As someone who came of age during the Vietnam War, I have long been intrigued by the era known as The Sixties and its aftermath. Glam rock is a culturally significant part of that transition, part of the story of the The Sixties became The Seventies. Arguably, glam rock was the first fully developed post-countercultural genre of rock music. Looking at how it was performed by contrast with the performance conventions of the psychedelic rock closely associated with the hippie counterculture can tell us a great deal about the shifts in aesthetic, political, social, and cultural priorities that unfolded at this important moment. In many ways, psychedelic rock and glam rock are polar opposites. Whereas psychedelic rock emphasized musical virtuosity and seriousness, glam rock emphasized accessibility and fun. If psychedelic rock was suspicious of the spectacle and theatricality, glam rock celebrated those aspects of performance. Whereas psychedelic rock, as a countercultural form, always had an uneasy relationship to the market through which it was disseminated, glam embraced the concept of the hit single. If psychedelic rock addressed its audience as a collective whose actions could ultimately transform global politics, glam rock addressed its audience as individuals with the power to transform only themselves. - Philip Auslander
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:16:34 +0000
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