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glam

Glam

United Kingdom · 1970s
DancingHappySentimentalEpicRomantic
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Description

Glam (often called glam rock or glitter rock) is a theatrical, hook-driven strain of rock that emerged in the early 1970s.

It pairs stomping, danceable backbeats and chunky guitar riffs with bright, sing-along choruses and a flamboyant visual aesthetic—platform boots, sequins, glitter, and androgynous fashion. While musically rooted in straightforward rock and roll and bubblegum pop, glam embraces artful persona-building and camp, drawing on music hall and vaudeville showmanship.

The result is music that is immediate and catchy yet knowingly stylized, celebrating fantasy, youth, fame, and self-invention.

History
Origins (late 1960s–early 1970s)

Glam coalesced in the United Kingdom at the turn of the 1970s. Early sparks included Marc Bolan’s shift from psychedelic folk to electrified, riffy singles as T. Rex and David Bowie’s theatrical reinventions. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll, British beat, and bubblegum pop, the sound emphasized heavy, mid-tempo grooves, crisp guitar hooks, and mass-appeal choruses.

Peak and UK mainstream (1971–1974)

The style exploded on UK television and in teen magazines. Acts like T. Rex, Slade, Sweet, Roxy Music, Mott the Hoople, and Gary Glitter delivered chart-dominating singles with “stomp” beats, gang vocals, and glittering stagewear. Producers and writing teams (e.g., Chinnichap) crafted concise, radio-ready hits. The era normalized androgyny and camp in rock, making visual identity central to the music’s impact.

US and global currents

In the US, Alice Cooper, the New York Dolls, and later KISS fused glam’s theatricality with shock, proto-punk grit, or arena-size spectacle. Sparks bridged UK art-pop and American eccentricity. Glam aesthetics and sensibilities spread across Europe and beyond, seeding scenes that prized performance and persona.

Transition, decline, and legacy (mid-1970s onward)

By the mid-1970s, tastes shifted as disco, punk, and art-rock/new wave rose. Glam’s chart dominance waned, but its DNA—big hooks, bold personae, and stylish theatrics—profoundly shaped punk’s attitude, power pop’s songcraft, new wave’s polish, New Romantic fashion, and the 1980s rise of glam metal. Periodic revivals and homages (from Britpop-era nods to 2000s acts like The Darkness and Scissor Sisters) reaffirm its enduring appeal.

