Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy, from the Seventies to the Twenty-first Century – The Definitive Cultural History of David Bowie, T. Rex, and Theatrical Icons

by Simon Reynolds

From the acclaimed author of Rip It Up and Start Again and Retromania—“the foremost popular music critic of this era (Times Literary Supplement)—comes the definitive cultural history of glam and glitter rock, celebrating its outlandish fashion and outrageous stars, including David Bowie and Alice Cooper, and tracking its vibrant legacy in contemporary pop.

Spearheaded by David Bowie, Alice Cooper, T. Rex, and Roxy Music, glam rock reveled in artifice and spectacle. Reacting against the hairy, denim-clad rock bands of the late Sixties, glam was the first true teenage rampage of the new decade. In Shock and Awe, Simon Reynolds takes the reader on a wild cultural tour through the early Seventies, a period packed with glitzy costumes and alien make-up, thrilling music and larger-than-life personas.

Shock and Awe offers a fresh, in-depth look at the glam and glitter phenomenon, placing it the wider Seventies context of social upheaval and political disillusion. It explores how artists like Lou Reed, New York Dolls and Queen broke with the hippie generation, celebrating illusion and artifice over truth and authenticity. Probing the genre’s major themes—stardom, androgyny, image, decadence, fandom, apocalypse—Reynolds tracks glam’s legacy as it unfolded in subsequent decades, from Eighties art-pop icons like Kate Bush through to twenty-first century idols of outrage such as Lady Gaga.

Shock and Awe shows how the original glam artists’ obsessions with fame, extreme fashion, and theatrical excess continue to reverberate through contemporary pop culture.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Pop Culture, Biography, 21st Century, Audiobook

687 pages, Paperback

First published October 6, 2016

About the author

Simon Reynolds is one of the most respected music journalists working today, and his writing is both influential and polarizing. He draws on an impressive range of knowledge, and writes with a fluid, engaging style. His books Rip it Up and Start Again and Generation Ecstasy are well-regarded works about their respective genres, and RETROMANIA may be his most broadly appealing book yet. It makes an argument about art, nostalgia, and technology that has implications for all readerswhether diehard music fans or not. Its an important and provocative look at the present and future of culture and innovation."

Reviews

[Nigeyb · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy' by Simon Reynolds is a whopper. Almost 700 pages devoted to Glam Rock. I'd heard from a fellow Glam devotee, whose opinion I respect, that 'Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy' was a big boring yawn which over intellectualises the simple pleasures of Glam. Conversely, I'd enjoyed a couple of previous Simon Reynolds' tomes - Energy Flash: A Journey Through Rave Music and Dance Culture and Rip it Up and Start Again - which augured well.

For all his intellectualism, there is also the unmistakeable enthusiasm of Simon Reynolds's younger self. Like me, Reynolds was a pre-teen in the early 1970s and so was also caught up in one of the most exciting, flashiest, primal genres in pop music's short history (though misquoted song lyrics e.g. the intro to "Ballroom Blitz" or lines from "All the Young Dudes" make me slightly unsure about his professed passion). I loved Glam then. I still love it now. I am squarely in the target audience for this kind of book.

For such a huge book 'Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy' is actually a very selective history of Glam and one that doubles as a biography of David Bowie. The "...and Its Legacy" part of the title is a large part of this book, with later chapters exploring myriad highways and increasingly tangential byways. I generally enjoy Simon Reynolds' musings however later sections on, for example, pre-punk bands (SAHB, Doctors of Madness), Bowie in LA, Bowie in Berlin, modern artists (e.g. Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Ke$ha), and a few more, felt increasingly superfluous. I suspect Simon Reynolds just didn't want to let any idea, or bit of research, go to waste. Either way, I’d had more than enough as I ploughed through the final sections. I loved about a third of this book, quite liked about a third, and was frustrated or bored by about a third.

Still, I prefer to focus on the good stuff and there’s plenty of it, here’s a few examples:

Marc Bolan’s transformation from Mod/Psych (in John’s Children) to underground favourite (in Tyrannosaurus Rex) to fully fledged teen idol despite, arguably, being somewhat limited in many ways

How Bowie's hotchpotch of early philosophical ideas coalesced into the winning strategy of "rebranding" (as we'd call it now) and just how radical (and inauthentic) changing your image and sound with each album release was in the early 1970s

Some well deserved recognition for Alice Cooper over in the USA - both David Bowie and Cooper tried to create something new and which signalled a clean break from the previous decade. Both entered the 1970s releasing music that was behind the curve and playing catch up but, with in a year or two, both were defining a new sound, scene and style

Chapter 4 “Teenage Rampage” the glam scene I knew and loved as a young child through Top Of The Pops, and the pages of Disco 45, Music Star and my sister’s Jackie magazine. Reynolds celebrates the glory of Chinnichap, Slade, Sweet, Mud, Suzi Q, Gary Glitter, the Glitter Band, Hello, Jook via Bell Records, Mickie Most, RAK, and pleasingly, the latterday world of Junkshop Glam. A great chapter. The detailed description of the creation of 'Rock n Roll Part 2' is worth the price of admission alone, and good to read recognition for Gary Glitter and Mike Leander’s music but also tackling, head on, Glitter's sexual abuse of minors

One of the best pieces I have ever read about early Roxy Music and their “retro futurism”

Overall I recommend 'Shock and Awe: Glam Rock and Its Legacy' to anyone who has enjoyed Simon Reynolds’ earlier work, and I reservedly recommend it to fans of Glam Rock.

