Performing glam rock Performing glam rock gender and theatricality in popular music
philip auslander
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS Ann Arbor Copyright © by the University of Michigan 2006 All rights reserved Published in the United States of America by The University of Michigan Press Manufactured in the United States of America c Printed on acid-free paper
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Auslander, Philip, 1956– Performing glam rock : gender and theatricality in popular music / Philip Auslander. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13: 978-0-472-09868-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-472-09868-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-13: 978-0-472-06868-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-472-06868-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Rock music— History and criticism. 2. Rock musicians. 3. Gender identity in music. I. Title. ML3534.A9 2006 781.66—dc22 2005017928 for deanna, my own true love acknowledgments
I would like to thank my colleagues and students in the School of Literature, Communication, and Culture of the Georgia Institute of Technology for their support and patience with my nattering about glam rock for quite a few years. I particularly want to acknowledge the students who have participated over the last three years in my Music as Performance course, the proving ground for my approach here. I would also like to thank all those, too numerous to mention, who provided me with venues at conferences and universities in which to present this material: I pro‹ted enormously from the feed- back. A shout-out particularly to Vivian Patraka, whose timely invitation made it much easier for me to ‹nish the project. And thanks to Laci Reed for canine companionship. A number of people were kind enough to read and comment on early versions of these chapters: Susan Fast, Judith Halberstam, Jon McKenzie, Richard Pettengill, and Peter Shapiro. Thank you all. Thanks also to “anonymous” readers Will Straw and Maria Del- gado for your positive reinforcement and good suggestions. Special thanks to LeAnn Fields for her un›agging support and faith in the project. Portions of the introduction were published originally in “Perfor- mance Analysis and Popular Music: A Manifesto,” Contemporary Theatre Review 14.1 (2004). Portions of chapters 1 and 5 appeared in “Good Old Rock and Roll: Performing the 1950s in the 1970s,” Journal of Popular Music Studies 15.2 (2003). An early version of chapter 6 appeared as “I Wanna Be Your Man: Suzi Quatro’s Musi- cal Androgyny,” Popular Music 23.1 (2004). “The Inauthentic Voice: Vocal Production in Glam Rock,” a schematic version of chapter 5, was published in Kunst-Stimmen, ed. Doris Kolesch and Jenny Schrödl (Bonn: Theater der Zeit, 2004). These materials are reprinted here by kind permission of their original publishers. Contents
List of Illustrations xi Introduction Personal and Disciplinary Re›ections 1 1. Glamticipations Rock Faces the 1970s 9 2. Glamography The Rise of Glam Rock 39 3. King of the Highway, Queen of the Hop Marc Bolan and the Evolution of Glam Style 71 4. Who Can I Be Now? David Bowie and the Theatricalization of Rock 106 5. Inauthentic Voices Gender Bending and Genre Blending with Bryan Ferry and Roy Wood 150 6. Suzi Quatro Wants to Be Your Man Female Masculinity in Glam Rock 193 Glamology Glam Rock and the Politics of Identity 227 Works Cited 235 Index 249 illustrations
Table 1. Canonical Glam Rock Artists 43 Fig. 1. Tyrannosaurus Rex, ca. 1968 77 Fig. 2. Marc Bolan, ca. 1972 93 Fig. 3. David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust, ca. 1973 125 Fig. 4. Mick Ronson and David Bowie, ca. 1973 142 Fig. 5. Roxy Music, ca. 1972 155 Fig. 6. Roy Wood performing with Wizzard, ca. 1974 184 Fig. 7. Suzi Quatro, ca. 1974 202