When Lady Gaga released her sixth album, Mayhem, last week, it was hailed as a powerful return to the dance pop that had launched her to stardom almost 20 years ago. That may be true, but the roots of Mayhem go back much farther, pre-Kylie, pre-Britney, even pre-Madonna, the greatest force in the genre’s history.
Madonna’s biggest impact on pop music wasn’t necessarily musical. It was in her unabashed presentation of a complete pop star package. The music mattered, but so did the fashion, choreography, and the persona. You could dance to ABBA. Madonna gave you an entire show.
Listening to Mayhem and thinking about Madonna puts me in the mind of an artist who helped lay the groundwork for all of it. He is often forgotten today, overshadowed by others who expanded on his legacy, but he proved to be a far better predictor of where pop music, and indeed the entirety of pop culture, was heading than other better-remembered artists of his day.
There were few musical artists as unique as Marc Bolan
Even if he is forgotten today, if you were paying attention in the UK in the early 1970s, Marc Bolan was unavoidable.
Bolan’s best-known outfit, T. Rex, was arguably the most popular band in England in 1971 and ’72. Filling a void left by the break-up of the Beatles, T. Rextacy was, however briefly, the next phase of Beatlemania. Electric Warrior, the band’s second album, hit number one in the UK in 1971 and yielded their second number one single, “Get It On.”
Their next album, The Slider, would have two more chart-topping singles. T. Rex remained a force for a little while longer, scoring several more major hits in England, but Bolan began showing signs of fatigue. Their popularity lagged somewhat in the middle of the decade. But the singer and his band showed signs of renewed life in 1977 with Dandy in the Underworld, their best album in five years.
Unfortunately, six months after its release, and two weeks shy of his 30th birthday, Marc Bolan died in a car accident. We never got to learn if he had another chapter in him. Based on Marc Bolan’s life until then, it is impossible to imagine he didn’t have a lot more to say.
T. Rex is typically associated with glam rock, the much-beloved, much-reviled genre that rewrote the rulebook for pop music in the early 1970s. More than any individual – even more than his friend and rival David Bowie – Marc Bolan was the beating heart of glam. He embodied it.
Glam, at its core, is all about putting on masks and trying out different personae. That means though T. Rex may have provided his best-known role, but it does not offer a complete picture of the musical artist. Marc Bolan had at least three distinct phases to his short career and had plenty of other offshoots where those phases mixed and mingled. Teasing them out is virtually impossible.
There is a lot more to say about glam and why it matters today but I’ll leave it at this. Marc Bolan, and the genre of pop music he helped create, has proven to be a far more important antecedent for pop music in 2025 than many of the more critically-acclaimed genres that seemed more vital at the time.
The heartland rock of Bruce Springsteen and the singer-songwriter movement kicked off by Bob Dylan may have gotten better press. But the glam of Marc Bolan and the metal of Black Sabbath continue to ring louder today.
As a way of remembering and trying to wrap our heads around what Marc Bolan bequeathed to modern pop, let’s look at ten sensational songs he created between the late ‘60s and the late ‘70s. I’ll caution you up front: Tracing his evolution through his three primary bands can get confusing. But it is never dull. And for Bolan, confusion is no sin at all. It is simply one more tool in his arsenal.
Being dull is the only true crime.
“Desdemona” John’s Children (1967)
Mark Bolan began his recording career while still a teenager, and in a precursor of what was to come, cycled through several names, several managers, and several musical styles before achieving his first measure of success. That came when the 20-year guitar player attracted the attention of producer Simon Napier-Bell, manager of the Yardbirds.
Though reportedly considering Bolan for the Yardbirds, Napier-Bell ultimately inserted him into another of his bands. John’s Children was a wild and raucous outfit fronted by Andy Ellison. Bolan played guitar and provided high-pitched, quavering vocal harmony. Most importantly, he gave John’s Children a quality songwriter.
That was immediately apparent on “Desdemona,” a bluesy shuffle out of the Doc Pomus school of blues pop. You can hear Bolan’s distinctive upper register flitting behind Ellison, and you get an early taste of Bolan’s audacious lyrical sensibility on the chorus, encouraging Desdemona to “lift up your skirt and fly.”
“Just because Toulouse-Lautrec painted some chick in the rude – Don’t give you the right to steal my night and leave me naked in the nude.”
