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Glam rock is a subgenre of Rock & Roll that developed mainly in Britain during The Seventies. As far as the music itself went, glam bands was the mainstream alternative to the nascent Progressive Rock and Heavy Metal genres, with songs that evoked the kind of good old fashioned rock 'n' roll of The Fifties and The Sixties, which won a lot of glam bands the same kind of huge teenage audiences that had screamed at the The Beatles and The Rolling Stones in the last decade.
What really identifies glam rock and set it apart was its focus on image. This was the age of outlandish costumes and theatrical on-stage antics, often highly sexualised. Just as the music often seemed like it was trying to evoke rock's rebellious attitude, the fashion and energetic performances aimed to dress it up in over-the-top grandeur.
As mentioned above, glam rock was primarily popular in the UK, where the genre was split into three subgenres. For the artistically-inclined listener there was the artsy stylings of David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust persona, the over the top operatic art rock of Queen, and the synth-trickery of Roxy Music. Beloved by teenagers were the straight-up rock and roll acts such as T. Rex, Gary Glitter, Mott the Hoople and Showaddywaddy. Finally, there were harder rocking groups like Slade and Sweet, whose fusion of pop-melodies with loud guitars and drums would be a significant influence on Hair Metal ten years later.
Although it's heyday has long since passed, glam rock has been highly influential in the development of popular music. Hair Metal is an obvious result, but you'd also be hard pressed to find a British Punk Rock, New Romantic or New Wave band not influnced by Bowie or Bryan Ferry, while the simple style and image conscious approach have been a major influnce on Britpop and a lot of contemporary Indie rock.
Often associated with Hair Metal.
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