Drongoes in the dress-up box: glam rock in Australia
Date
2016
Authors
Oldham, P.
Editors
Chapman, I.
Johnson, H.
Johnson, H.
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Book chapter
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Source details - Title: Global glam and popular music : style and spectacle from the 1970s to the 2000s, 2016 / Chapman, I., Johnson, H. (ed./s), Ch.18, pp.258-271
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Abstract
This chapter investigates the infiltration, reception, and impact of glam rock in Australia, assessing the ways glam music, practices, and (particularly gendered) performance were adapted and transformed to suit its specific national palate. It first outlines the reception of glam by Australian audiences, using extensive canvassing of its reportage in popular national pop-music paper Go-Set.3 Following this is an exploration of how glam aesthetics and music were picked up and interpreted by Australian acts such as Skyhooks, Sherbet, and Hush in the phenomenon’s second age from 1974 through to 1976, and how in Australia glam traits persisted after it was perceived to have “died off” in the UK, through its spectacular celebration on national color-television pop-music program Countdown and the theatrical Rocky Horror Show. A short case study examines some of the ways the glam phenomenon manifested and, to an important extent, was transformed in the consumption practices of the tough working-class youth culture known as the Sharpies. In addressing all of these matters, the chapter offers one example of the diverse ways that glam was expressed and received in specific international cultural contexts as it was transferred from the UK (and, to a lesser degree the US).
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Copyright 2016 Taylor & Francis