“Debora” Tyrannosaurus Rex (1968)
You may want to fasten your seatbelts for this. It’s a bit of a bumpy road. John’s Children didn’t last. Fighting with audiences and getting in trouble with the law led to an early demise. Bolan attempted to form his own band. The first attempt fell flat. But he did meet a young percussionist who shared Bolan’s fascination with the mythic realms of Tolkien and Lewis. His name, taken straight out of The Lord of the Rings, was Steve Peregrin Took.
Together, they dove in headlong into the hippie world of acoustic folk music. They called themselves Tyrannosaurus Rex. “Debora” was one of their early singles, showing off Took’s expressive percussion work and Bolan’s continually creative use of the English language – rhyming “Debora” and "zebra," with a short “e” sound in “zebra.”
It was a minor hit for the duo in 1968, breaking into the top 40 in the UK. It would score even higher when it was rereleased four years later and popped back into the public conscience in 2017 when director Edgar Wright, who was born several years after said rerelease, included it on the soundtrack of his film Baby Driver.
“Sara Crazy Child” Tyrannosaurus Rex (1968)
This is where it starts to get confusing. “Sara Crazy Child” is a fabulous Marc Bolan song that begins to unpack just what a chameleon he was. There are two distinct versions of the song, and other live recordings and outtakes, and the song could change as often as Bolan changed his costumes.
Bolan had written it when he was with John’s Children, and they recorded it. That recording would not come out until some years later, and it reveals a lovely pop ballad with Bolan’s typically evocative lyrics – “Sara, crazy child, is devouring all the street – With her pastel, tortured dress and her seductive bongo beat.”
But before the John’s Children recording came out, Bolan and Took gave it the Tyrannosaurus Rex treatment, with Bolan’s high-pitched vocals floating over Took’s bongos. It's the same song but a radically different tone.
“Hot Love” T. Rex (1971)
By 1970, Bolan and Took had split up, and Bolan began working on the next chapter. Though it wasn’t immediately apparent, glam was just around the corner. Now with a full band, rechristened as T. Rex, Bolan scored his first number one hit with this rather old-fashioned shuffle. But producer Tony Visconti gave it an early glam treatment, complete with backing vocals from Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, AKA Flo and Eddie from the Turtles.
Bolan played electric guitar, and new percussionist Mickey Finn looked very cool doing handclaps. There was also an actual bass and drums underneath it all.
But what really sold the song was T. Rex’s performances on the British countdown of popular music, Top of the Pops. Bolan wore makeup and androgynous clothes. A year before, he was an acoustic hippie with Tyrannosaurus Rex. Now, he was paving the way for a new form of pop music, one that valued artifice over authenticity and fantasy over reality.
“Get It On” T. Rex (1971)
T. Rex released their second album, Electric Warrior, in September of 1971. They were already big. The new album would push them to the top. It was anchored by one of the ultimate statements of glam – “Get It On.”
Another blues shuffle, it was powered by Bolan's sultry vocals and Flo and Eddie’s dramatic support. It also featured a much fuller sound, with Rick Wakeman’s piano and Ian McDonald’s sax providing color. It hit number one in the UK and became Bolan’s only venture into the top ten in the USA, where the song was renamed “Bang a Gong (Get It On).”
It featured more of Bolan’s unique poetry…
“Well, you’re slim and you’re weak, you’ve got the teeth of the hydra upon you – You’re dirty, sweet and you’re my girl.”
“Cosmic Dancer” T. Rex (1971)
In his authoritative exploration of the glam rock movement, Shock and Awe, music critic Simon Reynolds refers to “Cosmic Dancer” as a "mission statement.” With its grand orchestral sweep and sweet, sly lyrics, it is an apt description.
Glam and dance were inextricably linked. David Bowie, before settling on a career in pop music, seriously considered becoming a professional dancer. Bolan, who during his Tyrannosaurus Rex days was more prone to sitting down and strumming his guitar, made his movement a major component of T. Rex’s live shows. Expressing yourself in costume and movement was just as important as the music you played. Boogeying became an essential function of his performance.
And so the line he opens and closes “Cosmic Dancer” with – “I danced myself right out the womb - I danced myself right out the womb – Is it strange to dance so soon?” – becomes more than an odd bit of poetry. The opening statement is a bold declaration, while the follow-up question hints at the insecurity that lurks beneath the façade.
