Clearing The Way

The end of an era for Bolan's glam-rock trailblazers.

- Daryl Easlea

As 1972 progressed, Marc Bolan’s undisputed 18-month leadership of ‘Dream Is Over’ pop was being contested: noisy upstarts Slade were on one flank, the Osmonds/ David Cassidy teeny-weeny axis in the middle and then, old pal David Bowie’s Starman was finally on the rise among the left-field glamerati: Bolan was squeezed from all sides. The Born To Boogie film, released in December 1972 hadn’t exactly enamoured the wider world to Bolan’s cause. Whereas July 1972’s The Slider was the album released at the absolute zenith of Trexstacy, its follow-up, Tanx, was arrived in March 1973, as the group’s inexorable decline in popularity had slowly yet significantly begun. It needed to reassert Bolan’s authority. Recorded at the Château d’Hérouville in Autumn 1972, Bolanists will ponder the subject into the night: was Tanx the last truly great T.Rex album?