It hasn’t displaced Dave Thompson’s 'Children of the Revolution: The Glam Rock Story 1970-1975’ which is the ultimate encyclopaedia of Glam and a book I can unreservedly recommend.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Reynold's "Shock and Awe is probably the 'over-all' best glam history book. Although he does leave out Perfume Genius who I think is the 'new' glam. And the other thing that struck me while reading the book is that he's not that crazy about the New York Dolls first album. But that is all in a manner of taste and subjective point of view, which makes this book a very enjoyable read. Reynolds has a critical ear and eye, which is good. The book is way over 600 pages which is a lot for a few moments in rock history. Still, the importance of glam rock cannot be understated in my world, and I presume for the rest of the planet as well. The major artists are covered here (except Perfume Genius, grrr) as well as the minor or cult musicians as well.

Glam is the warped circus sideshow mirror of what was happening in the mainstream music world. The singer-songwriter from Laurel Canyon was still upon us during the glam era, and it's an interesting contrast looking back and see how both worlds dealt with each other. In fact, they didn't. The Eagles had a hatred for the show-biz aspect of rock (I.E. Alice Cooper, etc.) and I suspect the glam gang hated The Eagles. I hated The Eagles as well. So my loyalty is strong for the men who wore lipstick.

For me, there is nothing new, but that is only because I'm an obsessed fan of the glam era. What I do suspect is that readers who are not familiar with this world will find Reynolds book a very inviting entrance to that planet. The bibliography in the back of the book is brilliant, but I'm surprised that there isn't a discography as well. Perhaps budget/printing issues, and this is a mega huge book.

As a historian, I feel Reynolds captures Rodney's English Disco (pub) years accurately as I remembered it. He has a good sense of narrative drive for the reader to keep on reading this book. And his last chapter on Bowie's "Blackstar" album is a sad ending. Glam is very much part of the rock DNA, and I suspect that it will never go away - quietly.

[Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

What an overstuffed mess. I see a tendency in British music writing to overdo it with cultural/historical context. This may work for some, but for me it seems like an attempt to make up for the fact that writing about the actual music is hard and the author didn't have anything particularly insightful to add.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was more than a little disappointed with Shock and Awe. I had been so excited when I learned it was coming out. Reynolds' Retromania , while in need of a trim (though not nearly so much as this bloated monstrosity), was one of the most exciting pieces of music criticism/cultural analysis that I've read. I can remember constantly quoting bold new ideas I encountered and "I-wish-I'd-said-that" phrases in an irritatingly smitten way to everyone I know (I'm prone to some intemperate literary crushes). And I LURVE me some glam rock, so I suppose this was the perfect set-up for bitter disillusion.

More than anything else, Shock and Awe suffers from a lack of focus. Reynolds fails to really define glam rock as a genre. There is discussion of some general glam aesthetic principles - theatricality; youth-orientation; a combination of cutting-edge recording techniques with backward-looking musical ideas and priorities; a playful rejection of hippie heavyosity and a fluid attitude toward gender signifiers - but no defining declaration of the essence of glam. What does Roxy Music's jaded, art-school sophistication have in common with the Sweet's jejune bubblegum pop? On a gut level, of course, I'm well-aware that both bands seriously rock, but I guess I was hoping to hear why. Similarly, in a strictly musical sense, Wizzard's retro-pastiche had almost nothing in common with the Stooges' primal fuzz-tone assault. Reynolds provides no rationale for locating them in the same generic neighborhood. I get the impression that it's Roy Wood's face paint and wacky hairdo and little else that made him a glam musician. But if it's the flashy, androgynous look that makes for glamdom, why does the Velvet Underground deserve inclusion in this story and not Elton John? And what's up with Reynolds' undergraduate-worthy Dorian Gray book report? Oscar Wilde, while not exactly inappropriate to any discussion of Decadent aesthetics or gay style, is a bit of a stretch in a book about rock music, especially one that fails to mention (except for a jokey aside) Velvet Goldmine, Todd Haynes seminal 1998 glam rock movie, which made the space alien/Oscar Wilde/Brian Eno connection explicit.

Shock and Awe is exhaustively researched and there are flashes of the deft prose, astute criticism, and amusing observations* that I remember from Retromania. The concluding bit about Blackstar and David Bowie's death was moving and lovely. But I couldn't help but think that the book, already well in progress to be certain, was rushed out in order to seize on the cultural moment that that death inspired. Taking the time for a substantial edit - eliminating stylistic infelicities and oppressive heft while defining and focusing the argument - would have seriously benefited Reynolds' book. As it is, I can't really recommend this lumbering beast to any but those, obsessed like I am, who will read it no matter what I say.
*"In truth, the most cutting-edge thing Bowie did '97 - in the entire nineties, really - was to float his life's work on the stock market. Using innovative and then little-known financial instruments called asset-backed securities, he issued Bowie Bonds and earned an instant fortune ($55 million) by effectively selling the rights to his future royalties. Just the kind of fiddly finagling and magical-thinking speculation that brought down the world's markets just over a decade later. Classic Bowie: always the early adopter."

