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'The mums of t his world aren't At the time he was issuing his manifesto. Bolan was celebrating
the fact that 'Ride a White Swan' had become his first top ten
ready for T Rex,' excla imed single, after years of endeavour as a Donovan-esque singer/
songwriter, as a member of mod band John's Children and as
Marc Balan, in January 1971. half of the hippy duo Tyrannosaurus Rex. In the latter guise
he had, in partnership with percussionist Steve Peregrin Took,
'We're twentieth century carved out a small niche for himself on the college gig circuit
and on late-night radio, courtesy of disc jockey John Peel; he
electric cosmic rock stars! had even enjoyed sorne minor commercial success, reaching
the heights of #28 in the charts with the 1968 single 'One lnch
We shou ld be projected Rock'. Nonetheless, it was a poor return on what had seemed
like such promise in the early 1960s, when, as Mark Feld, he had
and we should be exciting, been a young mod about town.

because it's a fast world. '/ remember Marc Bofan with ful/ make-up on
workíng as a rent boy to buy clothes, in and around
Whether they're deep or the Scene Club,' recalled Pete Townshend. 'He was
about fifteen.' The ambition, if not the ta!ent, was
shallow, you take your evident even then. 'In February '63 Marc and I went
to see Summer Holiday together,' remembered Jeff
pleasure fast these days, for Dexter, one of the leading mod disc jockeys, 'and
he said, "/ want to be a star like Cliff Richard, I want
everythi ng's movi ng qu ickly.' to be bigger than him, wil/ you manage me?" I said,
"Marc, you can'tsing".'

The mod background, with its attendant love of soul music,

MARCBOLAN
was common to much of British glam. Bolan's London
ot T. Rex enjoying his new role contemporary, David Bowie, was also seen in the same world,
as a teen idol, 1971. which he was later to evoke it on his album of cover version,

GET DOW N & GET WI T H I T 1

Pin Ups, and experienced the same freedom: 'l've always beyond obsessions - it's reality, logical and natural.' lt was
worn make-up,' he pointed out in 1973. 'I first began to fool that chimera that kept sustained Bolan in the seven lean
around with it years ago when 1was a mod.' years. 'I always wanted to be a teenage idol,' he was to say
Elsewhere, the early incarnation of Slade was covering later. 'lt's lovely to be worshipped and all that.'
similar ground in the Midlands - 'We were doing Motown His chance carne with the departure from Tyrannosaurus
when it was considered underground,' claimed bassist Jim Rex of Steve Peregrin Took, who was much more committed
Lea - and further north still, Bryan Ferry was singing in a to the hippy underground than Bolan ever was. The limitations
soul band, the Gas Board, that could boast a tour-man horn of the duo were already becoming apparent, and at a gig in
section. 'There's a photograph of me taken in '67 which is January 1969, 'Bolan muttered what seemed to be an apology
quite interesting to compare with sorne psychedelic pictures for the sameness of the instrumentation, hinting that a wider
of contemporaries,' reflected Ferry in later years. 'I never went resource of colour is to be expected shortly'. Recruiting a
through that at all. l'm wearing a new percussionist in Mickey Finn
midnight blue mohair suit, with a ('We just need someone who looks
button-down collar shirt, posing 'They know what it's like Steve, t he fans will never know
against a Studebaker. 1 was much the difference,' he explained), Bolan
more flash then than 1am now.' al i about and even if shortened the group's name to T.
Rex, took up the electric guitar in
The attachment to soul was
to lie dormant through the glam
they don't, they feel earnest and, as 'Ride a White Swan'
years, but what survived intact t he thing intuitively. began to fall from its peak position
was the attention to clothes, of #2, he added a bassist and
the love of dressing up when in There's so much drummer to the line-up to exploit
public, that had marked mod his breakthrough. By the end of
out as the most stylish of youth
vital ity and life to be 1971, with T. Rex having scored
movements. When mod finally drawn from youth !' three more hits - 'Hot Love' and
broke up into its constituent parts 'Get lt On' spent a combined ten
- secondary-modern skinheads weeks at #1 - and with his album,
on the one side, grammar-school psychedelia on the other Electric Warrior, also heading for the top of the charts, he was
- much of that had been lost, the spirit kept alive only in able to announce: 'The revolution has come, it is here..'
the psychedelic dandyism of Jimi Hendrix and of the Rolling Bolan's rise to stardom carne largely at the expense
Stones, particularly Brian Jones, in an era when conspicuous of his former devotees, but he was unrepentant. finding
consumption was starting to look a little unfashionable. For inspiration in the hordes of young fans who now packed
those stars manqué who would later fashion glam, however, every gig, screaming in a way not heard for years in British
material trappings remained very much part of the dream. pop. The press dubbed the wave of teen manía T. Rexstasy,
the externa! reflection of success. Bolan's 1966 single 'Hippy and the man at the centre of the storm was loving it: 'lf there
Gumbo' was accompanied by a press release about the art ist: is going to be any kind of revolution in pop it must come
'Likes: $9,000 cars. Dislikes: $8,000 cars.' from the young people and if you ignore them you are cutting
That single had been produced by Bolan's then-manager yourself off from the life-supply of the rock music force,' he
Sirnon Napier Bell, who was later to analyse the star quality insisted. 'They kn ow what it 's ali about and even if they don't,
he discerned in the singer: 'lt's nothing more than the artist they feel the thing intuitively. There's so much vitality and
seeing himself as the essential material of his own art. He life to be drawn from youth!' For eighteen months, he was
devises his own unique image and lifestyle and projects it to unstoppable, irrepressible and majestic, producing a string of
everyone around him.' Or, in the words of another influential classic pop singles that reinvented 1950s rock and roll for a
figure from 1960s British music, the Rolling Stones' manager generation born too late to have been around the first time.
Andrew Loog Oldham, stars 'have to be so totally obsessed Part of the appeal was his image, though the fact that
and paranoid about this year's vision of thernselves that it's he favoured make-up, draped a feather boa over his satin

