The 25 best Glam Rock albums

11 June 2026, 15:00

Glam rock burnt brightly and briefly in the early 1970s bridging the gap between hard rock and heavy metal, while adding its own distinctive look. From Bowie and T-Rex to Roxy and Queen and beyond, here are the essential long players from the genre.

What is Glam Rock, exactly?

Glam rock was loud, theatrical, playful and proudly artificial. Emerging in the early 1970s, it mixed hard guitar riffs with pop hooks, tinsel and tin-foil, make-up on blokes, platform boots and flamboyant stage personas.

Artists such as David Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music and Slade turned the standard rock performance into spectacle, blurring the lines between masculine and feminine style. Glam's impact went beyond music, challenging ideas about identity, fashion and celebrity, making self-invention part of pop culture.

It opened space for later punk, new wave and synth-pop acts, proving that image and attitude could be as powerful as music in shaping cultural movements.

1. T-Rex - Electric Warrior: release date 24th September 1971

   Marc Bolan's metamorphosis from folk rock pixie to glam superstar seemed to happen overnight and his run of singles between Ride A White Swan in October 1970 and Children Of The Revolution in September made him untouchable as Britain's premier teen hearthrob.

   Albums were not Bolan's strong point, with Electric Warrior being, incredibly, his only chart topper, containing the irresistible singles Get It On and Jeepster. After the glory of the 20th Century Boy single in the Spring of '73, Bolan lost his grip on his glam supremacy and an old rival soon eclipsed him (see below).

   

2. David Bowie - The Rise & Fall Of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars: release date 16th June 1972

   The essential glam document of the era concerns an androgynous, bisexual rock star from space, hitting all the notes that typified the genre: rock 'n' roll pastiche, over-the-top theatrics and extravagant costumes.

   It was as far away from the earnest, "serious" world of rock as it was possible to be in the early 1970s and paved the way for punk, New Romantics, goth and Britpop. With the hit single Starman, Bowie trounced Marc Bolan as the king of 70s pop in Britain. There would be no stopping him now.

   

3. Roxy Music - Roxy Music: release date 16th June 1972

   Roxy were on the art-rock end of the glam spectrum, but with frontman Bryan Ferry dressed as some futuristic Teddy Boy and the mysterious Brian Eno twiddling a synthesiser wrapped in a feather boa and daubed in make-up, the band were the other major influence on British music of the era, alongside Bowie.

   Their debut forsakes a band photo for a 1950s-style pin-up shot, while the music looks back at the rock 'n' roll era and forward to the next decade's obsession with technology.

   

4. Mott The Hoople - All The Young Dudes: release date 8th September 1972

   The British band led by Ian Hunter were set to break up when David Bowie stepped in and gave them the song All The Young Dudes, producing the accompanying album into the bargain.

   Mott were essentially the spiritual brothers of the Spiders From Mars, with Bowie adding some sparkle to their tough rock. The group would nurture the next wave by taking Queen with them on a tour of the USA in 1974.

   

5. Lou Reed - Transformer: release date 8th November 1972

   Despite poor contemporary record sales. The Velvet Underground were a huge influence on 1970s rock, and a huge favourite of David Bowie, who produced frontman Lou Reed's second solo album assisted by sideman Mick Ronson.

   Reed's masterpiece includes stories that delve into sexual orientation, gender identity and drug use, often controversial but utterly accessible with tracks like Satellite Of Love, Perfect Day and Walk On The Wild Side.

   

6. Slade - Slayed? Released 1st December 1972

   With three UK number 1 singles under their collective belt in the previous 12 months, the Wolverhampton wonders ended 1972 with their third studio album, their reputation bolstered by the release of a raucous live album earlier in the year.

   The Gered Mankowitz-shot cover photo was iconic enough, but the LP includes the chart-topping Mama Weer All Crazee Now, the Lennon-ish Gudbuy T'Jane and rounds off with a medley of Let The Good Times Roll and Feel So Fine to remind everyone of Slade's rock 'n' roll roots.

   

7. Iggy & The Stooges - Raw Power: release date 7th February 1973

   Punk pioneers The Stooges were on their last legs when Iggy Pop's saviour David Bowie came along to produce their first collection of new material in three years. Founding member Ron Asheton was demoted from guitar to bass in favour of James Williamson and Pop was struggling with a heroin addiction, but the team recorded enough tracks for an album in a London studio in just one day.

   Bowie used a daft invention called a "Time Cube" to get a weird echo-laden mix, which pretty much everyone hated - a situation Iggy would rectify with his own remix in 1997. While a huge influence on punk, Raw Power's glam credentials are still considerable, with a Mick Rock cover photo featuring Pop in lamé trousers and make-up.

   

8. Alice Cooper - Billion Dollar Babies: release date 27th February 1973

   The name Alice Cooper was still the name of the band and not the singer when the follow-up to 1972's School's Out came along, capitalising on that LP's title track with songs like Elected and No More Mr Nice Guy. The group's peak glam moment, Cooper himself pushed their live show into new, shocking areas and soon after went solo.

