The ungodly godfathers of glam, pioneers of aggressive androgyny and elegantly wasted decadence

Bowie was obsessed with Mick Jagger. Just as Alice Cooper in his early days had decided that the Stones were the group to beat in terms of scaring parents, Bowie yearned to knock them off their pedestal. Yet he knew that the Stones were unassailable. They were, in fact, the ungodly godfathers of glam, pioneers of aggressive androgyny and elegantly wasted decadence. The Velvet Underground may have been the first group to write songs about hard drugs with studied dispassion, but hardly anyone noticed because hardly anyone bought their records. on Let it bleed and even more so with 1971's Sticky Fingers, the Stones referenced heroin and cocaine in songs that got onto the radio and into millions of households.

S. Reynolds, Shock and Awe: Glam rock and its legacy (2016), 308