GLAM ROCK = GLITTER ROCK

Glam rock (also known as glitter rock), is a style of rock and pop 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 1971-1973, and was made famous by artists such as Marc Bolan and his band T. Rex, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Brian Eno, Slade, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Mott The Hoople, Alvin Stardust, Sparks, 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, and Los Angeles. American glam performers included Alice Cooper, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, Kiss, Iggy Pop, Jobriath, and Wayne County.

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 centered 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 Sedgewick 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, mulitcoloured 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 examplar 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.

info : wikipedia