Glam!

Rampant dandyism, spangly jumpsuits, platform shoes the height of petrol pumps . . . there was a time during the early '70s when rock 'n' roll gate-crashed the pantomime circuit and made our weekly visit to Top of the Pops a cross-dressing extravaganza of licks, kicks, and lip gloss. T. Rex plays town crier for our heavily made-up Glam homage, with "Get It On".

Now run, like Alice Cooper's eyeliner, to Next Steps.

Spearheading the glam-bangers back in the day was T. Rex front man Marc Bolan, who consistently put out great tunes (like "Jeepster") while dolled up in camp finery many moons before the glory days of David Bowie in his Ziggy Stardust phase. A welcome addition to the U.K. glam contingent came from Los Angeles in the Anglophiliac form of Sparks ("Amateur Hour").

If you think a rock star is underdressed without a feather boa, go to Deep Cuts.

The seeds of American punk can be found in glam rock, hence our inclusion of Iggy Pop ("Raw Power") and the New York Dolls ("Personality Crisis", see Basics), who played with the swagger of the Stones and looked like transvestite guttersnipes in search of illicit sweets on Halloween. Their impact was lasting, unlike that of overlooked glam outfits Blackfoot Sue and Hello, who were killed off by punk.

Absurd yet electrifying, the glam movement was a spangled alliance of genius and buffoonery — a supremely entertaining rock variety show that accommodated the drunken-uncle theatrics of Gary Glitter, the crowd-pleasing holiday-camp romper-stomping of Mud ("Tiger Feet"), the Grand Guignol showmanship of Alice Cooper, the pop-rockin'-lite of ABBA's Euro-visionary "Waterloo", the proto-punkery of the New York Dolls, and the teenage tomboy hell-raising of Suzi Quatro . . . not to mention the timeless charisma of Bowie, Bolan, and Bryan Ferry. Pass the lip gloss, boys.