' GL AM
jacket and had glitter on his cheeks was more about being all, never been any need for artistic development in the pre-
a star than any great commitment to theatre. 'I wore gold Beatles days that T. Rex evoked. Nonetheless, the critics'
suits and that sort of shit for a while.' he said in 1973, 'but it warnings should have been heeded, for once the initial
was a flash. Billy Fury wore them tour years before; it wasn't excitement wore off, the limitations became ever more of
an innovation.' Unlike Alice Cooper, whose make-up was a liability; the fantasy began to fall apart as competitors
an offensive weapon, Bolan used cosmetics to enhance his emerged in the charts.
physical beauty. The result was a soft, androgynous look that The first sign of such competition carne in the summer
added an element of fantasy to his futuristic rockabilly. 'Bolan of 1971 when Slade managed to capture in the studio the
appeared to inhabit a mystical domain not so very different essence of their live act. 'Get Down and Get With lt' was
from the picture books of my childhood,' was the memory of taken from an obscure 1967 Lit tle Richard soul record and
writer Nina Antonia, a childhood fan. 'There were no scary - beyond an exhortation to clap our hands and stamp our
edges to his splendour.' feet - barely existed as a song, but its irresistible energy took
But mostly what distinguished Bolan at his peak was his the band into the charts for the first time. lf that was to prove
air of absolute self-confidence. He gave the impression of more that a one-off, however, it was time to move on from
having spent most of his life in front of a full-length mirror. covers. Earlier attempts to create their own material had been
practising his moves. On Top of the Pops he seemed too unimpressive but, perhaps spurred on by the taste of success,
excited to mime properly to the pre-recorded music, and in a new combination of personnel, Noddy Holder and Jim Lea,
concert he would pull away from the microphone at the end turned out to be a strong writing team.
of every line, as though he were impatient to strike a pouting By November the self-written 'Coz 1 Luv You' was at #1,
pose. He believed in himself so much that, for a while at least, the first of twelve consecutive top-five singles, accompanied
his enthusiasm was contagious; he turned simple songs into by five top-ten albums. The final stroke of inspiration was to
classic pop by sheer force of w ill. 'l'm living my fantasy,' he change the t itle of the song from 'Because 1 Love You' ('which
said, and his fans were happy to share it with him. sounded weedy.' according to Lea) to the Nigel Molesworth-
As the list of hits lengthened, however, critics began to styled misspelling, 'carrying the yobby thing we'd got into the
complain that they ali sounded remarkably similar. 'That's a records'. Subsequent singles continued the same disregard
load of crap,' protested Tony Visconti. 'T. Rex have a style, and for spelling.
if artists have a style then it's the same voice and same guitar As with 'Get Down and Get With lt', the intent on many
playing each time you listen to them.' Bolan himself professed of the tracks - particularly the #1 hits 'Mama Weer All Crazee
himself puzzled: 'I always say each one is different from the Now' and 'Cum on Feel the Noize' - was simply to recreate
last, but everybody says they all sound the same.' In fact. he the experience of a Slade gig. 'lt's audience participation,'
managed to conjure up a surprising number of variations explained Dave Hill. 'lt's making a row.' The music effectively
from a limited palette of sounds and chords, relying on his documented and celebrated the band's existence and, as if to
gift for an instantly catchy hook and on his phrase-making as make the point, they marked their commercial breakthrough
a lyricist. Elton John remarked that Bolan used to 'string a lot with a concert recording, Slade Alive, that capitalized on the
of words together that sound good but don't mean anything', long years of gigging
and he was quite correct. They did indeed sound wonderful. Even more crucial to their success was the television
'I ain't no square with my corkscrew hair,' he would boldly presentation and the contrast between the two front men.
assert, adding: 'I drive a Rolls Royce 'cause it's good for my Sporting side-whiskers that peeked out from his shoulder-
voice'. The problem was that, however hard it might be to length mass of curly hair, and wearing checked trousers and
resist lines like 'a silver-studded sabre-tooth dream', 'you're waistcoat or tank-top, Holder described his image as being
a gutter-gaunt gangster', or 'the president's weird, he's got a 'a colourful jack-the-lad. 1 was basically a spiv.' His most
burgundy beard', they were ultimately interchangeable from distinctive innovation was a stovepipe hat, which he covered
song to song; in the absence of meaning, there was little to with m irrors to reflect the studio lights; on stage, with all
differentiate one from another. the lights off save a single spot, it was even more effective,
Perhaps this shouldn't have mattered. There had, after a wonderfully low-budget special effect. Alongside this

