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T-REX
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By 1974, Marc Bolan’s stranglehold on the charts began to give way, and
his jarring rocketship to superfame had gone completely to his head, and
the combination of the two really couldn’t have ended any other way. Marc
cut his hair, discovered ‘funk’, renamed himself Zinc Alloy, and released
this collection of Disco Rex songs. Of ‘em all, “Liquid Gang” and
“Explosive Mouth”, the two glam-rock holdouts on the set, are the only
songs that hold up over time. The rest are woefully misguided attempts at dancefloor psychedelia and bubble-funk that shoot for weird and commercial
at the same time, and fail miserably at both. Listen, I love T Rex more
than just about anybody, but this one’s just a howler. But hey, like I
said, it’s a beautiful package, with a bonus disc of alternate takes, plus
some singles (The over-the-top “Truck On Tyke” was released just prior to
Zinc), and acoustic demos that reveal more depth and honesty than the
puffball album versions ever could. Bolan eventually bounced back from
this debacle, but fledgling Electric Warriors might not, so stick with the
classics and leave this one for completists. And the disco ducks.
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-Sleazegrinder |
Rhino have been
re-issuing all the 70’s T Rex albums in deluxe 2 disc sets, complete with
fact n’ foto filled booklets and sharp looking digipaks with glossy
slipcovers. This is a very smart ploy in these days of rampant
file-sharing, because you just can’t download a slipcover, Jack. Well, I
suppose you can, but you know what I mean, right? They look like
collector’s items. They look special, which ain’t easy in a digital world.
And in the case of classic T Rextasy like, say, The Slider or Tanx, the
stuff inside is just as special. And then there’s Zinc.