Electric Warrior - T REX****

Mambo Sun/Cosmic Dancer/Jeepster/Monolith/Lean Woman Blues/Get It On (Bang A Gong)/Planet Queen/ Girl/ The Motivator/Life's A Gas/Rip Off

With the release of Electric Warrior T Rex mania would take a hold of Britain’s young teen girls, as glam-rock began to take off. Includes the UK chart topper Get It On which reached No.10 in the States as Bang A Gong. (US:32 UK:1)

“Most of the album wavers between gleeful embrace of the new glam sound and trippy mystic meditations; if the Electric Warrior is doing anything here, he's pondering on whether or not to unsheath his guitar in and go to war in the first place. Those looking for the first fully and unabashedly hard rocking T. Rex album should go for the subsequent one, but this is actually the more interesting proposition. Bolan would never visit territory this oblique ever again.”

“Who needs a rich, complex epic when you can create the ultimate pop hook? Marc Bolan does that on Electric Warrior, song after song draws you in with hook after hook. It's a simple equation, and Marc Bolan delivers it with tight songwriting and some of the hookiest melodies and lyrics ever penned.”

“This was the second release from the band T Rex, who blossomed out of the psychedelic folk band Tyrannosaurus Rex, and like a rising phoenix, cast its ashes to the winds of time, to forever be shrouded in mystery. They then picked up the electric standard, driving it home with all of the power of a lightening storm, blacking out everything in their path.”

“From beginning to end, Electric Warrior lives up to its name as a thrilling electric pop album. While doubtless Bolan would have liked to have been taken more seriously by more mature rock fans, he still pitched this album perfectly as a loud and proud rock ‘n’ roll release, with just enough pop not to alienate his teenybopper audience.”

“Marc always assumed his boppy elfin style set to the simplest of boogie beats would be accepted by one and all as the works of a genius. Initially adored mainly by early teen girls, his music has grown in stature over the years as tastes changed leaving him high and dry as the sole purveyor of a peculiar style of rock that has over time proved remarkably difficult to reproduce.”

“The tunes are quite catchy, yet simple. But these songs, while pop in nature, don’t truly have a pop formula to them.”