[Stefano Solventi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Reynolds ha un difetto bellissimo: elabora una teoria, sintetizza una formula (per la gioia del "memificio" dei social), la fa diventare il polo magnetico su cui puntare la bussola, quindi parte come uno schiacciasassi in un escursus tutto inclinato verso il soddisfacimento e la solidificazione delle tesi che confermano appunto la teoria di fondo. Il rischio insomma era che questo ponderoso volume - oltre 600 pagine sul glam rock - diventasse un buco nero capace di divorare nella propria voragine tematica una trentina di anni di rock (e oltre). Ebbene, è andata quasi così. Ed è - appunto - bellissimo. Reynolds possiede le caratteristiche che ogni critico (o storico, come preferisce definirsi) del rock dovrebbe avere: una cultura vasta che sa spingersi ben oltre la bolla magica del rock e dintorni, un punto di vista assieme appassionato e disincantato, la capacità di mettere a fuoco e una penna agilissima. Caratteristiche che rendono divertente la lettura, e in quel divertente sono compresi l'intrigo, l'illuminazione, le perplessità, la delusione, la scoperta, un avventurarsi nel viluppo degli anni che si sviluppano come una successione di accadimenti, non necessariamente consequenziali ma ugualmente legati, e qui sta il lavoro dello storico, unire i puntini in modo da individuare linee di forza, abbozzare forme nel caos della Storia. Dal Regno Unito post-bellico che tenta di scrollarsi le macerie dalle spalle con lo skiffle e poi di inventarsi una realtà alternativa con la ricercatezza dei mods, si passa all'elaborazione pre-glam nel crogiolo hippie e quindi al coagulare di istanze teatrali, letterarie, cinematografiche e stilistiche che vedranno Bolan e Bowie protagonisti controversi ma assoluti. Una deflagrazione che sconvolgerà aspettative, forme e obiettivi, scoperchiando un vaso di Pandora genialoide e cialtrone, sempre comunque eccitante, così lontano così vicino a tutto quello che girava o girerà intorno, dal kraut alla wave al punk, per rovesciarsi su dark e new romantics. Un filo rosso meno musicale che estetico ed etico, uno stare sul palco come sulla parte più importante del vivere, vera chiave esistenziale che per qualcuno (vedi la parabola di un Brian Ferry) significherà reinventarsi completamente, riscattando le origini modeste col raggiungimento di una condizione in tutto e per tutto ideale. Rinascere, in pratica, come sogno di sé (anche quando tra sogno e incubo la differenza è, per così dire, labile). Una lettura che deve accompagnarsi - va da sé - con l'ascolto degli innumerevoli pezzi, album e artisti trattati, che siano Alice Cooper, Gary Glitter, Suzi Quattro, Mott The Hoople o gli Slade, per scoprire o rinfrescare la conoscenza di questa formidabile e scellerata corte dei miracoli. Non mancheranno le critiche, a cui un'opera di questo tipo non può sottrarsi: dal mio punto di vista spicca, ad esempio, la sostanziale assenza di riferimenti al movimento parallelo del power-pop, inoltre le pur ottime pagine che seguono Bowie e Eno nella trilogia berlinese sembrano a conti fatti esulare dal tema e rappresentare solo un trampolino per poter parlare degli strascichi glam successivi (nella new wave e nel new romantic), oppure per scrivere quel trattato su Bowie che Reynolds ha preferito evitare (ma non del tutto). In ogni caso, è una lettura essenziale per riflettere su cosa il rock è stato come impatto sul costume, sulla cultura, sul modo di pensare e vivere. Per capire i motivi e le meccaniche che lo hanno reso così importante. E, per contrasto, perché non sa esserlo più.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

After the major misfire that was Retromania, I was hoping that Reynolds' latest would bring back the magic that was Rip It Up and Start Again, his definitive account of post-punk. Unfortunately, even though '70s glam was much more defined and compartmentalized than the amorphous sounds of post-punk, this book is not nearly as well centered as Rip It Up.

Instead, this is a disjointed affair, which threads David Bowie's career through the glam years and beyond, with looks at both the main players and those on the periphery. In line with critical orthodoxy, Reynolds adheres to the kind of "high art, low art" distinction that most who discuss glam trade in. Thus, David Bowie, Roxy Music, T. Rex are discussed in an academic context, often to tedious extremes. Meanwhile, Slade, Sweet, and others of the era get less scrutiny, even though Reynolds' writing on these artists is usually less dense and more enjoyable.

While using Bowie as a narrative device, somewhat akin to how he uses Public Image in Rip It Up, this fails to provide a center to the book. This also leads to detours on Lou Reed and Iggy Pop that are dry and lengthy, and not nearly as insightful as he thinks they are.

The last 15-20% finds Reynolds going past the glam era, to write about things he thinks are related to glam. This gives him an excuse to throw in some thoughts about Kate Bush, Lady Gaga, and others. Many of these quick hits merely register high marks on the "so what?" meter.

I learned a little from the book, but not much, and there certainly wasn't any novel critical perspective to make it worthwhile. At this point, I'll probably stay away from future books from Reynolds.

[Alexis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I spent a MONTH reading this monster of a book. I loved the Bolan and Bowie parts. Slade, Suzy Quattro, Gary Glitter, Lou Reed, Iggy Pop... all of that was great. Some of the later chapters dragged on far longer than they needed to. Overall this book could have been 200 less pages with a better editor. Probably 20 pages less just from the overuse of the word "Svengali" to describe various managers/producers/etc. I also take serious issue with the way Reynolds describes gender identity, fluidity, and sexual orientation. In this book, it came up quite a bit and it became clearer and clearer that he doesn't quite understand what he's talking about there. One of the "aftershocks" about Ke$ha and Dr. Luke discounted Ke$ha's music and basically made it sound like the author was annoyed that he couldn't listen to her debut album without thinking of if it truly represented her real life or if Ke$ha had been "bridled, demeaned, joylessly coerced at every step of the process.... Perhaps one day I'll be able to hear 'TiK ToK' or 'We R' and feel the rush, take delight again in the fiction of 'Ke$ha.' The question is: should I?" SIMON REYNOLDS DON'T TAKE A STORY OF ABUSE AND MAKE IT ABOUT YOU. Ugh.

The final bit about Bowie's death and legacy was beautifully written. I am very conflicted over large portions of this book. I would only recommend this to the most serious of glam fans who don't mind slogging through some crappy parts and dealing with a cis- white male perspective for FOREVER.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious.

Wonderfully rich in anecdote and below-the-radar material; always keeps the macro and the street in view; cerebral while mercifully sparing with the Great Unreadables / Sontag / academe. And as with the best social history, I came away with a ton of reading lists / playlists / YouTube videos / forgotten artefacts to chase down and addresses to make morbid pilgrimages to (including Mark Bolan's home). It all ultimately ends as an obituary to Bowie, a man who knocks the socks off them all and is now rising to well earned secular sainthood.

