I made this list some time ago



Enjoy

Kniferide wrote: Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:28 pm I don't know if they are best, but I love Sweet and am sad they have no votes.

Sweeet!

I love Sweet too. Especially Blockbuster and Action.
But in my narrow interpretation, I think T Rex was the best of all the glam bands.
Bowie was Bowie – his own category. He was the ultimate musical chameleon.

I do not actually know any of these bands, except that I hate "Come on Feel the Noise", so I'll listen to some. Hard to believe anything will beat Bowie.

Sounds like Bryan Ferry is doing a weak Bob Dylan imitation that insipired every annoying frontman of those visual-kei bands I had a phase with once. Not a good start.

... on the early singles at least. On "Do the Strand" he is shaping up. Now it sounds kinda fun but also like something Sparks did way better.

"Street Life" is hideously annoying. I remember "More Than This" from GTA:VC and I didn't like it.

To be continued.

If you haven't, check out Timeless by Zolar X.

The key to understanding The Sweet is their B-sides. Chinn and Chapman allowed the boys to place their original compositions on the flips of their hits, and sometimes the Bs outshone the As. Dig up any Singles A & B compilation and crank it loud. Derivative as hell but lots o'fun.

Bowie is the obvious winner here but Glam was only a stage for him.

Sitting through an album's worth of T. Rex is a chore? Not if it's The Slider.

The four records Mott released before Dudes are somewhat hit or miss but the stuff that's good is great (Rock & Roll Queen, At The Station, Thunderbuck Ram, Walking With A Mountain, Whisky Women and most of Brain Capers). The 1998 3-CD All The Young Dudes - The Anthology shows how much good shit never made it onto their albums.

But I'm going with Roxy, even though they kind of transcended the genre, because those first five albums are so unique and so fucking good.

Slade Alive is phenomenal

Done some listening now.

My impression is uneven. I find a lot of 70s rock off-putting, as well as the typical constricted 70s recording sound, which influences this. Sometimes it gets to be too much here. Sometimes the hair metal pipeline is too obvious. Somtimes I think "ok this just sounds like ABBA/Kiss/Status Quo/Twisted Sister how is this its own thing" or it's some dull, farty boogie-rock or they channel some 50s bop-shua too much.

Out of these listenings, I enjoy Sweet the most. Desolation Boulevard and Sweet Fanny Adams are solid. "Peppermint Twist" is meh, and the "My Generation" cover is pretty pointless, but when they bring out the groove and the drumming it's really good. "The Six Teens" is superb.

Roxy Music have a character of their own, I'm just not that into it. I listened to Country Life - an album of songs like "The Thrill of it All" and "Out of the Blue" I might dig, but then this cabaret vibe is like nope. Ferry's voice is annoying. Also some hints at what future new romantic would draw from here, which again is not my thing. Feels like there is potential for this to grow on me though, or that they could have other interesting music.

T.Rex - garbage. Has the most of those 70s-isms I described, and there are clear echoes of this band in latter-day obnoxious revivals like Scissor Sisters and whatnot.

New York Dolls is mostly boring.

Slade - heard the singles on the Slade in Flame album and they had nice arrangements.

That Zolar X album sounds pretty good. I would've pegged it as a post-punk record if I heard it at random.

Looks like Bowie would still be my choice, but it's been ages since I listened to those albums, and I always considered them lesser ones (I much prefer TMWSTW and Low), so I should do it again.

Anyways, fun exploration.

kokorodoko wrote: Sat Oct 01, 2022 3:24 pm T.Rex - garbage
New York Dolls is mostly boring.

I'm taking these options as "who was the best at glam?" Bowie is my favorite career-wise, but his best material came in a different phase, though I like his glam period a lot. Slade is the best pure rock and roll band of the bunch, most likely to blow everybody off the stage; I would very much like to see the alternate reality where Noddy Holder fronts Zeppelin. I like New York Dolls, BUT! "Personality Crisis" is a very sturdy head and shoulders above their next-best song and I like both L.A.M.F. and the first David Johansen album better than any single Dolls LP.

My answer is T. Rex. They did pure glam better than and stuck with it more than anybody else. The stomp, the swagger, the sax, the backup singers, it's all there. Good shit.

If Mott The Hoople didn't want to be pegged as a glam band, they shouldn't have recorded "All The Young Dudes" or opened a record with this all-trappings-included banger:




I'm a little disappointed in this thread's lack of lesser-known glam jams, so here's The Shyhooks' completely bombastic "Women In Uniform":

New York Dolls on the strength of the debut; I love that album more than anything the others listed did in the glam-era.