s “San Fran­cis­co (Be Positive to Put on Movement­ers in Your Hair)” and David Bowie’s “Star­man.” 1967 was the yr of the Sum­mer of Love; by 1972, accord­ing to most reck­on­ings, the cul­tur­al period often known as the Six­ties was, if not fairly over, then a minimum of clear­ly in its ultimate days. The hip­pies had been on their manner down, and glam rock­ers had arisen to take their place with a vengeance.

In lower than half an hour, the brand new video from Band­splain­ing tells the entire sto­ry of glam rock, “the gen­der-bend­ing professional­to-punk transfer­ment that was hat­ed by the press and crim­i­nal­ly beneath­performed within the U.S.” It begins within the Seventies, a time when the mar­ket for long-play­ing data was sturdy, however sin­gles had fall­en behind as a youth-ori­ent­ed pop-cul­tur­al kind.

Into that vac­u­um stepped T. Rex, a one­time avant-garde folks duo rein­vent­ed as a straight-ahead rock band bent on reviv­ing that style because it row­di­ly was earlier than the Bea­t­les got here alongside. Once they hit it large, oth­er acts imi­tat­ed not simply their bluesy sound, however the androg­y­nous, brazen­ly fab­ri­ca­tion-for­ward picture of entrance­man Marc Bolan. Prac­ti­cal­ly in a single day, the secret modified from earnest self-expres­sion to out­landish self-cre­ation.

Oth­er bands reshaped by this glam rock transfer­ment, because it was quickly dubbed within the British media, includ­ed Slade, The Candy, and Mott the Hoople. “My broth­er’s again at residence along with his Bea­t­les and his Stones,” sang that final out­slot in their break­out hit. “We nev­er obtained it off on that rev­o­lu­tion stuff.” That tune, “All of the Younger Dudes,” had been writ­ten by the sin­gle most defin­ing glam-rock fig­ure: David Bowie, who him­self shot to promi­nence within the thor­ough­ly anti-Six­ties guise of Zig­gy Star­mud, the bisex­u­al, syn­thet­ics-clad rock­er from out­er house who swag­gered as if already well-known throughout the uni­verse. With­in just a few years, Bowie’s anten­na for the zeit­geist would have him retir­ing Zig­gy Star­mud and ditch­ing glam rock, a style whose flame burned as bril­liant­ly — and certainly gar­ish­ly — because it did briefly. However in pop music, its char­ac­ter­is­tic lack of sociopo­lit­i­cal beliefs, obses­sion with fame, and casu­al rela­tion­ship with actual­i­ty had been right here to remain.

Relat­ed con­tent:

Zig­gy Star­mud Turns 50: Cel­e­brate David Bowie’s Sig­na­ture Char­ac­ter with a New­ly Launched Ver­sion of “Star­man”

Watch David Bowie Per­kind “Star­man” on Prime of the Pops: Vot­ed the Nice­est Music Per­for­mance Ever on the BBC (1972)

David Bowie’s Closing Gig as Zig­gy Star­mud Doc­u­ment­ed in 1973 Con­cert Movie

Fred­die Mer­cury: The Untold Sto­ry of the Singer’s Jour­ney From Zanz­ibar to Star­dom

Meet the Char­ac­ters Immor­tal­ized in Lou Reed’s “Stroll on the Wild Facet”: The Stars and Homosexual Rights Icons from Andy Warhol’s Fac­to­ry Scene

The His­to­ry of Rock Informed in a Whirl­wind 15-Minute Video

Primarily based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. He’s the creator of the newslet­ter Books on Cities in addition to the books 한국 요약 금지 (No Sum­ma­riz­ing Korea) and Kore­an Newtro. Fol­low him on the social web­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.