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How T. Rex Saved ’70s Rock from Beige Masculinity
The soon-to-be Rock & Roll Hall of Famers launched a revolution.
They were so much more than “Bang a Gong (Get It On).”
If Americans know T. Rex at all, though, it’s probably through their one U.S. hit, the 1971 top 10 “Bang a Gong (Get It On).” And if they know that song, they probably know it because Power Station had an even bigger top 10 hit with it in 1985. The supergroup featuring Robert Palmer and members of Duran Duran and Chic took it to number nine, one notch higher than T. Rex’s peak 14 years earlier.
Sadly, the group that scored four top 10 albums and 10 consecutive top-five UK singles between 1970 and 1973 has spent nearly five decades being mainly a footnote on this side of the Atlantic. But now they’re moving up on the page. On May 2 in Cleveland, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will induct the architects of ’70s glam rock, alongside Depeche Mode, The Doobie Brothers, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G., and Whitney Houston.
The election of fellow glam-rock pioneers Roxy Music to the Class of 2019 last year may have opened up the Rock Hall doors to T. Rex in much the same way Houston’s induction will set a precedent for voters to consider pop and soul divas just as eligible as rock ones. Why should testosterone rock get all…