GET DOWN & GET WI T H I T 7

SLADE'S 'colourtul jack-the-lad' Noddy Holder coat at Kensington Market, he took it home and sprayed it
wit h the outrageously cost umed of Dave Hill with silver paint in his dad's front room ('he was freaking out
because of t he stink'), in order that it would make sense at
a time when fewer than one in eight homes in Britain had a
cheerful Dickensian rogue were t he ever-changing costumes colour television set: 'The silver coat used to work great on
of Dave Hill, an extrovert who had never tried to blend into t he a black and white TV. Because people didn' t need colour to
background: 'Even when he wasn't famous, he'd be walking see it, it would reflect.' Revelling in his stardom, Hill also had
round Wolverhampton in a cape,' remembered Holder. a Rolls Royce with the number plate YOB 1, and had a guitar
Appearing on Top of the Pops wit h 'Get Down and Get custom-made, with a body resembling a ray-gun from a l950s
With lt', Hill flaunted a woman's pink coat over dungarees science-fiction movie and the words 'suPER vos' inscribed upon
that were t ucked into his boots ('and 1 had diamonds on it. Through it ali, there was sense of self-mocking vulgar fun;
my dungarees,' he was keen to point out). From t here he even more obviously than Bolan, Hill looked like a kid being
became increasingly outrageous, hitting a peak with what given licence to play in public.
was known as t he 'metal nun' outfit, a black robe adorned 'After a couple of years devoted to worthy but dull
with large mirrored discs and topped wit h a Cleopatra-styl e earn estness,' wrote critic Richard W illiams, in February 1972,
headdress covered with smaller discs, which he wore for 'rock and roll is back where it belongs: in the streets, in the
'Cum On Feel t he Noize'. Considerable thought went into sweaty ballroom, the paperboy's whistle.'
th ese costumes, so that when Hill bought a long black leather As T. Rex and Slade began reinvigorating the pop charts,

