FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
Part Nineteen: T. Rex
___________
EVEN though T. Rex were Tyrannosaurus Rex first…
I am covering the former on A Buyer’s Guide. I also know that the band, as T. Rex, only released eight studio albums, but I am going to recommend the four essential releases, the final studio album, and an underrated gem – and a great accompanying book. I am a huge fan of Marc Bolan and a recent tribute album, AngelHeaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan and T Rex. It is a fantastic release, and one that beautifully pays tribute to a great frontman. I wanted to honour Bolan and T. Rex by spotlighting the incredible albums – many of those I grew up on. If you are new to one of the most successful bands of the 1970s, then I hope this edition of A Buyer’s Guide…
Release Date: 18th December, 1970
Labels: Fly (U.K.)/Reprise (U.S.)
Producer: Tony Visconti
Standout Tracks: The Children of Rarn/Diamond Meadows/The Wizard
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-T-Rex/release/457298
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3f65UcXm7xtNq2UDEhDi62
Review:
“Tyrannosaurus Rex's transformation from oracles of U.K. hippie culture to boogie-friendly rock stars began with the album A Beard of Stars, released in early 1970 when the band picked up electric instruments, and by the time the year was out, Marc Bolan had pared their name down to the more user-friendly T. Rex and dropped their first album with the new moniker. Oddly enough, while the songs on T. Rex bear a much stronger melodic and lyrical resemblance to what would make the band famous on Electric Warrior in 1971, the tone of the album is a bit more pastoral than A Beard of Stars; on most of the tunes, the electric guitars are more successfully integrated into the arrangements so they lack the jarring immediacy of "Elemental Children" or "Pavilions of the Sun," and Mickey Finn still wasn't using a full drum kit, so the tunes don't quite have the kick of a full-on rock band. But Bolan himself sounds like he's ready for his close-up, as his vocals -- mannered yet quietly passionate and full of belief -- suggest the glam hero he would soon become, and numbers like "Beltrane Walk," "Is It Love," and "Diamond Meadows" (with its wink-and-nudge refrain "Hey, let's do it like we're friends") are just a few paces away from the swaggering sound that would make him the U.K.'s biggest star. If Bolan was reaching for the big time with T. Rex, he also sounds like he was letting out the rock star that had always lurked within him, and there isn't a moment here that doesn't sound like he's singing from his heart and soul. T. Rex is the quiet before the storm of Electric Warrior, and it retains a loopy energy and easy charm that makes it one of Bolan's watershed works” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Beltane Walk
Electric Warrior
Release Date: 24th September, 1971
Labels: Fly (U.K.)/Reprise (U.S.)
Producer: Tony Visconti
Standout Tracks: Cosmic Dancer/Jeepster/Life’s a Gas
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-Electric-Warrior/master/72458
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4Yw5uS8at8GkWmH2gZmLY0
Review:
“Bolan himself was never one to avoid a trend. In his own mind he was always a star: Stories abound of his early days as a persistent chancer in mod/psychedelic London. Yet, if John's Children and Tyrannosaurus Rex didn't hold the keys to his inevitable stardom they certainly allowed him to learn the tricks that would flower on his first hit ''Ride A White Swan''. This was the point at which he and long-term producer Tony Visconti took the hippy-dippy lyrics and Larry the lamb vocal stylings and bolted them on to good old stripped-down, four-to-the-floor rock 'n' roll. For four glorious years they never looked back...
With superb sleevenotes by Visconti himself, it must never be forgotten that this is as much his album as Bolan's (not forgetting Mickey Finn's radical bongos, ho ho). Visconti was behind so much of the glam-defining process that his name becomes synonymous with the genre. On this and Bowie's early work (Space Oddity, Man Who Sold The World) he creates a warm, spacey reverb-drenched world full of hip-thrusting libido and pouty tongue-twisting. Bolan's lyrics often approach 'back of a bus ticket' status in their throw-away couplets (''Girl'', ''Motivator'' etc.), but what shines through is the irrepressible fun the whole team seem to be having. The two monster hits (''Get It On'' and ''Jeepster'') still stand as monuments to pop concision. Nonsensical rhyme riding on swaggering guitar and drums.