Any weak spots? The year by year countdown of post-glam Glam influence trundles along somewhat (I had to fight the urge to just think 'Oh, fuck off Gaga - it's been done - you little prick', like a Boomer). But such was its impact.

Surprises? Slade come across really excitingly - they were actually really credible and their draw was as a working class band. Elton John gets fuck all mention and rightly so, having done - what? Queen are a tight, professional operation. Mott the Hoople biting the Bowie hand that fed them cracks me up. Mark Bolan is incredibly likeable. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel have other songs! There were gigs at Big Biba - the 'Rainbow Room', I think (Bowie? Roxy Someone big). And the Rainbow in Finsbury Park is never out of it (it's a fucking Pentecostal cult's megachurch now).

The sleaze of the whole age too: we just saw the tip of a Yewtree iceberg. Noddy Holder and Alice Cooper's knicker obsession - to their 14 year old fans. Iggy's 14 year old girlfriend. The groupie scene.

Splendid work. It's just very rich, really. What amazing fun it must have been.

[alessandra falca · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perché amo Simon Reynolds? Perché un suo libro di musica non parla solo di musica. Perché scrive bene. Perché è appassionato e quindi ti fa appassionare. Perché alla fine sai molte più cose di quante credevi di poterne imparare leggendolo. Perché è uno dei più bravi critici musicali contemporanei. Leggo sempre i saggi di Simon Reynolds. Mi fanno ri-innamorare della musica, dei cantanti, delle canzoni, della storia del pop e del rock. In questo libro, "Shock and Awe. Glam Rock and Its Legacy" tradotto "Polvere di stelle", ogni capitolo è un'avventura. E Bowie passa come un fil rouge in mezzo a tutto il libro, ovviamente. E in più, la cosa bella di leggere saggi di musica in questo momento storico, è che ogni autore, ogni canzone, ogni filmato che lo scrittore cita, tu lo puoi vedere sul web, e tutto diventa un documentario. Live. Visto e letto nello stesso momento.
Un bel saggio. Un bel libro sul glam. Ci voleva. Dont dream it. Be it.

[Paul Decker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Who needs to read over 650 pages about glam rock in the 1970s? I do, I guess. I liked this better than Rip it Up and Start Again, also by Reynolds, but then I'm more interested in the music/artists covered in Shock and Awe. The book is researched in great detail, and I stayed interested even during sections about the most obscure artists. David Bowie (appropriately) is the central player in the book, and Reynolds closes with a very touching epilogue about Bowie's later years and the last two albums he completed before he died.

[Mark Rubenstein · Rating 1 out of 5]

University-aimed wankfest that bores the hell out of a subject matter which, at its heart, was always about unadulterated and joyous dumb fun.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly comprehensive analysis (650 pages of tiny print) of what constitutes "Glam." While largely a British phenomenon at the start (T-Rex, Sweet, Slade, Bowie, Gary Glitter, and the entire Bell Records oeuvre), it also included people like Alice Cooper, Wayne/Jayne County, Suzi Quatro, and the New York Dolls. The theory goes that Glam was primarily a reaction to the muddy jeans and beards aesthetic of the late 1960s, hearkening back to the "fun" days of 1950s rock and roll. The 1950s revival certainly was a huge part of the 1970s on both sides of the Atlantic.

As the decade wore on, the style matured and morphed away from "fun" and became more enamored with royalty, luxury, elitism, and even Fascism (as exemplified by Bowie himself, along with Queen, Roxie Music, and lesser-known -- in America -- acts like Cockney Rebel). [And even later by Goth and "The New Romantics"]. And while there seems to be a direct line from Glam to Punk [Iggy Pop], the author sees them as largely antithetical to one another.

On top of all this, there is a rather lengthy post-script which attempts to illustrate the glam influence in more contemporary acts like Lady Gaga and Nicky Minaj. I probably could have lived without that chapter, but gave food for thought. There were a lot of things described that I either never heard of, or had a completely different impression of (like confusing Cockney Rebel with the Cockney Rejects).

[Surymae · Rating 4 out of 5]

Come un gigante dai piedi di argilla, il poderoso Polvere di stelle dopo centinaia di pagine colme di dettagli al limite della verbosità, adotta nella sua ultima sezione un taglio scheletrico che mina l'intero impianto del volume. Perché darsi la pena di affrontare l'argomento dell'influenza del glam nella musica dagli anni Ottanta in poi per poi dedicare pochissime righe - spesso non lusinghiere, come nel caso di Lady Gaga - agli artisti che hanno portato avanti questo cambiamento? Perché descrivere con minuziosità maniacale le gesta e le formazioni di ogni singola band glam rock, con il rischio fondato di creare confusione nel lettore, e sorvolare su quello che, sulla carta, era l'argomento principale della trattazione di Reynolds? Per quanto inoltre ami il periodo losangelino-berlinese di Bowie ammetto di essere stata perplessa dalla scelta dell'autore di includerlo nella sua disamina, visto che si tratta di musica che ha ben poco in comune con il glam, soprattutto perché i percorsi non-glam di altri artisti, come Lou Reed o i Roxy Music, vengono a malapena menzionati.
L'impressione generale è quella di un libro poco coeso; un peccato, perché quando Simon Reynolds si concentra e mette a fuoco l'artista di cui intende occuparsi la lettura è assolutamente scorrevole e interessante. Ho inoltre apprezzato l'onestà intellettuale dell'autore nel mettere in luce anche gli aspetti più abietti dei protagonisti del glam rock, come gli abusi sessuali perpetrati da Gary Glitter nell'arco della sua carriera o la misoginia e l'omofobia presenti in alcuni testi. Di contro, ho alcuni dubbi sulla traduzione di Michele Piumini: il verso di una canzone che recita "Give us a kiss" viene reso con "Dammi un bacio" - perché cambiare il pronome? - in un'altra occasione l'evidente doppiosenso dell'espressione "Do you think that you could make it with Frankenstein?" si perde diventando "Pensi di potercela fare con Frankenstein?". Non sono traduzioni di per sè sbagliate, soltanto a mio parere un po' troppo slegate dai testi originali.
Sembrerà paradossale, ma in realtà consiglierei la lettura di Polvere di stelle . Credo che, al netto delle occasionali prolissità, il libro di Reynolds possa offire molto al lettore, che sia l'appassionato del genere - e in particolare di Bowie, vero protagonista dell'opera - o al neofita che intende scoprire questa interessante pagina della musica rock (o sarebbe meglio dire pop?).