8 GL A M
there were other cultural developments that would feed nothing was true any more and that the future was not as
into glam. In January 1972 the film A Clockwork Orange clear-cut as it had seemed,' he reflected, tying the film to the
wa.s released, directed by Stanley Kubrick and adapted retreat from the 1960s; 'everything was up for grabs.'
from Anthony Burgess's novel of a decade earlier. lt was Set in the near-future, there was, for many people, little to
the most influential youth-culture movie of the era and the distinguish A Clockwork Orange from a perception of modern
distinctive uniform of its anti-hero Alex (Malcolm McDowell) Britain, particularly in the first half of the movie, as a gang of
and hi.s gang - white shirts, trousers and braces, black boots youths engage in street-fighting, rape and murder. The anti-
and bowler hats, as well as faintly risible padded jock-straps social tone fitted ali too easily into the media portrayal of
worn on the outside - became part of glam's wardrobe, even football hooliganism, which had become associated with the
if it wasn't always intentional; when Noddy Holder wore a skinhead cult. The memory of hippies espousing peace and
bowler hat at a festival appearance a couple of months later, love, however anti-social they Were perceived at the time,
'the reviews all said that 1 had looked like a character from looked every more attractive in this new, violent phase of
Clockwork Orange'. More deliberate was David Bowie, who was youth culture.
developing ideas for his forthcoming album and promotional
gigs. 'The Clockwork Orange look became the first uniform for
Ziggy,' he later acknowledged, hurriedly adding: 'but with the
THE FILM OF ANTHONY BURGESS' A Clockwork
violence taken out.' He used the film's language in his lyric.s
Orange was released in 1971 and became the most
('Hey droogie, don't crash here') and adopted Walter Carlos's influential youth culture film of the period. The
version of Beethoven's 'Ode to Joy' from the soundtrack as uniform of Alex and his droogs quickly became part
his entrance music on stage. 'There was a distinct feeling that of glam's wardrobe

GET DOWN & GET WI T H I T 9

CABARET was released in the UK close the Saltley coke depot in Birmingham. lt was 'a victory
in 1971, and was set in the Weimar for violence,' the then-education secretary Margaret Thatcher
period in Berlin.
later wrote, 'the rule of the mob'.
A consensus was developing that Britain might be at a
critica! stage in its history. In 1972 the number of working days
Meanwhile the country seemed to be teetering on lost in industrial action reached its highest total since 1926,
the brink of political collapse. In the same month that the the year of the General Strike, unemployment was edging
fi lm was released, the National Union of Mineworkers had towards one million for the first t ime since the wartime army
called its first-ever national strike. in response to which had been demobbed, and the conflict in Northern lreland
the government introduced a state of emergency; electric had spilled over into a civil war (nearly five hundred people
heating was restricted in shops, restaurants and places of were killed that year). All this was against a background of a
entertainment. people were implored to heat just one room in rapidly worsening economy; inflation. which had averaged 4
their homes. and there were rolling black-outs. Mass pickets per cent a year in the second half of the 1960s, increased to
enforced the strike's effectiveness. culminating in the Battle 10 per cent in the first half of the 1970s.
of Saltley Gate. when thousands of workers torced police to lt was primarily this latter development that prompted

ID GLAM
politicians of all sides to suggest that 'the smell of the Weimar Ziggy Stardust to the cabaret desperation of 'Time'. That
Republic is in the air' (John Pardoe of the Liberals) and that latter song carne from the album Aladdin Sane, where it
'unchecked inflation could destroy the mature democracies was subtitled 'New Orleans', all the songs bearing a similar
in the contemporary world as it did the Weimar Republic geographical appendage in a style derived from Brecht and
between the wars' (Conservative MP Norman St John-Stevas). Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins, written in Paris in 1933 after
The level of social unrest provoked further comparisons with both men had fled the Nazis.
Germany just before t he rise of the Nazis. A wave of student When, in the mid 1970s, lsherwood carne to look back at
demonstrations in 1970 made Labour cabinet minister Richard his younger days, he observed with sorne irony: 'Christopher
Crossman think that 'the situation was like the early days of the was saying, in effect: "Read about us and marvel! You did not
Weimar Republic,' and that he could see 'democracy coming to live in our t ime - be sorry!" And now there are young people
an end', while the Conservative lord chancellor, Lord Hailsham, who agree with him. "How 1wish 1could have been with you
argued: 'Democracy is most in danger when the central there!" they write.'
ground is simultaneously attacked to destruction by violent
and extreme elements from opposite sides. lt was this and not
Nazism alone which destroyed the Weimar Republic.'
tn this context, it seemed entirely appropriate that just
a month after A Clockwork Orange there carne the British
release of the film Cabaret, set during the Weimar period.
Originating in Christopher lsherwood's 1931 novel Goodbye
to Berlín, the stage musical of Cabaret had premiered on
Broadway and subsequently corne to London in the pivota!
year of 1968 in a production with Judi Dench, Barry Dennen
and Peter Sallis. The movie, directed by Bob Fosse and
starring Liza Minelli and Joel Gray, took 'divine decadence'
into the mainstream, and though it didn't entirely meet
with lsherwood's approval ('Brian's homosexual tendency is
treated as an indecent but comic weakness to be snickered
at, like bedwetting,' he sniffed), it was both successful and
influential. lts release coincided with Tony Richardson's West
End reviva! of The Threepenny Opera by Bertolt Brecht and
Kurt Weill, and for a while the imagery of Weimar Berlín
became highly fashionable.
Glam was enthralled, revelling in the narcissistic myth
that it was living in the last generation before the collapse
of civilization. 'There was a theatrical edge,' Cockney Rebel's
Steve Harley was later to remark of his music, 'and 1 took
elements from the fi lms Cabaret and Clockwork Orange.' The
Sensational Alex Harvey Band covered 'Tomorrow Belongs to
Me' from Cabaret, Roxy Music displayed a Berlín influence,
!flC.n: ~ IM t.-
most overtly in 'Bitter Sweet', and Bette Midler - who had
built a cult follow ing in the gay bathhouses of New York and
was later to tour with Mott t he Hoople - covered Brecht and
'
DUFFY'S image of Bowie for Aladdin Sane (1973)
Weill's 'Surabaya Johnny' on her eponymous 1973 album. The
an album suffused with the atmosphere of Berlin.
atmosphere of Berlín also suffused much of David Bowie's
work, from the 'songs of darkness and disgrace' sung by

