Blockbuster: A Glitter Glam Rock Experience

by

Various Artists

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The glitter/glam slam of 1972-75 was perhaps the finest, if not funniest, 15 minutes for prefab teenypop designed specifically to irritate parents and separate children from their allowances. Unlike "Velvet Goldmine," which went overboard on Roxy Music and rock-critic cred, this raucous tribute includes three selections from David Bowie's seminal "Ziggy Stardust," but the spotlight really shines on the interchangeable hit machines that defined the era: the Sweet (before they dropped the "the" and invented Def Leppard, Poison and 1980s glam-metal in general with "Sweet Fanny Adams"), Suzi Quatro, Slade, Mud, Gary Glitter and his Glitter Band, many of whom were masterfully manipulated behind the scenes by songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman (who went on to produce Blondie and the Knack) and producer Mickie Most. The lack of any bonafide stars beyond the Donnas doesn't detract from the giddy sense of the absurd that permeates the proceedings; you can practically hear the bands stomping the floor with their vintage platform shoes as they chew up riff-o-rama tribal nursery rhymes such as "Wig Wam Bam," "Can the Can" and "Gudbuy T'Jane." Toss in a generous helping of T. Rex and Velocette's touching take on Mott the Hoople's elegiac "Roll Away The Stone," and you've got one of the best cover albums in the history of this justifiably-maligned genre. Props to El Lay deejay legend Rodney Bingenheimer, the Dick Clark of glitter, punk, new wave, alternative and everything cool, for godfathering the process and getting it so right.