Rock and roll has always been image-oriented. Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Elvis Presley set the standard that The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix worked from. Glam rock added an even glitzier element to rock’s presentation, but beneath the theatrics were transformative records that forever changed the genre. Let’s examine four glam rock classics that prove there was groundbreaking substance behind the platform boots, makeup, and sci-fi alter egos.
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“Suffragette City” by David Bowie
“Suffragette City” is a crash course in rock and roll’s early history. David Bowie’s classic combines several genres of music, past, present, and future. First, guitarist Mick Ronson bangs a piano riff à la Little Richard, with a frantic, proto-punk rhythm by The Spiders From Mars. Ronson also recorded with an ARP synthesizer, which hinted at Bowie’s Berlin trilogy. Among other things, Bowie references a “droogie” from A Clockwork Orange, Charles Mingus’s “Wham Bam Thank You Ma’am”, and The Velvet Underground’s “White Light/White Heat”.
“Perfect Day” by Lou Reed
Bowie and Ronson co-produced Lou Reed’s glam masterpiece Transformer, connecting the singer with two artists influenced by The Velvet Underground. “Perfect Day”, glam rock’s greatest love song, feels like a nice intrusion on Reed’s darkness. But he ends with a somber warning: “You’re going to reap just what you sow.” The consequences of one’s actions don’t necessarily have to be bad. Still, Reed’s addiction kept a dark cloud hanging over him, regardless of the idyllic conditions of a romantic afternoon in the park.
“Bang A Gong (Get It On)” by T. Rex
When Marc Bolan moved away from folk music, he couldn’t have imagined the kind of rock and roll revolution he’d started. Electric Warrior became a transformative album and reference point for any artist with swagger. You can hear it directly on Oasis’s “Cigarettes And Alcohol”, but also in the general presentation of Prince and The Jam’s Paul Weller. When rock music gets reinvented, it typically involves a modern interpretation of the blues. “Bang A Gong (Get It On)” became as iconic as Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” or Robert Johnson’s “Cross Road Blues”.
“I’m Eighteen” by Alice Cooper
Like the tracks above, Alice Cooper’s classic inspired punk. But it also created a shock-rock blueprint for heavy metal (see KISS). Cooper sings about the purgatory-like space between youth and adulthood. He feels lost, without plans, but there’s one thing he does know: It’s time to split. Joey Ramone felt it and used the chords from “I’m Eighteen” to write “I Don’t Care”. Meanwhile, Bruce Springsteen wrote about how “tramps like us” were born to run. Cooper must have been one of those tramps, too.
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