   

9. Wizzard - Wizzard Brew: released March 1973

   After bailing out on Jeff Lynne in the early days of the Electric Light Orchestra, Roy Wood began his own project, Wizzard, who had a glorious run of singles, kicking off with Ball Park Incident and the chart-topper See My Baby Jive, which arrived a month after this debut album.

   It's more challenging than you'd expect from the band that brought you I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday, with most of the first side given over to a 13-minute saxophone-fuelled epic, Meet Me At The Jailhouse and the closer, Wear A Fast Gun, originally intended for ELO. It's a vital part of Wood's back catalogue, offering up new possibilities for the drab 1970s.

   

10. 10cc - 10cc: released July 1973

    The Stockport-based group of songwriters featured Kevin Godley, Lol Creme, Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman, but the team leaned towards the intelligent art-rock side of music.

    This a fine glam-era album, however, offering 1950s pastiches like Rubber Bullets, Donna and The Dean & I, any one of which could have a Grease-style musical based around them. Full of invention, fizzing instrumentation and often hilarious lyrics, it's an underrated gem.

    

11. Queen - Queen: release date 13th July 1973

    The classic British band's debut is full of Led Zeppelin-isms, but from the driving opener Keep Yourself Alive, there's a glam heart beating underneath the mystical tales of Rhye, fairy kings and queens and the like. Queen's ambition would only get grander and more baroque from here.

    

12. New York Dolls - New York Dolls: release date 27th July 1973

    Imagine taking Goat's Head Soup-era Mick Jagger and pushing the looks, the lifestyle and the attitude way beyond what was commonly acceptable in 1973 and you'd go someway to encapsulating what the New York Dolls were all about. Way, way ahead of their time, the Dolls were built around singer David Johansen and guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, with production by the established musician Todd Rundgren.

    With songs like Trash and Personality Crisis, this sound was developing in New York just as Bowie was splitting the Spiders From Mars back in Britain, where listeners like John Lydon and Morrissey were taking notes.

    

13. Jobriath - Jobriath: released October 1973

    The New York Dolls were not the ultimate outliers in the glam landscape in late 1973 - that honour must go to another Steven Patrick Morrissey obsession, one Bruce Campbell aka Jobriath, a former member of the cast of Hair who came to the attention of Carly Simon's manager. Signed to Elektra, Jobriath was conceived as the "American David Bowie" and despite a huge promotional push, his debut album did nothing commercially on either side of the Atlantic - which is surprising as it's a lush production that lies somewhere between Hunky Dory and the Rocky Horror soundtrack.

    It remains as one of the great glam "what if"s: an openly gay musician in an era of extreme prejudice, who could have become a global superstar in the wake of Bowie. It wasn't to be - the follow-up, Creatures Of The Street, featured Peter Frampton and Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, but also failed to find much of an audience. Jobriath announced his retirement in January 1975 and he died in August 1983 at the tragically young age of 36, a victim of the AIDS crisis.

    

14. Suzi Quatro - Suzi Quatro: released October 1973

    Hailing from Detroit, Michigan, Quatro had served time in an all-female garage rock band called The Pleasure Seekers, but come the turn of the 70s, she attracted the attention of Elektra Records, who saw a new female star in the mould of Janis Joplin. Heading to the UK, she hooked up with producer Mickie Most and songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman, who crafted a band around her and wrote the storming single Can The Can, which topped the British charts in June 1973.

    The opposite of the femininely-styled male artist that was essential to the glam rock scene, Quatro wore a leather catsuit, played bass guitar and was accompanied by a band of tough-looking male musicians. This debut album includes the follow-up hit, '48 Crash and covers of Shakin' All Over, All Shook Up and The Beatles' I Wanna Be Your Man.

    

15. Elton John - Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: release date 5th October 1973

    Elton certainly had a glam phase, which roughly coincides with the release of Rocket Man in March 1972 and peaks with his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album in the autumn of 1973. Over this 18-month period, his live show became more elaborate, the glasses became more outrageous and his music tapped into the 50s aesthetic with tracks like Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, Bennie And The Jets and the Marilyn Monroe tribute Candle In The Wind.

    Elton's most glam moment, however, would be his appearance in Ken Russell's movie version of The Who's Tommy in early 1975: the singer-songwriter appearing atop the biggest pair of boots you've ever seen, performing Pinball Wizard.

    

16. Mick Ronson - Slaughter On 10th Avenue: released February 1974

    Bowie's sideman in the Spiders From Mars was earmarked for a solo career by the superstar's MainMan production company (partly as a precaution against their golden goose going off the boil post-Ziggy). But Ronno was maybe not the strongest vocalist with an eye to becoming a teen heart-throb - which means it's a little unfair to kick off the album with a cover of the Elvis standard Love Me Tender. To give you some idea of the glam theatricality that was sweeping the scene, the title track is a cover version of an instrumental from a 1930s movie musical, complete with an ornate Mike Garson piano part.

