Platform Boots and Power Chords: The Unstoppable Rise of Bobbie Dazzle
Image credit: Stoney Darkstone
Somewhere in the dog days of late summer or the crisp promise of early fall, I found myself in a musical rut so deep it might as well have been carved by the tectonic plates. The running playlists that once thrilled me had grown stale and every attempt to discover something new led only to the same formulaic sludge dressed in borrowed nostalgia. Frustrated and desperate, I shot off a message to a trusted colleague at Classic Rock magazine, a true connoisseur of the sonic wilds. “Give me something,” I implored. “Anything. Albums I must hear.” Her reply came swiftly and enthusiastically—a sprawling list of ten releases, each a gem from a different corner of the musical universe. I spent the ensuing weeks gorging on this aural cornucopia, my creative cup once again running over. Amid the treasure trove of excellent albums however, there was one name that I just couldn’t shake: Bobbie Dazzle.
Despite the supreme reliability of my source, I didn’t crack into Bobbie Dazzle expecting a revelation. These days, the rock scene is a minefield of cookiecutter indie darlings and tired acts endlessly plucking at alternative’s frayed edges. So, when the name Bobbie Dazzle crossed my radar and I eyed the album’s throwback cover art, I assumed them to be some hackneyed glam-rock tribute band destined for pub circuit purgatory.
Holy shit, was I wrong.
Not just wrong—spectacularly, Biblically wrong. Bobbie Dazzle isn’t a throwback, but an intervention, a critical corrective to a genre that’s been sleepwalking through its own funeral. In the same vein of Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Bobbie Dazzle is the brash, swaggering alter-ego of Sîan Greenaway, whose musical pedigree winds through a labyrinth of genres that have paved the way to her latest endeavour. On the back of her scorching 2024 debut, Fandabidozi, the Birmingham U.K. native has turned the stale machinery of rock on its head and poured glitter into the gears, creating something that is neither homage nor parody but a bombastic reclamation of rock’s most reliable instincts.
Listening to Fandabidozi for the first time was like tripping headfirst into a sonic centrifuge. The opening track, “Lightning Fantasy,” kicks it off with a stomp and swagger that feels instantly familiar, like some long-lost B-side from glam’s glory days—but there’s something sharper at work here. Greenaway’s voice is the driving force, a full-throated roar laced with both defiance and uncontainable joy. This isn’t pastiche; it’s an invocation.
The rest of the album builds on this foundation with a relentless sense of purpose. Tracks like “Back to the City” and “Revolution” hit with the boogie-down precision of Marc Bolan in his prime, while “April Showers” bursts with a cinematic sweep that owes as much to Greenaway’s emotional candor as it does to the bewitching interplay of the musicians she gathered for the album, including guitarists Tadhg Bean-Bradley and Ad Barker, bassist Leon Smith, drummer Eddy Geach and keyboardists Chris Dando’ and Aaron Bolli-Thompson. Greenway herself wrote all of the songs, creating a fully-realised artistic vision with the music, lyrics and visuals all tightly intertwined. This is an unrelenting sound that dares to strut, shimmy, and swing at a time when so much of the rock landscape feels bogged down in scripted self-importance.
Bobbie Dazzle’s approach to glam rock isn’t just nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. Instead, it’s a resurrection shot through the lens of personal tragedy, joy, and an intimate understanding of the genre’s mechanics. Having sharpened her teeth in the doom metal band Alunah, Greenaway has approached glam with the precision of a master craftsman. The handclaps, slap-back delays, and doubled vocals aren’t cheap tricks—they’re tools, employed to pull listeners deep into the velvety vortex of sound that bands like Sweet, Slade, and Wizzard first pioneered.
Greenaway’s connection to her roots makes the music resonate in a way that feels immediate. “My parents were glam rock and punk people in the ‘70s,” she explains to Dom Lawson in the band’s promotional biography, and that duality is palpable. Her mother’s love of Bowie and T. Rex rubs shoulders with her father’s affection for Iggy Pop and the New York Dolls, resulting in a sound that’s both flamboyant and feral.
And then there’s the backstory—grief and creativity fused in ways that make Fandabidozi a testament not just to glam’s joyous excess but to its cathartic potential. When her sister Coralie passed away in July 2023, Greenaway abandoned herself entirely to her music, channelling her loss into something defiantly life-affirming. Speaking to Classic Rock’s Dave Everley, she explained, “[I] just threw myself into it. It was such a juxtaposition to all the grief. It really did get me through a tough time.”
In fact, the familial connections run even deeper, as she explains in her bio, “My dad passed away in 2003, when I was 11 years old, but when my sister passed away, I ended up clearing out her house, and I stumbled across these records of my dad’s. He had a Bob Dylan album, and when I opened the sleeve, all these pieces of paper fell out. I was like, ‘What the hell is this?’ and it was lyrics that my dad had written when he was 17. There were about five songs in there – there was one called Castrator and I felt I couldn’t really doing anything with that! But there was Lightning Fantasy, and that song is all my dad’s lyrics. I felt it was a nod from him, saying ‘Do this! I’m proud of you!’ So I basically dedicated the album to my dad… and plagiarised his lyrics! [Laughs]” These rediscovered lyrics add yet another layer of poignancy, imbuing Fandabidozi with a depth that transcends its glitzy surface.
In a genre that is so often dismissed as frivolous or stuck in amber, Fandabidozi feels shockingly relevant. Glam rock, with its technicolor bombast and unapologetic sense of fun, is perfectly poised to cut through the unrelenting gloom of the increasingly grim here and now. Greenaway understands that what made the original wave of glam so powerful wasn’t just its campy visuals or rollicking riffs—it was the way it created a sense of shared euphoria. At its best, glam is a communal experience, a chance to escape the monotony of daily life and step into a world of sparkle and excess.
Tracks like “Merry Go Round” exemplify this ethos. Built around an electrifying beat and an infectious chorus, the song practically demands that you sing along. It’s absurdly catchy, almost infuriatingly so, but there’s also a hint of melancholy in the verses—a reminder that the party won’t last forever. Similarly, the album’s closer, “Flowers on Mars,” takes the listener on a pop-psychedelic journey that feels both grounded in the traditions of glam and boldly exploratory.
Ultimately, it’s Greenaway’s ability to imbue the music with a strident sense of purpose that sets Bobbie Dazzle apart from the clustered corridors of revivalists. She’s not just recycling tropes; she’s using them to tell her own story, to bridge the gap between the personal and the universal. The catsuits and platform boots are there, sure, but so is the raw emotional honesty of someone who has lived through loss and come out the other side with a renewed sense of joy.
Glam rock, for all its perceived frivolity, has always had an undercurrent of rebellion—a refusal to conform, a celebration of individuality. Greenaway taps into that spirit and amplifies it, creating a sound that feels both urgent and necessary. At a time when so much of rock seems content to wallow in bloated introspection, Bobbie Dazzle is a reminder that music can be transformative without losing its sense of fun. Fandabidozi is a swaggering clapback in the face of rock’s dreariest tendencies—an album that demands to be played loud, danced to, and celebrated. But it’s also a deeply personal work, a testament to the power of music to heal, connect, and inspire.
Under Greenaway’s steady guidance, Bobbie Dazzle strikes far beyond the perimeter of nostalgia; she is taking glam rock’s best tricks and using them to say something new, something vital. In a world that often feels crushingly heavy, Fandabidozi is a much-needed injection of joy, strut, and unrepentant optimism, reminding us why music matters. And that, above all, is a cause worth celebrating.