“Jeepster” T. Rex (1971)
The follow-up single to “Get It On” fell just short of the top spot, stalling out at number two. Again, Bolan was cribbing from the old blues. This time, it was Willie Dixon. But Bolan gave it his own glam spin with lines like…
“You slide so good, with bones so fair – You’ve got the universe reclining in your hair.”
And closing on that time-honored symbol of impossible romance, declaring himself a “vampire for your love” who is going to “suck you dry.”
“Jeepster,” along with “Hot Love,” revealed Bolan’s brand of revved-up eroticism that still could be safe enough for Top of the Pops. T. Rex’s most passionate fanbase was comprised of young women, often just encountering adolescence who seemed thrilled by his transgressive attire and persona but charmed by his sweet, sultry voice. Songs like “Jeepster” allowed you to dance and dream slightly dirty fantasies.
“Solid Gold Easy Action” T. Rex (1972)
The follow-up album to Electric Warrior, The Slider, yielded a couple more number one hits in “Metal Guru” (pronounced by Mark as a single word with accent on the last “u”) and “Telegram Sam.” They are lots of glam fun but don’t feel as fresh today as the tracks from Electric Warrior.
“Solid Gold Easy Action” was a non-album single that came out at the end of ’72 and made it to number two. And it was something a little different. It eschewed the bluesey languor of some of the earlier glam in favor of a full-throttle pop-rock explosion that would open a door directly onto Freddie Mercury and Queen.
And though we may have never known it if not for the 2019 musical biography The Dirt, it also played a role in the formative years of Frank Feranna, better known to the world as Nikki Six, the creative force behind Motley Crue. Nikki was 14 when the song came out, and if the film is to be believed, it got into his head in a major way.
“20th Century Boy” (1973)
T. Rex would have one more top ten hit after this (“The Slider”), but this was their last truly great song … until just before the end. This may have been the hardest and the grungiest Bolan ever got. It may not have quite matched the pure power that the New York Dolls were creating in the USA, but it foretold the melodic punk and metal that would eventually become major sub-genres.
When Def Leppard paid homage to the rock & roll they grew up with in England – from artists as diverse as Thin Lizzy, Mott the Hoople, the Kinks, and David Bowie – this is the song they chose as the album opener.
That album, Yeah!, is a rollicking production that reaches beyond glam while simultaneously confirming its central position in the music of the early ‘70s. The original recordings – including T. Rex’s crunching “20th Century Boy” – are better than the covers, but Leppard is fun, nonetheless.
Though this was not the end of T. Rex, there is something vaguely disquieting in the way Bolan sings “I’m your toy, your 20th century boy.” To a lot of fans, that’s exactly what he had been. By 1973, that was all coming to an end.
“Dandy in the Underworld” T. Rex (1977)
The mid-‘70s were not kind to Marc Bolan. Not yet 30, he seemed drained at times. T. Rex released albums that contained a glimpse or two of their initial spark, but were being surpassed. David Bowie proved to be the glam icon with the legs to go the distance.
Bolan turned over the band a couple of times during that lull. Most crucially, percussionist Mickey Finn departed in 1975. By 1977, T. Rex was a different band. But Bolan, on what would prove be his final album, suddenly seemed rejuvenated. There were bold new statements in songs like “Pain and Love” and first-rate throwbacks like “Jason B. Sad.”
But it was the album’s title track, “Dandy in the Underworld,” that stood out as a genuine Marc Bolan classic. It’s theatrical, lyrical, catchy, and vaguely mournful, all in equal measures. Marc Bolan was indeed a true dandy, devoting himself to the artifice of presentation. For the best of the glam artists, that pretense became their own improved version of reality – a new reality in which the ugliness of real life is swept away by the beauty found in art and fantasy.
In hindsight, perhaps Bowie was simply better able to keep the madness and illusion in proper perspective, which may be why he soared higher and lived longer than Marc Bolan. But Bolan was no dilettante as his constant fabrications and reinventions suggested to some outsiders. The man could deliver an excellent show and write a damn fine song.
And for those who claim that in order to be a great artist, one must be authentic, I challenge you to find a more self-knowing, honest lyric than this…
“At an old eighteen, exiled he was – To the deserted kingdoms of a mythical Oz – Distraction, he wanted, to destruction, he fell – Now he forever stalks the ancient mansions of Hell – ‘Cause he’s a dandy in the underworld – A dandy in the underworld – When will he come up for air? – Oh, will anybody ever care?”
It proved something of an epitaph. But Marc Bolan’s influence on 21st-century pop remains undeniable.