    

17. KISS - KISS: release date 8th February 1974

    At some point, following the sweeping changes brought in by punk, glam evolved into more glitzy version of heavy rock and alongside Queen, KISS were the band that would ease the transition. The Detroit band's debut album has all the key ingredients of glam - make-up, air-punching anthems - but with the riffing and sexually-charged swagger that would become the whole poodle rock phenomenon in the 80s. Kicking off with the superbly-titled Strutter, this was the LP that would make KISS one of the biggest bands in America in the 70s.

    

18. Brian Eno - Here Come The Warm Jets: release date 8th February 1974

    After Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry fell out, Eno left Roxy Music and began a long and strangely influential journey that would see him work with everyone from David Bowie to U2. Firstly, however, he had a solo career to take care of and this initial outing was suitably peculiar, with guest appearances from Roxy's Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson and Phil Manzanera, Hawkwind's Simon King and King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp and a notable track in the shape of Baby's On Fire.

    

19. Sparks - Kimono My House: release date 1st May 1974

    Brothers Ron and Russell Mael had been operating as Halfnelson under the tutelage of rock hero Todd Rundgren for a couple of years, before they changed their name to Sparks and headed to Britain to try their luck. Their rockier third album Kimono My House was a smash in this country, as was the singles This Town Ain't Big Enough For The Both Of Us and Amateur Hour, while Russell was something of a teen heart-throb over here - check out the footage of the band playing Croydon's Fairfield Hall the following year to see Sparksmania in full flight.

    

20. Be Bop Deluxe - Axe Victim: released June 1974

    This Yorkshire band were compared to David Bowie on this first album, an angle that frontman Bill Nelson wasn't keen on, so subsequent albums drifted more into art rock and prog. This line-up would only last until the end of 1974, with Nelson arranging a whole new version of Be-Bop.

    

21. Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - The Psychomodo: release date 2nd June 1974

    Harley was a member of the folk rock band Odin, before forming his own outfit, Cockney Rebel, in 1972. Signing to EMI after just five gigs, the band's debut album The Human Menagerie failed to make any impression, prompting Harley to toughen up his approach with a standalone single, Judy Teen, which made the Top 5 in June 1974. It wasn't included on the album The Psychomodo, but another Top 10 smash, Mr Soft, was - a grotesque, carnivalesque ditty that sums up Harley's theatrical leanings perfectly.

    

22. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band - The Impossible Dream: release date 4th October 1974

    Skirting on the outer edges of glam was Glasgow-born singer Harvey, whose band were one of the most distinctive-looking of the era: guitarist Zal Cleminson would appear as a harlequin clown, with full white-face make-up. Their third album was originally recorded with former Who and Kinks producer Shel Talmy, but the SAHB (as they were known) scrapped the sessions and started anew.

    The result was The Impossible Dream, which made Number 16 in the album charts, but didn't spawn any hits (their first Top 40 entry was with the Tom Jones cover, Delilah, in July '75). A hugely popular live act in Britain and Europe, Harvey had an influence on a the next generation of musicians, with The Cure's Robert Smith calling him "the forerunner of the punk movement".

    

23. Sweet - Desolation Boulevard: release date 15th November 1974

    The British band's best album is clearly a greatest hits collection, but this is the next best thing when it comes to a studio LP. Shaking off both their early "bubblegum" pop years and the dominance of songwriters Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman on the Sweet sound, this album shows the group trying to find a style of their own as the sun sets on the glam era. Chinn and Chapman lead off the album with The Six Teens, but the self-penned Fox On The Run is probably the last great glam single, its bubbling synthesiser making Number 2 in April 1975.

    

24. The Tubes - The Tubes: released June 1975

    After the New York Dolls, The Tubes were the prophets of the new wave in America, with their single White Punks On Dope being something of a calling card for the next generation. The band's outrageous image often threatened to overwhelm the music, but the operatic, cynical had an influence on everyone from the Ramones to Mötley Crüe.

    

25. The Arrows - First Hit: released April 1976

    It wouldn't be a glam rock list if we didn't include at least one "boy band" from the era, and while the Bay City Rollers occupied their own peculiar niche, other contenders like the Heavy Metal Kids, Slik, Flintlock and Kenny all had an impact on the charts. But we've gone for the Arrows, now best known for recording the original version of I Love Rock 'N' Roll, later made into a huge international hit by Joan Jett.

    Their solitary studio album has the majority of tunes written by the songwriting teams of Nicky Chinn/Mike Chapman and Bill Martin/Phil Coulter, so it's competent stuff, appearing on Mickie Most's RAK label - a sure sign of glam quality. The album includes the Slik song Boogiest Band In Town, which was the theme tune to the Arrows' own TV series which unfortunately coincided with a legal dispute with their label, meaning they couldn't release any music while the show was on air! That's showbiz.