Tanx

The recording sessions first took place in France in August, and then in October 1972 after the American tour. In the US, the band had appeared on stage, accompanied with female soulful backing singers on a few dates. Bolan recorded the piano based song "Left Hand Luke and the Beggar Boys" with gospel backup female vocals,[2] Madeline Bell, Lesley Duncan, Vicky Brown, Barry St John and Sue and Sunny. They doubled Bolan on the soulful choruses but were not credited on the sleeve. Bob Stanley of the Times described "Left Hand Luke and the Beggar Boys" as a "New Orleans bar piano" song, with "interstellar soul".[3] "The Street and Babe Shadow" with saxophone as one of the main instruments, showed Bolan adding a funky side into his music. "Life is Strange" and "Broken Hearted Blues" were ballads closer to the T. Rex sound while "Shock Rock" was a boogie track.[4]

Bolan wanted to get away from the traditional T. Rex. He spent time in the studio to overdub all the instruments and add effects. The opening number " Tenement Lady" allowed the band to use a mellotron and Bolan used a phased effect on his vocals.[4]

Tanx was released on 28 January 1973 by record label EMI in the UK and Reprise in the US. Tanx was a top 4 hit in the UK album chart and a hit all over Europe but it failed to match the success of The Slider in the US, reaching only No. 102 in the Billboard 200. Curiously, the popular single "20th Century Boy" recorded during a stay in Japan and not in France,[4] was not included on the album, which may have affected sales, as the album (unlike its two predecessors) did not include a hit single. The album is also widely known to be the last of T. Rex's string of successes since Electric Warrior; their next album Zinc Alloy and the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow would prove to be less successful though it still made #12 on the UK charts. Tanx was T. Rex's last album released under Reprise Records in the US, as Light of Love, released under Casablanca Records (like Reprise, distributed through Warner Bros. Records), would be the last of their albums released in the U.S.

Tanx was remastered for CD by Edsel Records in 1994 as part of their extensive T. Rex reissue campaign. A number of bonus tracks were added. A companion release, entitled Left Hand Luke (The Alternative Tanx), was released in 1995 and contained alternative versions, studio rough mixes and demos of the main album and bonus tracks. A combined album digipak was released in 2002. In 2003, further recordings from the Tanx sessions were released by Thunderwing Productions Limited (TPL), the owners of several original ¼", 1" and 2" Master Tape recordings of Marc Bolan & T. Rex. These tracks were released as The Tanx Recordings.

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Creem	favourable[6]
Pitchfork	8.3/10[7]
PopMatters	7/10[8]
Rolling Stone	unfavourable[9]
The Quietus	favourable[10]

At the time, Tanx received favourable reviews in both the NME and Record Mirror.[4] Creem hailed it saying, "song for song, this might be Marc Bolan's strongest album. Certainly, it's the most varied, and the most musical".[6] However, it was derided by Rolling Stone as an uneven departure from the unique melodic rock and roll that made the band famous. Paul Gambaccini wrote "This one album might have made a good EP, since there are four worthwhile tracks, but the remaining nine are flights of Bolan's fantasies that might be interesting to his numerous devotees but less so to more casual listeners", calling it "a sad indication that Bolan really hasn't progressed and I can't see many people being truly pleased with it. But I've been wrong before." Gambaccini nevertheless praised tracks like "Mister Mister," "Electric Slim and the Factory Hen," and "Broken Hearted Blues."[9]

Retrospective reviews have been more favourable. Whitney Strub of PopMatters wrote "One reason for Tanx's commercial failure was its lack of the immediacy for which glam was known. [...] But what doomed the album on the charts is precisely what earns it reinspection today: the songs, for the most part, flow cohesively from one fractured mini-narrative to the next".[8] Stephen M. Deusner of Pitchfork, whilst praising the record, called it "a difficult album".[7] The Quietus wrote "It's an excessive record in the best possible sense", qualifying "Tenement Lady" as a stunning opener. Neil Kulkarni considered that "Electric Slim & The Factory Hen" was a nod to black soul music, a style that Bolan had always wanted to explore: Kulkarni wrote that this was two years before David Bowie "tried the same move on Young Americans".[10]

Tanx inspired Suede for their Coming Up album as producer Ed Butler related: "The blueprint was Tanx by T.Rex – I actually thought The Slider was a better choice, but Brett (Anderson) always had a different take on things. I always looked at The Slider as being the ultimate T.Rex album, but he’s right, Tanx is actually a better record, because it’s more interesting. Basically, what we did, is that every track started with acoustic guitar, bongos, tambourine and Brett, so it all started life pretty much the same way that Marc Bolan recorded all of his stuff originally. He started with an acoustic guitar song and then he’d build it up with guitar and drums and electronics. So the foundation of the songs on Coming Up, is a groove made-up out of congas, tambourine and acoustic guitar."[11] In 2003, Martin Gore from Depeche Mode recorded in solo two covers from Tanx as extra-tracks of his single "Stardust": "Left Hand Luke and the Beggar Boys",[12] and "Life is Strange".[13]

The song "Life is Strange" was the soundtrack of several scenes of the film Dallas Buyers Club in 2013 in which one of the main characters, Rayon, a Marc Bolan fan played by Jared Leto,[14] lived surrounded with pictures of his idol.[15]

All tracks are written by Marc Bolan.

• Marc Bolan – vocals, guitar
• Mickey Finn – conga, hand percussion, vocals
• Steve Currie – bass
• Bill Legend – drums
• Flo & Eddie – backing vocals
• Tony Visconti – mellotron, string arrangements, backing vocals, recorder, producer
• Howard Casey – saxophone

Technical

• John Kosh - cover design
• Peter Howe - front cover photography

• Tanx at Discogs (list of releases)