T. Rex (album)


T. Rex is a 1970 album by Marc Bolan's band T. Rex, the fifth since their debut as Tyrannosaurus Rex in 1968, and the first under the name T. Rex. It was released on 18 December by record labels Fly and Reprise. The album marked a shift from the band's previous folk style to a minimal rock sound.

Content

Although the album was credited to T. Rex, all the recordings were done when they still were Tyrannosaurus Rex, with the two-man lineup of singer/songwriter/guitarist Marc Bolan and percussionist Mickey Finn, although producer Tony Visconti played bass and recorder on a couple of tracks. "Ride a White Swan" was recorded during the same sessions but did not appear on the album. They officially changed the band name to T. Rex to release that single in October 1970.

Music

The album continued in the vein of the duo's previous album A Beard of Stars, with an even further emphasis on an electric rock sound and the addition of strings on several tracks. Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman, aka "Flo and Eddie", sang backup vocals for the first time on a T. Rex song, "Seagull Woman". They would go on to sing on most of the group's subsequent string of hits.
The album contained electric reworkings of two old Tyrannosaurus Rex songs, one of which, "The Wizard", was originally recorded even earlier than Bolan's pre-T.Rex band John's Children. The second was an electric version of the second Tyrannosaurus Rex single, "One Inch Rock", with an intro of scat-singing by Bolan and Finn. The remaining short songs, however, were new material.
The album was bookended by a track called "The Children of Rarn", which was part of a longer piece known as "The Children of Rarn Suite". A Tolkienesque children's story in several movements, it was recorded only in demo form at the time, although instrumentation was added posthumously by Visconti for its release on the 1998 compilation The Words and Music of Marc Bolan.

Release

The album was released on 18 December 1970 by Fly and Reprise. The sleeve design was unusual, requiring a sideways look to unfold the cover, or to have the artwork sideways to remove the LP.
T. Rex broke T. Rex in the UK, following the surprise success of the then-recent single "Ride a White Swan", which reached No. 2 in the charts, and its smash No. 1 follow-up "Hot Love". The album is today listed by the Official Chart Company's website as having eventually reached a chart peak of No. 7 and accumulated several runs on the charts totalling 25 weeks. This peak however took place during the 1971 United Kingdom postal workers strike during which no album chart was issued and therefore the site recognises the Melody Maker chart for February-April 1971. The Guinness Book of British Hit Albums which did not recognise any album chart for the missing weeks, listed the album as having peaked at number 13.
The US pressing of the LP concluded with "Ride a White Swan", rather than "The Children of Rarn ".

Reception and legacy

In his retrospective review, Mark Deming of AllMusic wrote, "T. Rex is the quiet before the storm of Electric Warrior, and it retains a loopy energy and easy charm that makes it one of Bolan's watershed works".
Siouxsie Sioux covered "Jewel" in 1999 with her second band the Creatures.

Track listing

Personnel