Glam rock (from “glamour”) is a rock style that flourished in the early 1970s in Britain. It combined simple, catchy rock'n'roll with unprecedented attention to the visual image: glittering costumes, make-up, platform boots, and deliberate androgyny.
Its key figures were Marc Bolan with the band T. Rex and, of course, David Bowie with his legendary stage alter ego Ziggy Stardust. Glam rock turned the concert into a vivid theatrical show and challenged established notions of gender and self-expression. Although as a mass wave it did not last long, its influence is enormous: the aesthetic of flamboyance and transformation lives on in glam metal, punk, goth, and in the entire subsequent tradition of stage image in pop and rock music.
