1970s
A01=Ian Chapman
Aotearoa
Author_Ian Chapman
Category=AVC
Category=AVP
eq_art-fashion-photography
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_music
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
gender
gender-bending
glam rock
kids
mass media
New Zealand
one-hit wonder
rock
Studio One
Studio One/New Faces
Studio OneNew Faces
teens
television
viral
youth culture
Product details
- ISBN 9781501389504
- Dimensions: 127 x 197mm
- Publication Date: 09 Mar 2023
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Alastair Riddell’s band Space Waltz was a short-lived one-album New Zealand rock act who hit gold with a #1 hit single in October 1974 with the song ‘Out On The Street’ but thereafter failed to achieve anything even close to that feat. While relegated to one-hit-wonder status in the eyes of many, to this day Riddell and Space Waltz epitomize the mid-1970s heyday of glam rock in New Zealand. But in truth their impact went far beyond this. Their generationally divisive nation-wide debut on the hugely popular MOR television talent quest Studio One/New Faces demonstrated the power of mass media exposure – they were instantly signed to a record deal with industry giant EMI – while Riddell’s controversial gender-bending image provided a cultural crossroads that greatly impacted the wider youth culture of Aotearoa New Zealand. In addition, while the album’s most famous track, ‘Out On The Street,’ is rightly regarded as New Zealand’s glam rock anthem, the wider album demonstrates a compositional and musical depth that goes far beyond glam rock and into the realm of sophisticated progressive rock, ultimately providing an unlikely and highly unique musical amalgam.
Ian Chapman is an author, musician, and Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. His previous publications have included titles on Glam Rock, David Bowie, Alice Cooper, The Dunedin Sound and the arts and culture of New Zealand in the 1960s and 1970s.