[Andrew Hill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simon Reynolds has been writing about music for a long time. He's a prolific and highly-regarded music journalist. That said, this was my first experience with his work, and I came away disappointed.

The book begins and ends well, but the rest of it is alternately inane, thrilling, intriguing, and confusing. Maybe this is a function of the life story that forms the central nervous system of the book, since David Bowie was all of those things at various times.

Reynolds sets out to describe how Bowie and those influenced by him changed music by creating an art form built less around musical performance and more around theater and identity construction. But it doesn't really work. The best parts of the book are the sections on Bowie himself. Whenever Reynolds ventures elsewhere and attempts to build his thesis, the results are much more mixed.

It's telling that after reading this book, I'm still not sure what "glam" (in the English, not American sense) even means.

The final third of the book is especially weak, with the exception of the last chapter, written upon Bowie's death. This chapter is outstanding, both insightful and touching, and it confirms to me that Reynolds is a thoughtful and elegant writer. But it follows a disjointed, rambling review of artists from 1980 to 2014 who were influenced by glam. It's as if Reynolds got to 1981 in his history and realized that he really needed to just finish the book, like a student who writes the first 1800 words of a 2000 word essay and is only half finished with his argument.

One other note: writing about art is difficult, but I think the auditory arts are especially difficult. Human beings visualize when they think, so describing a painting is a lot easier than describing a symphony. Reynolds attempts heroic work in his descriptions of music, but almost all such descriptions rely so much on metaphor and reference that I wonder if they're really worth the effort. Classical music has a highly developed vocabulary that helps to convey ideas of structure, tone, and volume, but Reynolds doesn't use it, nor does he ever develop his own consistent approach to describing the songs he analyzes. These sections are, for the most part, very poetic but not very informative.

David Bowie deserves a great book about his life and his cultural influence, but this isn't it.

[Malcolm Frawley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must for any Baby Boomer rock music fan & far exceeds expectations. While I loved glam era artists like Bowie, Eno, Roxy Music, Sparks, The Tubes, & early Alice Cooper others - Slade, The Sweet, Gary Glitter & Suzi Quatro, for instance - left me cold. But it doesn't matter! Reynolds tells all their stories & most are fascinating. He also contextualises each artist within his/her/their time & explores glam's influence on artists from punk to disco to grunge. Reynold's style is entertaining & his research is meticulous, often referencing esoteric tomes. And his love for his own favourites (eg/ Bowie) is beautifully documented. The book even concludes with something of a eulogy to the man who was, for me, the only true genius of rock music. Most highly recommended.

[Bob Schnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of David Bowie and theatrical rock & pop will find much to like and learn in Simon Reynolds' "Shock and Awe." Since the author is British and grew up with glam, Americans especially should discover some new things to hear and contemplate in this book. I certainly did, and I'm a bit of an Anglophile music geek. Some chapters go off on tangents and the 21st century is represented in quick paragraphs of notable events, but overall it is a great read.

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tardé bocha de leerlo porque, además de ser largo, me pasó la vida por delante mientras lo leía justo. Pero nunca dejó de engancharme la forma en la que Reynolds hila lo contextual, el analisis estilístico, el entretejido de las influencias, el mundo más que nada corporativo y administrativo de la música, todo para generar un relato de época que igual sigue siendo super específico a su definición (expandida) del concepto de "glam". Super recomendable, quiero leer mil cosas más de él

[Lesyk Mahula · Rating 4 out of 5]

Не така цікава тема для мене як в його "Ретроманії" але вражає глибиною фактів та цікавим поглядом та критикою на них. Книжка не по конкретний жанр а скоріше по природу явища. Всім хто любить Девіда Боуі - читати/слухати обов'язково, десь половина змісту книжки буде про нього прямо чи опосередковано. І про глем метал тут менше ніж про Нікі Мінаж.

[Diego · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's really good but a little bit too long. In a certain way it's perfect for a certain kind of public. The end Aftershocks chapter is somewhat mundane though.

[Christopher McQuain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maybe ***1/2.... Fantastically well-researched and mostly well-written, but perhaps too uniformly music-journalistic and short-burst snappy for such an extensive and ambitious study, or too indecisive and/or shallow in a way I can't quite put my finger on. It certainly works as a good complement to Rob Sheffield's Bowie book in that Sheffield missed the boat on THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH but got it right on STATION TO STATION, but vice versa for Reynolds.

[Maynard Handley · Rating 3 out of 5]

As opposed to some of the reviews above, to my mind most of the value of this book is precisely how it DOES place so much music and so many names I know vaguely in context, clarifying how they relate together and how they differ.
This sort of history is, in my experience, difficult to do well (though often attempted), but when it is done well, like in this book, you walk away feeling like you've really gained a deep feeling for a period and set of events, not just learned a superficial set of factoids.

The one criticism I would have of the book is that it is flabby with the same point repeated on multiple occasions in each chapter, somewhat like Homer throwing out a standard phrase every time he needs a break to remember what comes next. An editor who'd forced a reduction in the size of each chapter by around 40% would have immeasurably improved the work.

Finally I'd recommend, for maximum reading value, to look up the relevant songs and acts on YouTube every so often. Almost everything referenced is there, and sometimes what you see is rather different from what you might expect.

