I ordered this last week from musicdirect.com. The quality is not as good as MFSL but I am still quite happy. The album covers are not as stiff and the "silent" parts of the grooves are not silky smooth and quiet like MFSL, but the music sounds great! This looks very much like the original product. They even included a reproduction of the inner record sleeve which has nice drawings of Marc Bolan and Mickey Finn. The only complaint I have is that musicdirect shipped via USP who evidently employs a bunch of former airline baggage handlers -- you know the guys that you see through the plane window trying to tear you luggage to pieces. The outside of the package showed only one little dent, but it had been handled so roughly that the 200g LP had banged against the edge of the album cover so hard that it had made a small crack in the spine.
I bought this as a present for my son on his 28th birthday. He had asked me to keep an eye out for Electric Warrior on LP as I browse through second hand record stores but I have never seen a copy. This came in one of those nice clear resealable packages instead of shrink wrap, and I couldn’t resist opening it. Yeah, I know that’s a terrible thing for me to do, but after all he only expected a used record.
AMG Review by Steve Huey
The album that essentially kick-started the U.K. glam rock craze, Electric Warrior completes T. Rex's transformation from hippie folk-rockers into flamboyant avatars of trashy rock & roll. There are a few vestiges of those early days remaining in the acoustic-driven ballads, but Electric Warrior spends most of its time in a swinging, hip-shaking groove powered by Marc Bolan's warm electric guitar. The music recalls not just the catchy simplicity of early rock & roll, but also the implicit sexuality — except that here, Bolan gleefully hauls it to the surface, singing out loud what was once only communicated through the shimmying beat. He takes obvious delight in turning teenage bubblegum rock into campy sleaze, not to mention filling it with pseudo-psychedelic hippie poetry. In fact, Bolan sounds just as obsessed with the heavens as he does with sex, whether he's singing about spiritual mysticism or begging a flying saucer to take him away. It's all done with the same theatrical flair, but Tony Visconti's spacious, echoing production makes it surprisingly convincing. Still, the real reason Electric Warrior stands the test of time so well — despite its intended disposability — is that it revels so freely in its own absurdity and willful lack of substance. Not taking himself at all seriously, Bolan is free to pursue whatever silly wordplay, cosmic fantasies, or non sequitur imagery he feels like; his abandonment of any pretense to art becomes, ironically, a statement in itself. Bolan's lack of pomposity, back-to-basics songwriting, and elaborate theatrics went on to influence everything from hard rock to punk to new wave. But in the end, it's that sense of playfulness, combined with a raft of irresistible hooks, that keeps Electric Warrior such an infectious, invigorating listen today.
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