The Song Planner

Camp Rock

tagStarted 1972Peak 1974-1983Last big hit 1983

Located in 1 route

Rock → Glam / Sleaze / Theatrical Rock

Glam played for knowing, satirical camp: tongue-in-cheek personas, costume-change skits, and arch parody send up rock-star excess from inside the spectacle. Music ranges from vaudeville-tinged rock to swooning falsetto pop, but it's the wink — exaggerated theatrics, comic alter-egos and self-mocking lyrics — that defines this corner of the family.

History

The Tubes crystallized it with multimedia stage shows starring Fee Waybill's drug-addled rock-star parody Quay Lewd, climaxing in 1975's satirical "White Punks on Dope." Jobriath's falsetto space-glam, Sparks' arch falsetto pop and Adam and the Ants' dandy-highwayman pantomime carried the camp impulse, blurring rock spectacle into outright theatrical comedy.

Defining artists

Essential listening

← Explore Rock

Sources

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobriath_(album)
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tubes
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimono_My_House