GET DOWN & GET WI T H I T 11

GL A14
 lf there was a contemporary equivalent to the doomed
romanticism and delightful depravity associated w ith Berlin
between the Wars, then many felt it could found in New
York. By the beginning of the 1970s the city had acquired an
international reputation as a lawless place, where crime and
drugs had spiralled out of control, and where the middle-
classes were in retreat, leaving behind a society split between
wealth and welfare. 'Fear hangs over the city,' wrote one
Briton, living on t he Upper West Side. 'I sometimes feel as
though l'm living in a frontier town, locked into my fortress,
emerging only briefly to fetch children or see a movie, scuttling
round dark corners and walking fast on deserted pavements.'
At a time when Britain was being dubbed 'the sick man of
Europe' - a term originally coined for the Ottoman Empire
in the nineteenth century - so New York was similarly being
shunned by the rest of America, its image fixed by movies like
Midnight Cowboy, Death Wish and Taxi Driver.
Even the artistic excitements of the early and mid-
1960s seemed to be slipping into darkness with the near-
fatal shooting of Andy Warhol in 1968, and the premature
death of one of the city's adopted sons, beatnik writer Jack
Kerouac, the follow ing year. The Velvet Underground were
looking exhausted, worn down by years of commercial
failure; with John Cale having already left. in 1970 Lou Reed
himself abandoned t he group he had founded. The city's
low standing nationally was reflected in the responses of
American rock audiences for years t o come. In 1974 the
New York band Kiss were supporting Rory Gallagher in
Florida: ' The guy introducing us just got out, "And now,
from New York" ,' remembered bassist Gene Simmons, 'and
they started booing.' This might merely have indicated
the intolerance of blues-rock fans (Roxy Music supported
Gallagher in Liverpool in 1972 and were met with a chant of
'Poofters' and a continua! barrage of hostility), except that it
was still evident towards the end of the decade. 'Elsewhere
in America there's a prejudice against New York bands,'
complained Television's Tom Verlaine in 1978; 'people
automatically assume you can't play.'

LOU REED
concert poster, 1973.
V&A: S.433B-1995

GET DOWN & GET WI T H I T 11

 ANDY WARHOL'S Pork arrived for a
short run at London's Roundhouse in 1971.
Photograph by Douglas H Jeffery
V&A: Theatre and Performance Collections
THM/374/1/2725

NEW YORK was seen as contemporary

equivalent to the doomed romanticism and
delightful depravity associated w ith Berlin
between the Wars, as seen in Taxi Driver (1976)

NEW YORK, the sick man of America,

as seen in Midnight Cowboy (1969).