Add to this at least two other utter classics (the frenzied funk of ''Rip Off'' and the touching ballad ''Life's A Gas'') and not one real filler and you've got an album that's always going to sound box fresh: 5.1 surround sound just adds a little icing on the cake. Life's still a gas…” – BBC
Choice Cut: Get It On
The Slider
Release Date: 21st July, 1972
Labels: T. REX (U.K.)/Reprise (U.S.)
Producer: Tony Visconti
Standout Tracks: Rock On/The Slider/Telegram Sam
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-The-Slider/master/72462
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5lL8N073N1d9ENpzM9Wtj5
Review:
“Even The Slider’s lesser songs—“Baby Boomerang” and “Baby Strange” are as puerile as their titles suggest—are elevated by Visconti’s touch. The string sections of “Rabbit Fighter” form a sweeping anthem from so much hot air. Just as impressive is how a throwaway like “Spaceball Ricochet” can become wholly evocative. “Ah ah ah/Do the spaceball” doesn’t do a damned thing when written out, but with the bowed cello and Flo & Eddie’s uncanny accompaniment of Bolan’s gasps, this trifle transforms into one of the album’s most ethereal moments.
“Chariot Choogle” (like “Buick Mackane” on the A side) is a polymer of heavy guitars and giddiness. Amid some footballer barks lies a sweetheart of a line: “Girl you are groove/You're like the planets when you move.” It reveals just how T. Rex took the onerousness weight of hypermasculine blues-based rock and replaced it with something featherlight and androgynous, the moment where Reynolds said, “cock rock became coquette rock.” On the 12-bar blues title track, Bolan’s admission that “and when I’m sad, I slide” induces a sense of vertigo with phased strings and voices, the shaker and fricative hiss close in the mix anticipating ASMR. Elsewhere, Bolan sings that the slider is “a sexual glider” while promo for the album asked: “To be or not to be, that is The Slider.” Thousands of spins later, I confess I’m no closer to understanding just what the titular proper noun or verb might mean” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Metal Guru
Tanx
Release Date: 16th March, 1973
Labels: EMI (U.K.)/Reprise (U.S.)
Producer: Tony Visconti
Standout Tracks: Tenement Lady/Electric Slim and the Factory Hen/Born to Boogie
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-Tanx/master/86154
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3I4VF8Hg1aXiCOC3zLxfXG
Review:
“By 1973's Tanx, the T. Rex hit-making machine was beginning to show some wear and tear, but Marc Bolan still had more than a few winners up his sleeve. It was also admirable that Bolan was attempting to broaden the T. Rex sound -- soulful backup singers and horns are heard throughout, a full two years before David Bowie used the same formula for his mega-seller Young Americans. However, Tanx did not contain any instantly recognizable hits, as their past couple of releases had, and the performances were not quite as vibrant, due to non-stop touring and drug use. Despite an era of transition looming on the horizon for the band, tracks such as "Rapids," "Highway Knees," "The Street & Babe Shadow," and "Born to Boogie" contain the expected classic T. Rex sound. The leadoff track, "Tenement Lady," is an interesting Beatlesque epic, while "Shock Rock" criticizes the early-'70s glam scene, which T. Rex played a prominent role in creating. Other highlights include one of Bolan's most gorgeous and heartfelt ballads, "Broken Hearted Blues," as well as the brief, explosive rocker "Country Honey." Tanx marked the close of what many consider T. Rex's golden era; unfortunately, the bandmembers would drift off one by one soon after, until Bolan was the only one remaining by the mid-'70s” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Life Is Strange
The Underrated Gem
Futuristic Dragon
Release Date: 30th January, 1976
Label: EMI
Producer: Marc Bolan
Standout Tracks: All Alone/Sensation Boulevard/Dream Lady
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-Futuristic-Dragon/master/72461
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7bxgqrql5oDIr4SVFB1bYN
Review:
