Mp32 5016

The most iconic band of the U.K. glam rock scene of the '70s, T. Rex were the creation of Marc Bolan, who started out as a cheerfully addled acolyte of psychedelia and folk-rock until he turned to swaggering rock & roll with boogie rhythm and a tricked-up fashion sense. For a couple years, T. Rex were the biggest band in England and a potent cult item in the United States. If their stardom didn't last, their influence did, and T. Rex's dirty but playful attitude and Bolan's sense of style and rock star moves would show their influence in metal, punk, new wave, and alternative rock; it's all but impossible to imagine the '80s new romantic scene existing without Bolan's influence. In 1977, Bolan was killed in a car accident, and the band disbanded.

Having reinvented himself as a bionic soulboy across the course of 1974's Zinc Alloy, Bolan's Zip Gun was less a reiteration of Marc Bolan's new direction than a confirmation of it. Much of the album returns to the understated romp he had always excelled at – the delightful knockabout "Precious Star," the unrepentant boogie of "Till Dawn" and the pounding title track all echo with the effortless lightheartedness which was Bolan at his most carelessly buoyant, while "Token of My Love" is equally incandescent, a playful blues which swiftly became a major in-concert favorite. But the essence of Zip Gun remains firmly in the funky pastures which characterized Zinc Alloy, with the only significant difference lying in the presentation.

The first (but certainly not the last) of the compilations issued in the wake of T. Rex's U.K. chart breakthrough, Bolan Boogie was also many of the band's new fans' first chance to acquaint themselves with all that Marc Bolan had done in the past – a point which the compilers certainly kept in mind. The catalog at their disposal was vast, reaching back to the acoustic birth of Tyrannosaurus Rex. Sensibly, however, Bolan Boogie concentrates on the material that lived up its title – aside from one cut drawn from 1969's Unicorn, the entire album dated from the arrival of Mickey Finn, and the attendant headlong dive into electricity launched by the Beard of Stars album, and culminating with the epochal Electric Warrior album. Some incontrovertible classics emerge.

By 1973's Tanx, the T. Rex hit-making machine was beginning to show some wear and tear, but Marc Bolan still had more than a few winners up his sleeve. It was also admirable that Bolan was attempting to broaden the T. Rex sound – soulful backup singers and horns are heard throughout, a full two years before David Bowie used the same formula for his mega-seller Young Americans. However, Tanx did not contain any instantly recognizable hits, as their past couple of releases had, and the performances were not quite as vibrant, due to non-stop touring and drug use. Despite an era of transition looming on the horizon for the band, tracks such as "Rapids," "Highway Knees," "The Street & Babe Shadow," and "Born to Boogie" contain the expected classic T. Rex sound.

Whoever may believe that he has found, in this book, a collection of recipes through which he can effortlessly obtain honor, fame, wealth and power or the means to annihilate his enemies should be told that eventually he will very disappointedly put this book aside.

Although Enigma Records was better known for its connection to the mid-'80s Paisley Underground scene (Rain Parade, Game Theory, etc.), the Los Angeles-based indie was also among the first to document the rebirth of glam metal, which overtook the L.A. club scene at the same time, by issuing the first album by Mötley Crüe, Poison, and others. The glam-poppy Lizzy Borden was also ran in the hair metal sweepstakes, but its debut album, 1985's Love You to Pieces, holds up better than many other documents from the era. The packaging, complete with faux-goth band logo and the requisite hot big-haired chick in lingerie, is crushingly obvious, and the entire album flirts with cliché.

The most blatantly, and brilliantly, portentous of Marc Bolan's albums since the transitional blurring of boundaries that was Beard of Stars, almost seven years prior, Futuristic Dragon opens on a wave of unrelenting feedback, guitars and bombast, setting an apocalyptic mood for the record which persists long after that brief (two minutes) overture is over. Indeed, even the quintessential bop of the succeeding "Jupiter Liar" is irrevocably flavored by what came before, dirty guitars churning beneath a classic Bolan melody, and the lyrics a spiteful masterpiece. While the oddly Barry White-influenced "Ride My Wheels" continues flirting with the neo-funk basics of 1975's Bolan's Zip Gun, the widescreen sonic majesty of Futuristic Dragon was, if anything, even more gratuitously ambitious than its predecessor.

Marc Bolan welcomed the advent of punk rock with the biggest smile he'd worn in years. The hippest young gunslingers could go on all night about the influence of the Velvet Underground, the Stooges, and the Ramones, but Bolan knew – and subsequent developments proved – that every single one of them had been nurtured in his arms, growing up with the ineffable stream of brilliant singles he slammed out between 1970-1972, and rehearsing their own stardom to the soundtrack he supplied. With tennis racquet guitars and hairbrushes for mikes, they stood before the mirror and practiced the Bolan Boogie. Of course, most punks only knew three chords.