How to make a track in this genre
Rhythm and Groove
•   Use a solid 4/4 “stomp” feel (think boom–boom–clap or floor-tom accents) at a medium to upbeat tempo (roughly 100–140 BPM). •   Emphasize backbeat handclaps and crowd-style gang vocals to make choruses feel communal and arena-ready.
Harmony and Melody
•   Build riffs with power chords and pentatonic or Mixolydian-flavored lines. Classic glam progressions include I–bVII–IV or I–IV–V with strong cadences. •   Keep melodies bold, memorable, and syllabically simple for easy sing-alongs. Write chant-like hooks and call-and-response refrains.
Instrumentation and Sound
•   Core band: electric guitars (one rhythm, one lead), electric bass, drum kit with big toms and handclaps, and occasional piano or sax for color. •   Guitar tones: crunchy but not overly saturated; prioritize clarity for riffs and glam-style double-stops. •   Production: punchy drums, stacked harmonies, tambourine on choruses, and a slightly dry, upfront vocal to spotlight the persona.
Song Structure and Arrangement
•   Favor concise, radio-friendly forms (intro–verse–pre–chorus–chorus–bridge–chorus). Front-load a signature riff. •   Arrange dynamic lifts into choruses with extra percussion, backing vocals, and octave-doubled guitar lines.
Lyrics and Persona
•   Themes: fame, fashion, nightlife, teenage desire, self-invention, and playful decadence. •   Write with wit and flamboyance; lean into camp and androgynous imagery. Performance matters—craft a visual identity that amplifies the song.
Main artists
Influenced by
Rock And Roll
Rock and roll is a high-energy, dance-oriented popular music style that emerged in the United States in the early-to-mid 1950s. It fuses the 12‑bar blues and boogie‑woogie with the backbeat and instrumentation of rhythm & blues, the twang and storytelling of country, and the fervor of gospel. Its hallmark sound centers on a strong backbeat (accented on beats 2 and 4), driving rhythm sections, electric guitar riffs, prominent piano or saxophone leads, and catchy, chorus-forward songwriting. Typical harmonies revolve around I–IV–V progressions, often in 12-bar form, with swung or shuffle feels and punchy turnarounds. Culturally, rock and roll catalyzed a youth movement linked to dancing, teen identity, and social change. It bridged racial audiences by popularizing Black American musical traditions for mainstream listeners, and it laid the foundation for subsequent rock styles and much of modern pop.
Hard Rock
Hard rock is a loud, riff-driven style of rock music built around heavily amplified electric guitars, a powerful rhythm section, and assertive vocals. Songs typically center on memorable, blues-based guitar riffs, strong backbeats, and energetic, often shouted or belted choruses. The genre emphasizes power, groove, and visceral impact over intricate harmony or extended improvisation. Distortion, power chords, pentatonic melodies, and call‑and‑response between vocals and guitar are core traits, while lyrical themes often explore rebellion, lust, swagger, escape, and cathartic release.
Psychedelic Rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that seeks to evoke, simulate, or amplify altered states of consciousness. It emphasizes timbral color, textural layering, and extended forms over traditional verse–chorus efficiency. Hallmarks include droning or modal harmonies, jangling or heavily fuzzed guitars, swirling organs or synthesizers, and extensive use of studio effects such as tape delay, reverse tape, phasing, flanging, and Leslie-speaker rotation. Rhythms often loosen into hypnotic vamps and long improvisations, while lyrics tend toward surreal imagery, cosmic themes, and introspection. The sound draws from Indian classical drones and scales, blues and R&B roots, folk lyricism, free-jazz openness, and the burgeoning studio experimentalism of the mid‑1960s. It became a cultural emblem of the counterculture era.
Bubblegum Pop
Bubblegum pop is an upbeat, hook-saturated strain of pop music engineered for immediate catchiness and mass youth appeal. It favors short songs, simple melodies, bright major-key harmonies, handclaps, sing-along choruses, and playful onomatopoeia or nonsense syllables (la-la, na-na, sha-la-la). Typical productions use clean, jangly guitars, tambourines, tambourine-like percussion, and sweet backing vocals, often performed by session musicians working under producer-driven studio projects. Lyrically it is lighthearted and G-rated, centering on teen romance, dancing, and fun; musically it sits between early rock and roll, Brill Building pop, girl-group stylings, and a sprinkle of psychedelic color. The sound was designed for radio singles, TV tie-ins, and merchandising, making it one of the earliest consciously “manufactured” pop subgenres.
Garage Rock
Garage rock is a raw, energetic style of rock music that emerged in the mid-1960s from local scenes across North America. Typically performed by amateur or semi-professional teenage bands in basements and suburban garages, the sound is unpolished and immediate, favoring feel over finesse. Its hallmarks include distorted guitars, pounding drums, simple chord progressions (often I–IV–V), prominent Farfisa/Vox organ riffs, and shouted, attitude-heavy vocals. Songs are short, hooky, and driven by rhythmic urgency, with lyrics about teenage love, boredom, rebellion, and swagger. The style became a direct ancestor of proto-punk and punk rock, prized for its do-it-yourself spirit and visceral impact.
Blues Rock
Blues rock is a guitar-driven style that fuses the raw feeling and 12‑bar structures of the blues with the power, volume, and rhythmic punch of rock. It emphasizes riff-based songs, pentatonic and blues-scale soloing, call‑and‑response between voice and guitar, and an expressive, often gritty vocal delivery. Typical ensembles are power trios (guitar, bass, drums) or quartet formats adding second guitar, keyboards, or harmonica, and performances commonly feature extended improvisation. Sonically, it favors overdriven tube-amp tones, sustained bends, vibrato, and dynamic contrasts, moving from shuffles and boogies to straight‑eighth rock grooves.
Art Rock
Art rock is a branch of rock music that treats the studio and the album as spaces for artistic experimentation, emphasizing conceptual ideas, ambitious arrangements, and cross-pollination with modernist and avant-garde traditions. It typically favors extended song forms, thematic or conceptual unity, and non-standard instrumentation (strings, woodwinds, synthesizers) alongside rock’s core band setup. Lyrically, it leans toward literary, surreal, or philosophical subjects and often adopts theatrical presentation. Where mainstream rock centers on immediacy and hooks, art rock embraces risk: unusual time signatures, timbral exploration, complex harmony, tape and electronic manipulation, and interludes that draw from classical, jazz, minimalism, and experimental music.
Music Hall
Music hall is a 19th- and early-20th-century British form of popular entertainment centered on comic songs, patter, novelty acts, and audience participation. It grew out of pub concert rooms and purpose-built halls where singers and comedians performed short, catchy numbers with memorable choruses. Its songs typically feature everyday themes, double entendre, and local dialects, supported by piano or small ensemble accompaniment. The style blends sentimental ballads with jaunty patter songs and marches, designed for communal singing and lively theatrical showmanship.
Vaudeville
Vaudeville is a late‑19th to early‑20th‑century American variety stage tradition whose musical side blends comic songs, patter numbers, novelty tunes, sentimental ballads, ragtime interludes, and ensemble finales. It emphasized catchy melodies, memorable refrains, and clear diction so songs could land immediately with live audiences. Typical accompaniment was piano (often with a small pit ensemble of strings, reeds, and light percussion). Song forms favored verse–chorus and 32‑bar AABA structures, with simple diatonic harmony embellished by secondary dominants and ragtime‑style syncopation. Lyrics leaned into topical humor, character monologues, dialect turns (now recognized as historically problematic), and direct audience address. Unlike bawdier burlesque, vaudeville marketed itself as “family entertainment,” integrating music with comedy, dance, specialty acts, and novelty performance. Its stages and circuits incubated the American popular song, connected sheet‑music publishers with performers, and supplied early film and radio with talent and repertoire.
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