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have very mixed feelings on this book. I'm sure this has to be the definitive book on glam rock. I can't imagine a book covering it in more detail. Some parts of the book were very enjoyable especially the parts on Marc Bolan and David Bowie. However, the book needs an editor. Some sections go into way too much useless detail and cover irrelevant topics. For example, I didn't really care about the LA glam nightclub scene. The last chapter covering the last 30 years including Lady Gaga could have been eliminated except for the coverage of Bowie's death.

However, the positives do outweigh the negatives. It is an excellent review of the major and minor players in glam rock. I enjoyed the coverage of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band which has unfortunately been mostly lost to history. It is a worthwhile read but I Think most people will skip a few sections they don't really find interesting.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

He's fascinating to read. I was hesitant at first because I know a lot about this era and he pays Bowie more heed than I usually like on books, movies, etc. on Glam, yet his force of personality put through in language makes it worthwhile...you can disagree with him (as I did a lot on a book called Bowie in Berlin...the author of that book's subjective opinions began to piss me off...wherein he paid short shrift to Lust for Life and Lodger, Iggy and Bowie respectively, and TVC_15 as being a throw away and I thought to myself, you don't have the force or personality to make me take you seriously), yet I take Mr. Reynolds seriously. Read, even if you're an expert (or think you are)

[John Steel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this pretty dull and pretentious and Simon, Alex Harvey's band were Tear Gas before they joined him. Not Gas Mask

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reynolds se propone hacer dos cosas en este libro: una analítica del glam, un estudio de lo que el glam es, sus características esenciales, su programa; y una historia del género, una presentación de sus exponentes, su contexto, su evolución. Son las dos formas principales de concebir la música: la que se detiene en su inmanencia, su realidad-en-sí, y la que piensa sus condiciones de producción, circulación y recepción. Reynolds hace las dos cosas de una forma brillante, y lo mejor es que las hace al mismo tiempo.
A lo largo de 700 páginas, Como un golpe de rayo empieza por Bolan y T-Rex, y pasa por Alice Cooper, The New York Dolls, Queen, Slade, Mott The Hopple y miles de otros artistas y bandas que definieron el glam y el glitter. Es un recorrido por los años setenta, y tiene un protagonista tácito: David Bowie. El orden no es solo cronológico, si bien esta es la guía general, sino que se detiene también en la geografía (el origen británico del glam y su recepción en EEUU), las vertientes internas, el vínculo con otros géneros como el mod rock, el punk, el R&B, el disco y eventualmente el post punk, el new wave y el goth rock.
A la vez, Reynolds se pregunta qué es efectivamente el glam: cómo funciona su tesis de que en la falsedad se encuentra una verdad más real que en la honestidad, cómo se vincula con el dandismo y su estética del exceso, cómo hace revivir el barroco en pleno siglo XX. El análisis es poderoso, convincente, y el autor es particularmente bueno transmitiendo su pasión por el tema estudiado sin dejar que esto invalide su mirada crítica.
El libro tiene 700 páginas. Esto es, por un lado, una precondición necesaria para contar la historia completa de un género, especialmente uno tan complejo e influyente como el glam. Parte de esto está conformado por el último capítulo, una serie de anotaciones cronológicas desde 1975 hasta la muerte de Bowie, que retratan la evolución del género luego del apogeo descrito en los apartados anteriores. Es un agregado que solo un erudito de la talla de Reynolds podría hacer, y se aprecia ampliamente. No se puede dejar de remarcar que resulta una lectura accesible incluso para personas que no estén íntimamente familiarizadas con el tema (aunque no lo recomendaría como punto de entrada: es casi una enciclopedia, y la música debería escucharse antes de leerse).
Pero, al mismo tiempo el libro tiene 700 páginas . No se hace pesado, porque (de nuevo) la escritura de Reynolds es atrapante, pero incluso para un lector amante del género como yo se vuelve una lectura extensa, demasiado extensa. En más de un momento me pregunté si era efectivamente necesario dedicar tantos párrafos a bandas y proyectos que el mismo autor admite que no han sido particularmente relevantes. O, en el sentido opuesto, si tiene sentido incluir al Bowie post Low, que ha abandonado el glam casi en su totalidad. En algunas páginas, parece que la bowiemanía ha afectado a Reynolds, que no puede dejar de hablar de David (y no lo culpo). La cuestión de la extensión no es particularmente grave, pero sí hace que esta reseña no sea de 5 estrellas sino de 4: I'm a blackstar...

En resumen: lectura imprescindible para fans del glam, muy interesante para personas que disfruten de los años 70, pero tal vez demasiado minucioso para lectorxs más ocasionales.

[Eric Copeland · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another book that led me to jot down lots of notes in my phone -- bands, movies, etc., with which I was unfamiliar, but that I felt like I needed to check out.

Simon Reynolds's history of glam rock (I'd say if it's not the most comprehensive ever compiled in a single book, it's definitely close to it) starts and ends with David Bowie. After all, the former David Jones kind of kicked off glam rock as he departed from the sounds of the late '60s, alternately bluesy, stripped-down, psychedelic, natural, and honest, and instead went in a direction that celebrated style as much as or more than substance, image over musicianship, and glitz over grit.

From Bowie he heads on through Marc Bolan and T. Rex, Slade, Alice Cooper, The Sweet, Iggy Pop, Mott the Hoople, Gary Glitter, New York Dolls and dozens of others along the way. In some cases the musician is only barely related to glam, but they're still associated with the musical/showmanship movement. He also checks in pretty frequently on Bowie, since anyone who paid any attention to his career knows that he completely reinvented himself every few years, adopting a new persona, a different musical style, and in some cases even a changed worldview. As he develops his timeline, Reynolds makes a pretty compelling case that Bowie was never quite sure exactly what he was, because he was something different every time he turned around. For many, he was the overarching symbol of glam, but his influence perhaps affected the movement more than anything he did himself.

