Your way in
Glam rock 1971
Rock in glitter, platform boots and calculated ambiguity. The spectacle is half the music.
- Heaviness
- 4
- Speed
- 5
- Melody
- 9
- Where from
- United Kingdom
- Tempo
- 110-150 bpm
- Song length
- 3-4.5 min
- Written about
- Persona and artifice, Sex and ambiguity, Teenage life, Stardom, self-referentially
- Vocals
- Sung
Why this one
| You said | Glam rock | Match | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| No words at all When someone is singing, what should come out? | clean | 80% | ×3 |
| There, but not the point How much weight do you want behind it? | 4 out of 10 | 90% | ×2 |
| A steady walk What pace? | 5 out of 10 | 100% | ×2 |
| The beginnings Does it matter when it was made? | 1971 | 92% | ×1 |
| The inside of a head What should the words be about? | Persona and artifice, Sex and ambiguity, Teenage life, Stardom, self-referentially | 50% | ×1 |
| Normal How long should a song be? | up to 4.5 min | 100% | ×1 |
| Weighted mean | 86% | ||
Ranked over all 150 genres in the encyclopedia, on the 6 answers you gave, weighted vocals 3, heaviness 2, pace 2, era 1, about 1, length 1 out of 10. Glam rock ties with the next, and won on being the broader of the two. Where two genres score the same the broader one wins, because a genre with subgenres under it is somewhere to carry on from and a leaf is a full stop.
Five records, in this order
- 1Start one step outside
- 2The one to put on first
T. Rex, Electric Warrior 1971
T. Rex - Electric Warrior. The simplest and most effective record in the genre.
- 3Then
- 4Then
- 5Then
Slade, Slayed? 1972
The first is the entry point for Hard rock, one step outside, so the second record has something to be heard against. After it come Glam rock's essential records in the order the encyclopedia lists them. Every one of these has a page here with links out to somewhere it can be played.
If that is not it
-
Art rock 86%
Rock made by art-school graduates: concept, image and experiment ahead of formula. It overlaps with prog but cares far less about virtuosity.
4 steps from Glam rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Art rock -
Proto-punk 84%
Garage rock turned hostile and repetitive, with noise and nihilism. Nobody called it punk yet, but everyone at CBGB copied from it.
6 steps from Glam rock, meeting it only at Rock.
The way into Proto-punk
Not simply the second and third of the ranking: those are almost always near neighbours of the first, which is three names for one suggestion. An alternate has to sit at least 4 steps through the tree from the headline and from the other alternate, which is the same floor the "sounds like this, but isn't" panel uses.
What your answers ruled out
- No words at all put 33 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Black metal, Death metal, Grindcore. Worth 3 of 10.
- The beginnings put 67 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Folk metal, Metalcore, Nu metal. Worth 1 of 10.
- The inside of a head put 88 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Punk rock, Hardcore punk, Black metal. Worth 1 of 10.
- Normal put 13 genres at the bottom of that one question, among them Progressive rock, Krautrock, Acid rock. Worth 1 of 10.
Counted as genres scoring 20% or less on that answer alone. A recommendation that only shows what it chose is hiding half of what it did.