Bolan Vs Bowie Round 4:1970

Tis the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy and you can literally hear the death of flower power hanging in the air. David Bowie has released his third album (a rock monster, whodda thunk it!). Amongst other things it boasts a lovely cover, some decent tunes and one of the best songs of his entire career. All that, and still not a whiff of chart success.


Marc Bolan on the other hand….



After 3 albums of EXTREMELY mixed quality, Bolan ditched his old bearded bongo basher (Steve Perrigrin Took) picked up a new one (Mickey Finn) and released a proper decent album with tunes you can hum (‘A Beard of Stars’). To say that this album eclipsed all of his previous work would be to understate things just a tad.




Not content with this, ya boy Bolan shortened his musical duo’s name to T.Rex, let go of the pixie folk nonsense once and for all and released ANOTHER good album a few months later (‘T.Rex by, er, T.Rex). To my ears this album has aged really well. It sounds like the blue print for all of those big Brit Pop albums of the mid ninties (‘Suede’ by, er, Suede, ‘Parklife’ by Blur, Dodgy, Cast, Sleeper and all that sort of thing). It’s all there, the rocky songs, the slower songs, the song with a big string section, the end of album extended freak out and verses that end with a high pitched vocal line.




And then there was ‘Ride a White Swan’. Ooph. It’s credited as being the beginning of Glam Rock don’ cha’ know. And it got to no’ 2 in the hit parade.

Ain’t no contest this year.
1970 belongs to Marc Bolan.