The first several chapters are in-depth retellings of the major stories of the glam era, going through most of the 1970s and even playing a part in shaping punk rock and disco. As Reynolds winds down, he switches over to an actual timeline-based structure, taking each year and each month to give the highlights that relate to glam, all the way up through the 2010s. I'm not sure about you, but I certainly didn't make the connections between glam and later musicians and musical genres that Reynolds makes, but I'm a believer now.

If you're not into glam rock, this book MIGHT not be for you. Then again, it might. Reynolds has a way of taking what was really a fairly brief period in popular music, fleshing it out, relating it to what came before, what came after, and what was happening simultaneously. At its conclusion, it's hard to deny that "Shock and Awe" gives the reader a glimpse into how even a minor musical movement can relate to popular culture in general. It's a little lengthy, but it's absolutely worth the read.

[Graham Power · Rating 3 out of 5]

By the end of the sixties, as pop turned into rock and the three minute single morphed into the concept album and rock opera, the music scene was becoming increasingly drab and portentous.

Glam rock was the antidote to the prevailing greyness. While denim-clad singer-songwriters and bearded progressive rock musicians assured of us their sincerity and seriousness, extravagantly attired glam rock groups camped it up on Top of the Pops, parading their artificiality while delivering short, sharp bursts of energy.

As Simon Reynolds observes glam was a return to the performance flash and musical simplicity of original rock and roll with the added benefit of seventies studio technology. The prime movers of glam, or at least a certain and arguably dominant strand of it, were not the groups but producers, professional songwriters and record label owners. From the Beatles onwards it had become usual for bands to write their own songs. By the late sixties, with much talk of rock as the voice of youth and even revolution, doing so became pretty much a proof of authenticity.

The glam rockers, in contrast, moved backwards into the future. Back to Tin Pan Alley hacks churning out commercial fodder for hired hands, back to the days of the puppet master producer and the compliant marionette performer. The creative figures in what might be called bubblegum glam were songwriters like Chinn and Chapman who wrote the songs for the Sweet, Suzi Quatro and Mud, label owners like Mickie Most with his roster of glam groups and writer/producer/instrumentalist Mike Leander, the man behind Gary Glitter. The main role of the groups was to look good, or utterly ridiculous depending on your point of view, and sell the product on Top of the Pops.

In addition to the overtly commercial fodder of these groups there was also an arty/intellectual strand to glam as exemplified by David Bowie and Roxy Music. This was glam rock for bright Grammar School boys and girls doing their ‘A’ levels. According to Reynolds, Roxy Music with their pick and mix approach to musical styles and eras, were the progenitors of a post-modernist approach to pop. But, as he has discussed at length elsewhere, what was fresh and exciting in 1972 subsequently turned stale as successive examples of ‘post-modernist’ pop turned out, on closer inspection, to be a triumph of style over content with a magpie approach to existing musical styles substituting for originality.

He’s a bit harsh on Bryan Ferry, lambasting him for social climbing and allegedly betraying his working class roots. There’s an element of truth to this but he does rather go on about it. Much the same could be said of almost any famous pop star from a humble background, but I’ve noticed that rock critics have a tendency to single out Ferry for special treatment in this regard. Oddly enough, one of the key concepts of glam was self re-invention - the idea that individuals didn’t have to passively fulfil what appeared to be their biological or social destiny. You might have thought that Ferry, a Geordie miner’s son who re-invented himself as Lord of the Manor, would be praised by a glam rock historian as an exemplar of self re-invention. You would be wrong.

Reynolds makes rather too much of the gender bending aspect of glam citing social changes, and even the abolition of National Service, as factors in the early seventies explosion of what often looked suspiciously like groups of bricklayers with badly applied eyeliner prancing about on Top of the Pops. Up to a point, Lord Copper. But there is also the more mundane fact that glam was essentially a British phenomenon and there is a long tradition in British popular entertainment of camp and cross dressing (think Carry On and pantomime dames). Much of the gender bending in glam rock was on this pretty harmless and trivial level, the only really serious contender being David Bowie with his ‘I’m gay’ pronouncement in Melody Maker. Bowie may have attempted to recant later, and people have argued endlessly about the authenticity of the statement, but there is no doubt that Bowie was experienced as a liberating force by many young gay people in the early seventies.

The chapter on Marc Bolan, the man who got the glam bandwagon rolling, is the highlight of the book and one of the best things I’ve ever read about him. Reynolds was besotted by the bopping elf at a very early age and writes about him with a touching mixture of adoring fan and sophisticated rock critic, displaying a warm understanding of his curious mixture of magic, intuition and calculation.

Bowie gets no less than four chapters charting his career right from the beginning all the way up to his Berlin period (so way beyond his glam years). He also gets an obituary as Reynolds was still writing the book when Bowie died. He doesn’t say anything startlingly original about Bowie but provides a solid enough partial biography. What does become clear is that it took the best part of a decade for Bowie’s talent to come into focus. His constant changes of musical styles throughout the sixties seem at once aimless and desperate, but once he had achieved the success he clearly craved, through the creation of his glam rock alter ego Ziggy Stardust, the same chameleonic abilities would prove to be his strength and ensure a longevity that would elude his friend and rival Bolan.

Bowie may have become famous as a glam rock star, but he transcends glam in a way that few, if any, of his contemporaries do. The Sweet, Slade, Suzi Quatro and Mud made great singles which, though much derided by rock critics at the time, retain their energy and power fifty years on, but they are nonetheless all frozen in the early seventies. Still, these groups are proof that in pop music you never can tell what will stand the test of time and also that great pop is not necessarily the result of the purest of motives. Most of these records were made with no higher ambition than the making of a fast buck and yet they have endured while much of the supposedly more serious music of the time has disappeared without trace.

