Glam!

A gender-bending blend of sonics and fashion, glam planted its glittery musical flag at the intersection of camp, science fiction, proto-punk, and hard rock. Sporting a multi-color lightning bolt across his face that would put Harry Potter's to shame, the Aladdin Sane-era David Bowie embodies the glam movement's bent for dressing up, and his blues-riffing, Yardbirds-style stomp, "The Jean Genie," is its stylish centerpiece. The Sweet rev up their chainsaw guitars and jump on the adrenaline express for "The Ballroom Blitz," as lead singer Brian Connolly trance-channels Screamin' Jay Hawkins at his melodramatic maximum utmost. And T. Rex guitar hero Marc Bolan chunks down one of rock's most memorable riffs in "Bang a Gong (Get It On)," its sugar-and-spice sound emerging from the friction between the guitar's crunch and the silky string section, all wrapped around the sexy sigh of his vocals.

In Next Steps, we hear a band David Bowie kept from breaking up, a future sitcom cult heroine, and more.

Mott The Hoople's bitingly sarcastic "All the Way From Memphis" borrows a honkin' sax riff from Roxy Music's Andy Mackay to lift what could have been just another "ain't life hard on the road" tune out of the slagheap and into the realm of genius. "Fair Exchange" opens Be-Bop Deluxe's third album, Sunburst Finish, with a howl of feedback and a machine-gun blast of bongos before launching into a sexy, twisted, roller-coaster ride through proto-new wave with a side of prog. And looking like The Avengers' Mrs. Peel slinging a bass guitar, a leather-catsuited Suzi Quatro prowls and screams her way over the heavy metal thunder of revving Harleys to "lead the angel pack on the way to sin" in "Devil Gate Drive."

In Deep Cuts, we break out the lipstick, eye shadow…and even a corset as glam hits the stage.

One great New York group deserves another, as punk godfathers the New York Dolls lift the spoken-word intro from the Shangri-Las' "Give Him a Great Big Kiss" to open their rough-and-tumble "Looking For a Kiss." Back when Marilyn Manson was just a demon seed, Alice Cooper had already perfected the formula for heavy metal goth, and in "I'm Eighteen" he celebrates the cusp of adulthood with a growl and a fistful of extra-chunky guitar. You'd think it was hard to belt it out in a corset (not to mention sky-high platform shoes), but Tim Curry, star of both the film and stage versions of The Rocky Horror Show struts his, er, well, something in the freak-flag anthem "Sweet Transvestite," from the Rocky Horror Show Original Cast album.

The scene was ripped straight out of a Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney script from the '40s: "Let's get dressed up and put on a show!" Proving that genders, like any other rules, were made to be bent, glam rockers donned the eye shadow, tarted up, and cranked up the amps — from tough chick Suzi Quatro's hell-bent-for-leather "48 Crash" to David Essex's ice-cool "Rock On." Taking their cues from high camp, hard rock, science fiction, garage rock, metal, and even a little prog here and there, glam rockers grafted a pop sensibility onto a punk attitude for a theatrical sound that rippled into half a dozen genres after the era had given up its last feather boa. If only MTV had been around during their heyday, video might have killed the radio star a decade earlier than it did.