It's difficult, though, because there's effectively been a ban on his music for years now, ever since the jail sentence for possessing paedophile pornography.
So, all credit to the BBC for finally lifting the corner of that ban with its broadcast of a 1977 edition of Top of the Pops. Not the most obvious place to start with Gary's work, but I always rated that single, It Takes All Night Long - one of his sleazier recordings from one of the early comebacks:
There's been a lot of criticism, of course, but for once the BBC have got it right on this issue: 'It would be inappropriate for the BBC to rewrite history, so the programme was shown in its entirety.' Quite right, too. That should have been the position for the last decade and more.
The best comment I ever read on the subject came from Craig Brown in the Daily Telegraph back in November 2005:
'Around the time that Gary Glitter was riding so high, Bernard Levin was busy writing articles in The Times about Wagner. As far as I can remember, he would argue that it was perfectly possible and legitimate to deplore the thoughts and actions of the artist while continuing to rejoice in his art. The same must surely be true of the equally rumbustious sounds of Gary Glitter.'
1 comment:
The producers of the BBC Radio 2 series THE SOUND OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY ( broadcast during the 12 months following april 2011 and similar to the earlier ROCK N'ROLL YEARS) were equally sensible in this regard. When covering the years 1972 and 73 they played ROCK N'ROLL PART TWO and I'M THE LEADER OF THE GANG I AM. The Wagner/Bernard Levin analogy is apt and of course any consideration of glam/70s pop culture would be absurd and misleading without reference to G. Glitter. In a sense he was an early exponent of 'power pop'.
Post a Comment