At over 650 pages Shock and Awe is an exhaustive, and indeed exhausting, survey of glam rock. In these pages you will find every glam era band you have ever heard of plus a few I certainly hadn’t. Reynolds takes as wide a definition of glam as possible including a number of bands and artists I’ve never really thought of as glam rock (The Sensational Alex Harvey Band and even David Essex!). He doesn’t stop at bands either and also looks at The Rock Horror Picture Show, the Warhol scene and the TV series Rock Follies. The massive final chapter chronicling every pop star allegedly influenced by glam rock from 1975 to 2016 suggests he didn’t quite know when to stop.

I can’t help feeling that there is a slimmer and more sharply focused book bursting to get out of this sprawling epic. Glam rock certainly added to the gaiety of nations and also gave us a fair amount to think about, but it’s a subject requiring a light touch, and that doesn’t seem to be Reynolds forte. His meticulous research, however, can’t be denied - even if he has put every last bit of it into the finished book.

Shock and Awe is informative and enjoyable, but perhaps best read a chapter or two at a time, as trying to devour this monster in one gulp may result in chronic indigestion.

[David Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable, quirky and authorative look at Glam Rock, focussing on the key artists of the movement. In fact, the chapters on each band are concise but pithy biographies which, unless you are a committed fan, will probably give you as much background as you need on the likes of Alice Cooper, Sweet, Sparks and Mott the Hoople, while also perhaps inspiring you to learn more and explore their music further. Conversely, Reynolds gives you much more information than you will ever need about Glam outliers such as Wayne County, The Cockettes and the Tubes, though even these sections are trashy and gossipy fun. Bowie is central to the book - I have read a review which suggested that this is basically a Bowie biog by stealth but I think that DB's influence on Glam in particular and 70s music in general (and beyond) merits such an approach. The later chapters slip in focus and quality as we follow Bowie and his fellow travellers beyond 1976 (when Glam as a genre was pretty much at an end). As interesting as the sections on Bowie's Berlin Trilogy and Kraftwerk are, do they really belong in a book about Glam Rock? Reynolds may argue that they do, given that he goes on to show the lasting influence of the genre on later artists in the final chapter - much as Rob Chapman does for British folk in his book Electric Eden. However, though this works for artists such as Siouxsie Sioux, Kate Bush, Japan, Adam Ant, Bauhaus, the New Romantic bands and even Prince, Morrissey, Suede and Marilyn Manson, it becomes strained when Reynolds begins to dwell on the likes of Lady Gaga, Kanye West, Beyonce, Drake and Sia. While these latter artists play with notions of masks, role-playing, artificiality and self-invention/re-invention, which was very much part of the Glam aesthetic, they have no artistic or musical link to the genre, whereas the likes of Kate Bush, Morrissey and Suede do have such a link, while combining this and other influences with their own distinctive artistic impulses. Glam is, after all, more than just dressing up, putiing on make-up and pretending to be an alien (or indeed a rock/pop star). That said, despite losing its grasp somehwt towards the end, this is an extremely entertaining read and probably the best overview on Glam Rock currently available.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author and I are only two years apart, so we share a lot of memories which unfold here. Reynolds is always a smart critic, and he arranges this book with the natural framework of Bowie, as he takes us from the late-60s to nearly now. I was wondering how he'd conclude, for while the heyday of glam was the first half of the Seventies, its influence rippled through the decades since. He manages to do this adroitly: he stops the chapter-by-chapter narrative of various manifestations during its "golden years," but then gives the following years in vignettes about those who sustain its echoes--sometimes admittedly stretching credulity when it comes to, say Kanye or Brittany, but he keeps this massive chronicle readable. And as a Roxy fan, I particularly liked his take; although he barely notices either the third or fourth LPs, Country Life + Siren, except for their, of course, provocative cover girls. He offers wise explanations of such events as exactly why Eno was terminated by the jealous guy Ferry, and how the band's costumes, so astonishing in the TV appearances promoting their first two long-players, fit into their image and intellect. He even explains something that's never occurred to me: the difference between an album + a long-player!

A few slips. L.A. has closer to four than two million residents in city limits. Sure, they were fewer when Bowie lived there in the middle of the 70s, but not as few as that, so I attest as a native. The rock journalist, who wrote for the L.A. Times for so long so well, Robert Hilburn's surname is misspelled. Finally, the "Black Country" dialect of English once spoken in the land of Slade would not have been its "Middle English" form a thousand years before the likes of Sabbath, but "Old" as known in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Mercia. Overall, given the thousands of factoids, Reynolds keeps the flow steady, the wit intact, and the sociological observations both incisive and insightful.

[Clare · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that I did go into this book with some preconceived ideas about it. I thought it'd be 90% Slade, Sweet and T-Rex but thinking that this was a bit of a gap in my musical knowledge, dove straight in. Shock and Awe, to my delight, has turned out to be so much more. Simon Reynolds is a hugely skilled writer, his fantastic Energy Flash which covers rave music remains a favourite of mine and his research is second to none. David Bowie looms as large over this book as he does over much of modern music. Reynolds thoroughly covers his early years as Bowie searches for a style that'll stick and then struggles with the pressure of keeping up various characters while grappling with a huge drug problem. There's a touching tribute to Bowie towards the end, the author hearing of his death just as he was finishing up this book. The end section is a fascinating read, the influence of glam rock is still present today in artists such as Lady Gaga and to some degree, even Kanye West. There's a great chapter on Marc Bolan, he was quite the storyteller in his interviews, often exaggerating real events in order to make himself appear more interesting and the reader is left wondering that if it were not for his death, would he be such an iconic figure today. Shock and Awe is full of little delights and mentions that'll send you running to seek out bands and have you making your own playlist to accompany your read. A fantastic book from an excellent writer.

I received a free ARC from Netgalley in exchange for a fair review.