1414

1 GL A M
 -

The futility of life in the fallen city was seen in a production violence, sleaze and depravity. Coming from Detroit, where
of the play Pork, based on taped conversations made by Alice Cooper were now based, the Stooges made regu lar
Warhol, which arrived for a short run at the Roundhouse in excursions to New York, bringing danger and degradation
London in August 1971. Bowie, who had already written and with them.
recorded his song 'Andy Warhol', befriended the performers For Bowie, such figures had a powerful attraction,
- many of whom would subsequently be subsumed into his offering a street-soiled glamour that seemed a long way
manager Tony Defries's MainMan organization - and through removed from Edward Heath's conservative-minded Britain,
them found an introduction to the alternative side of New where the screening of a television documentary about
York. On a trip to the city shortly afterwards, Bowie met Warhol was delayed for ten weeks in 1973. while the law
Warhol, an encounter he claimed to have found 'fascinating' courts debated whether it was legally permissible to show
since Warhol had 'nothing to say, absolutely nothing'. He also such immorality. 'When Lou Reed would talk about the New
met Lou Reed and lggy Pop, the latter a performer he had York drag queens,' remembered Angela Bowie, 'for David
earlier named as his favourite singer. In the absence of the that meant that America was the most w ide open, wonderful
Velvet Undergrou nd, it was lggy and the Stooges, with their place.' Photogra pher Mick Rock agreed: 'For David, New York
combination of brutally minimalist rock and self-destructive represented the same thing as it did for me. New York was
performances, that continued to fly the tattered flag of much more obviously depraved than London. and the self-

GET DOWN & GET WI T H I T

nen
indulgence was on a leve! that 1 had not experienced before, startling - the industry had been dominated by gay men since
whether it was drugs or wild drag queens.' Others associated the 1950s - but such facts were not in the public domain; at
with Bowie were less impressed; his backing group, reported the time of the interview, there were no out gay men in pop
Charles Shaar Murray, 'didn't seem too much at ease among music or in British public lite more generally.
the Warhol gang,' while guitarist Mick Ronson had little time Hunky Dory, released just before Christmas 1971, was the
for lggy: 'Bowie was just taken by that crap. 1wasn't.' first indication that, after years of experiments with different
His observations were to feed into Bowie's work over the sounds and styles, Bowie had finally found his own voice and
next couple of years, but despite his tourist excursions into was ready for a serious attempt to become a success. In the
the seedier side of New York, the influence can be overstated. 1960s he had proved to be an adept if quirky pop-writer, while
'lf it hadn't been for Pork, there would never have been a his more recent work - David Bowie (later retitled Space
MainMan, or for that matter a Ziggy Stardust,' claimed Wayne Oddity) and The Man Who Sold the World - had seen him
County, one o f the stars of the play, perhaps unaware that half trying out acoustic and electric rock respectively, with m ixed
the Ziggy songs - including 'Ziggy resu lts; Hunky Dory brought ali the
r
Stardust' itself - had already been elements together and, on 'Queen
written and demoed by that stage. 'I don't wear Bitch' in particular, unveiled the
For sorne, t he roots of Ziggy went combination of acoustic twelve-
back still further, to February 1970
women's dresses, string guitar and Mick Ronson's
and another performance at the
1wear butch gay electric lead that would form the
Roundhouse, this time by a group basis of his take on glam. The
called the Hype; wearing superhero clothes.' album also included what would
costumes, the band featured Bowie become two of his best-known
as Rainbow Man and Ronson as pop songs, 'Changes' ahd 'Lite on
Gangster Man. Tony Visconti, who played bass as Hype Man, Mars', (Peter Noone had already hada hit w ith 'Oh! You Pretty
claimed it as 'the very first night of glam rock'. Things' sorne months earlier), though a single of 'Changes'
In any case, Bowie's more immediate concern at the time failed to make the charts, despite heavy support on Radio 1,
of Pork was the release of Hunky Dory, his first album under where it was Tony Blackburn's Record ot the Week. Nor did
a new record deal, the sleeve for which saw him playing out the album tare much better; six months after its release, it
his fantasies of Hollywood glamour. For those whose job it had sold barely ten thousand copies.
was to sell his records, the soft-focus androgynous shot on That, however, was about to change. For in June 1972.
the cover was a step up from his last release, The Man Who the various strands of what would become known as glam
Sold the World, which had featured him recl ining on a couch rock carne together with the release of a handful of key
and wearing a dress. ('I don't wear women's dresses,' he had records and, for the first t ime, it began to look like a genuine
insisted. 'I wear butch gay clothes.') Even so, the image was movement.
still a challenge: 'I thought it m ight be a drawback at a store
like W.H. Smith's,' remarked Geoff Hannington, the marketing
manager at RCA Records. To make the job tougher, Bowie
accompanied the album with a celebrated interview splashed
on t he front-page of the Melody Maker, announcing that he
was bisexual. Within the world of rock and roll it was hardly

BOWI E WITH TWIGGY on t he cover of Pin Ups (1973),

photographed by Justín de Vílleneuve.

GET DOWN & GET W I TH I T 17