Glam Greats 2: 20 Seventies Sensations

A fine follow up to Glam Greats, here we have 20 more stomping, drum-pounding, singalong, often rock 'n' roll retro-ing glam classics. 

What's on the menu, Panther?

Well, from Slade we get a sort of pre-glam single from 1971 in the quirky, violin-backed and vaguely folky first big hit of Coz I Luv You and also what was possibly their last true glam hit in the rousing, raucous anthem Skweeze Me Pleeze Me, from the summer of 1974. 

From rivals T. Rex comes the typically-Bolan riffage of the lyrically-perplexing and wall-of-sound attack of Metal Guru and the "hey hey hey" fist-pumping, glam fun of Solid Gold Easy Action. Are The Sweet here? They sure are, with two killers as well - the marvellous let 'em 'ave it teen anthem Teenage Rampage and the equally infectious, irresistible Ballroom Blitz. Contained in these two is the very essence of glam. Bottle it and sell it to people like me. 

From Wizzard, just as on the previous compilation, we get one cracker in the big number one hit from the spring of 1973, the lengthy, Spectoresque and inventive See My Baby Jive and the somewhat disappointing rock n' roll throwback of This Is The Story Of My Love (Baby).

In contrast to on Glam Greats, The Glitter Band give us two complete corkers in Let's Get Together Again and Goodbye My Love. Both real favourites of mine. The Rubettes are here again with the retro rockin' Juke Box Jive, and Showaddywaddy rock once more with the less-impressive Rock 'n' Roll Lady. 

Big hits are here by the Bay City Rollers with the glam ballad Give A Little Love, Suzi Quatro with the lyrically mystifying Can The Can and Mud, with the ebullient Dyna-Mite. By the way, I clearly remember in early summer 1973 when Suzi Quatro first appeared on Top Of The Pops doing Can The Can, leather-clad, toting her guitar on her hip. She was the talk of the playground and the corridors the next morning, particularly for teenage boys like myself. "Did you see her?" was the question everyone asked. We all wanted to unzip that leather catsuit....

A new name is proto-Ramones, leather jacket-clad American trio The Arrows with I Love Rock 'n' Roll, also memorably (and more famously) covered by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts. Goodtime jugband Mungo Jerry are back with the lesser-known Open Up and Barry Blue gets all syrupy on School Love. 

Sparks give us another great one in Amateur Hour (not really glam, more uptempo art rock, but it was from 1974 and Sparks were weird, so what the hell). Also unclassifiable, other than it was a real glam forerunner, is Chicory Tip's wonderful Son Of My Father, from 1972, written by Pete Bellotte and Giorgio Moroder. It was an impossible not to sing along to synth-driven stomper. I have always loved it. 

Again, I think there's about nine number ones on here. 

This, and its predecessor would have been improved by the inclusion of Gary Glitter songs, but sales would have been affected adversely, no doubt. Otherwise, the essence of glam is here in spades. I guess to really sum up the zeitgeist of UK glam 1972-75 some Mott The Hoople, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Elton John and Cockney Rebel glam could be aded, as indeed they are on my "best of glam" playlist, but those artists were more on the credible side. This lot here are on the goofy, fun quintessential side. Proper glam.