Released 18 December 1970 Length 37:41 Producer Tony Visconti | Genre Rock Label Fly
Reprise | |
Recorded July–August 1970 at Trident Studios, London, England | ||
T. Rex is the fifth studio album by English rock band T. Rex and the first released under that name since changing their name from Tyrannosaurus Rex. It was released on 18 December 1970 by record labels Fly and Reprise. The album marked a further shift from the band's previous folk style to a minimal rock sound.
Contents
Content
Although the album was credited to T. Rex, all the recordings (as well as the cover shot) 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
T. Rex 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 was the album that 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 eventually reaching a chart peak of No. 7 and remained on the charts for 25 weeks.
The US version of the LP included "Ride a White Swan" as the last song on the album instead of "The Children of Rarn (Reprise)".
Reception
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".
Track listing
All tracks written by Marc Bolan, except as noted.