“The most blatantly, and brilliantly, portentous of Marc Bolan's albums since the transitional blurring of boundaries that was Beard of Stars, almost seven years prior, Futuristic Dragon opens on a wave of unrelenting feedback, guitars and bombast, setting an apocalyptic mood for the record which persists long after that brief (two minutes) overture is over. Indeed, even the quintessential bop of the succeeding "Jupiter Liar" is irrevocably flavored by what came before, dirty guitars churning beneath a classic Bolan melody, and the lyrics a spiteful masterpiece. While the oddly Barry White-influenced "Ride My Wheels" continues flirting with the neo-funk basics of 1975's Bolan's Zip Gun, the widescreen sonic majesty of Futuristic Dragon was, if anything, even more gratuitously ambitious than its predecessor. "Calling All Destroyers," "Sensation Boulevard" and the magnificent "Dawn Storm" all bristle with lyrical splendor, while "Casual Agent" revisits some older glories with its near-slavish re-creation of the old "Rip Off" vibe. But if the other tunes pursue Bolan's new-found fascination for pomp over pop with barely disguised glee, he wasn't above slipping the odd joke into the brew to remind us that he knew what he was doing. "Theme for a Dragon" is an all-but Wagnerian symphonic instrumental -- with the sound of screaming teenyboppers as its backdrop, and the punch line lurking further afield among the handful of obvious hits which he also stirred in. The first of these, the big-budget ballad "Dreamy Lady," scored even before the rest of the album was complete. It was followed by the idiotically contagious "New York City," a piece of pure pop nonsense/genius which so effortlessly returned him to the British Top 20 that, for a few weeks through mid-1976, the idea of seeing "a woman coming out of New York City with a frog in her hand" really didn't seem as silly as it sounded” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: New York City
The Final Album
Dandy in the Underworld
Release Date: 11th March, 1977
Label: EMI
Producer: Marc Bolan
Standout Tracks: Dandy in the Underworld/Jason B. Sad/The Soul of My Suit
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/T-Rex-Dandy-In-The-Underworld/master/86157
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5aEVv5sSzit1hQVF5ASVKO
Review:
“The title track and the churning "Visions of Domino" all bristle with revitalized energy, while "Jason B. Sad" cheekily medleys Bolan's own "Bang a Gong" and "Telegram Sam" melodies into a dead-end drama utterly in keeping with the new wave's own belief that the future was futile. By the time the album wraps up with the rock'n'armageddon-flavored "Teen Riot Structure," Bolan was not simply wearing the mantel of punk godfatherhood, he was happily sticking safety pins through it and preparing his next move, the driving "Celebrate Summer" single -- absent from the original album, but included now as one of five bonus tracks appended to the Edsel remaster. Riding in on buzzsaw guitar and thundering bass, it packed a killer chorus and an uplfting message ("Hey little punk, forget that junk and celebrate summer with me") and it really was the greatest record he'd made in years. It was also his last -- a month after its release, Marc Bolan was dead. Sorrow immediately imbibed Dandy in the Underworld with a dignity that, had Bolan lived, it probably wouldn't have otherwise deserved -- it is not, overall, one of his strongest albums, and the demos and outtakes included on the later volumes of the Unchained series suggest that his proposed next album would have left it far behind. But conjecture, like hindsight, can be a dangerous gauge. At the time, Dandy not only seemed bloated with promise, it was pregnant with foreboding as well. Listen again to the lyrics of the title track -- self-mythologizing autobiography and not a happy ending in sight. Just like real life” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: I Love to Boogie
The T. Rex Book
Ride a White Swan: The Lives and Death of Marc Bolan
Author: Lesley-Ann Jones
Publication Date: 23rd May, 2013
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Synopsis:
“From mod folk artist to flower power pixie elfin to the king of glam rockers, Marc Bolan was the ultimate chameleon. His far-reaching musical and stylistic influence is more relevant today than ever with hits such as 'Ride A White Swan', 'Children Of The Revolution', 'Get It On' and 'Hot Love' as fresh and exhilarating as when first released.
At the peak of his popularity during his lifetime Bolan was outselling Jimi Hendrix and The Who, and yet relatively little is really known about the hypnotic, enigmatic 20th century boy turned 21st century icon. At last, in the 35th anniversary year of his tragic death, Marc Bolan represents the definite biography.
Here rock biographer, Lesley-Ann Jones, paints a meticulous portrait of the T-Rex front man. From his childhood growing up in Hackney to his untimely death at the age of 29, Bolan's life was one of relentless experimentation and metamorphoses. Hallucinogenic drugs, wizardry and levitation, alcoholism, tax evasion and a spectacular fall from grace were to punctuate his short life, as he continued to strive to reinvent himself and his music over and over again.
Lesley-Ann has been granted access to those who knew Bolan best, including his partner and the mother of his only son, Gloria Jones and his brother, Harry Feld” – Waterstones
Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/ride-a-white-swan/lesley-ann-jones/9781444758795