Performing Glam Rock: Gender and Theatricality in Popular Music Paperback – February 1, 2006

Although I've only recently begun to read up on performance studies, it seems to me that Auslander has chosen a particularly illustrative case study in glam rock. Within a genre so explicitly focused on the construction and performance of identity, it's actually a bit surprising that this book hadn't already been written.While Auslander comes from the performance studies tradition, Performing Glam Rock also serves as a great overview of the genre. The book includes a great deal of history, making it a worthwhile read for anyone interested in the genre. The big guns are profiled in depth to illustrate the glam's traits: Bolan (style), Bowie (theatricality), Roxy Music (gender) and Suzi Quatro (more gender, specifically female masculinity).Overall, an accessible and compelling read.

I was impressed with this highly nuanced treatment of an often neglected genre. What would make this book even more perfect would be the release of a digital copy.

Glam Rock was a short lived moment in popular music that essentially lasted only about five or six years, say from 1970 to 1975. In 1970 we were long past the time when Ed Sullivan would only show Elvis from the waist up. The pill has made basic changes in the outlook of the young towards sex. Here in the US, the Viet Nam war, Watergate and Kent state were changing the view of the people.In music the time was ripe for a change and a series of musicians did that with a new form of rock that featured extremely theatrical performances with outrageous (for the time) costume, makeup and sets. This was called Glam Rock. It drew upon the history of previous styles of rock and added a theatrical aspect to music that was minimally modified.This book traces the history of Glam Rock from its beginnings with T. Rex and goes through the advent of Suzi Quatro. It explains what Glam Rock was and a bit about how it evolved into the next phase of music.

Performing Glam Rock does a brilliant job of explaining this elusive moment in rock history. For the first time we have a book which makes sense of glam: pretty boys (and one girl) in lurex and make up who swept away rock's no-performance code. As Phil Auslander shows, glam subverted rock's gender sterotyping too, and opened up the possiblity of new kinds of expression around sex and identity.Along the way we get some engaging, funny and always insighful anlysis of the performance of glam artists from Bolan to Quatro. It's too early to name a rock book of the year for 2006, but this is surely a candidate.Jason ToynbeeLecturer in Media Studies, Open University

wonderful book !