1972 T Rex: Metal Guru

Not their loudest single ('that would be 20th Century Boy'), but certainly their fastest: 'Metal Guru' plays it's hand from the off with the 'Metal guru, is it you' hook nailing it four square to the Glam tidal wave without pause for breath until the end two and a bit minutes later. From the opening 'AaaaawhYeahOaaaaah' shout, it's a breathless rush of piled on thick guitar and 'Yeah Yeah Yeah' backing that dares you not to get caught up in its shiny grandeur, but the pummelling also serves to distract from the honest observation that Bolan's well of inspiration was starting to run dry.

Whilst 'Telegram Sam' 'borrowed' the main 'Get It On' riff, 'Metal Guru' reprises 'Hot Love's 'la la la' coda and tarts it up with added slam and a set of lyrics that for once sounded like they meant something. And although it is a far better song than 'Telegram Sam' and has Bolan going for the throat, his voice is slightly too fey to do shouty properly and his distinctive squeal doesn't help disguise that we've been here before.

As with most Glam Rock, there's a relentless stupidness to 'Metal Guru' that makes it seem like two minutes of banging your head against a wall. But I don't mean that in a negative way - there's a relentless stupidness at the heart of most Heavy Metal too, and I'm a big fan of the genre. Bolan's "silver-studded sabre-tooth dream" could have come straight out of Spinal Tap, but while that film was piss-take writ large, Bolan (and the Glam movement en masse) were never above self referential piss-taking of their own. 'Metal Guru' has just the right mix of style and substance to give it the legs to escape the twin traps of idiocy and pretension that a lot of the Glam bands got caught in, and by the time the song fades out, Bolan sounds like he's just along for the ride like everybody else.