Why didn't Americans love glam rock?
>>131270643Too goofy. Not what Americans in the 70s wanted to hear.
>>131270667But Americans loved glam metal
American audiences back then wanted sincere tough guy rock and singer-songwriters, they did not go for guys dressed in drag singing ironic jokey songs.
rock was on a low eb in the 70s, replaced by disco and country and soul and funk and r&b, underground metal and punk were being born though.glam rock was a bit gay and bowie said he always regretted coming out as bisexual cause that hurt him in the american market.anyways, by the 80s america would embrace glam metal instead
>>131270643one issue was that bands like Slade were singles acts and didn't have good albums
1. it was kind of gay2. it was one of the first and direct attacks on hippies and boomers, glam was for the boomers younger brother. as perfectly summed up in the song all the young dudes which has lyrics like "my brothers back at home with his beatles and his stones, we never got it off on that revolution stuff, what a drag, too many snags"
>>131270643not doing enough work to tour in the US was an issue. Bowie and Queen actually did tour their asses off here and built an audience, Slade and 10cc didn't seem to want to bother.>>131270844further, Bowie and Queen did make proper albums and weren't just singles artists
>>131270643???"glam rock" is effectively synonymous with classic hard rock, and Americanly embodied by Aerosmith, so...?
>>131270745only New York City and LA could get behind the glam aesthetic because they're naturally theatrical cities. you weren't going to get Billy-Bob in East Cousinfuck, Missouri to listen to Slade. his niece Kayleigh later had to move to LA to get noticed.
>>131270985american glam is more like alice cooper and the new york dolls
>>131271048The Dolls really had no audience outside NYC though, again you were not going to get heartland state listeners into that shit to save your life.
>>131270643>>131270745At the time FM DJs wielded tons of power as did the rock critic establishment and for them rock had to be very serious, political, etc and had no room for laughs. Cuckgau was an exception since he was from New York and New Yorkers were more accepting of androgyny and self-aware jokes.
>>131270643The issue with glam rock in the UK is that its audience was very kiddie, mostly 10-14 year olds while older people listened to different stuff, but there wasn't really room for that in the US.
>>131270643you didn't do cross-dressing stuff back then and win friends and influence people, Americans were pretty homophobic outside a few places like San Francisco and many states still criminalized butt secks.
>>131270667>>131271099there wasn't a lot of room for laughs given everything that happened from November 22, 1963 to August 9, 1974
>>131271048alice cooper is aerosmith but edgy
>>131270745How'd KISS pull it off though?
>>131271321KISS had a more tough guy look which was not what Slade or The Sweet did.
>>131271335they still took a while to launch and weren't successful until Alive
>>131271321KISS dressed sci-fi which kids loved in the decade of Star Wars. Also their music wasn't about gay shit.
Glam rock had the problem of being too rock for AM radio but not rock enough for FM. The big rock acts in the early 70s were the Stones, Grand Funk, Zeppelin, Alice Cooper, CSNY, etc.>>131270891Flyover state rock fans weren't big on Bowie's aesthetic at first but he did work hard to build a US audience and ultimately won acceptance.
>>131270643Musically, glam rock was closer in spirit to 1955-65 rock and tended to be basic simple 3 minute ditties, it didn't have extended jamming or complicated song structures.
>>131270643for one thing rock was serious business to American kids in the 70s and not meant ironically or in jest>>131271383KISS looked like comic book superheroes instead of cross dressers or 50s-style futurists like Roxy Music. Probably the wacky glam outfits looked visually exciting in gray, rainy England.
>>131270667the US has always been a challenge because of its size and regional tastes being widely varied. what sells in NYC won't necessarily sell in Texas. in the 70s only a few acts like the Stones and Zeppelin could command a nationwide audience.
Don Powell of Slade had said interviews what went wrong for them.>didn't quite fit on either AM or FM>lack of record label support>getting put on the bill with literally anyone even when the pairings included acts like Sly Stone or the Eagles that made no sense>some publicist made the foolhardy move of calling them the new Beatles>trying to convince stoner audiences to get up and dance (what's wrong, they do it in England? why not here?)
>>131271415kind of. glam rock was mostly get-up-and-party songwriting that was a callback to 50s R&R but that was not what Americans in the 70s went for
KISS made it because they did have the macho rock songs about getting laid and stuff that sold to Americans at the time. Camp, irony, and literary bullshit were not accepted. They must have thought Bryan Ferry was some kind of homo Dracula. the New York Dolls were a throwback to 60s garage rock, they dressed in drag and didn't have 10 minute solos.
>>131270643glam rock was too gay and too self aware
The following have probably been mentioned, but here goes:>Americans had no (and still don't have) sense of irony, or of the absurd.>Americans took rock Very Seriously in the 70s. No Humor Allowed.>Americans are also homophobic and would not stand for anything that might be in question, or that would explore possibilities.>Americans don't understand "camp", and are threatened by it.
>>131270891to be fair a lot of big US acts like Grand Funk, Grateful Dead, and Chicago were not much of a going concern in England
>>131271674the Dead never toured Europe much but when they did they always had a huge audience. Chicago did have some success over there. I agree GFR were a non-factor but they never really tried for European audiences anyway.
Moot the Hoople were reasonably successful in the US and did sell out venues in flyover country, but they were marketed as hard rock and were known for their live performances.
>>131271545The drugs that were mainly popular with Americans in the 70s didn't lend themselves well to getting up and boogie-ing. Brits for contrast were into speed rather than 'ludes and pot.
Britain had a longstanding drag tradition from music halls. Although the Stones and Zeppelin flirted with a glam image, hard rock was generally seen as super-macho. Also a lot of the glam rock bands weren't outstanding musicians or songwriters.
>>131271545The idea of Eagles or CSNY fans having Slade as an opening act is almost too hilarious to contemplate.
Gary Glitter's "Rock and Roll Pt 2" was pretty successful as was his only US LP and the song was used as a sports stadium anthem until stuff happened and he got cancelled or something.
I hear T Rex Bang a Gong occasionally on the classic rock radio still. When I was in uni late 2010s I knew some like band kid/rym/wannabe hippie type kids who liked them
>>131270643those bands were pretty gimmicky and it was more about the outrageous costumes than the music
>>131273288This, IMO a lot of glam rock is hard to identify as such without seeing how the performer looks
As anon said, glam rock was targeted mostly at 10-14 year olds but that audience in the US didn't really listen to stuff like that they were more into gimmick records like "They're Coming To Take Me Away."
>>131271444KISS obviously knew about glam rock since musicians tend to know more of what's happening than the average listener, but they managed to turn it into something that was more marketable to Americans.
