It's stagnation time again here in Limey-land. Yup, English rock has gone to the dogs again: we're out in the cold and we don't even have a Bob Dylan touring earnestly to dupe us out of our inertia for even a couple of months.

For a start, the extent of our malady appears to be such that it has even penetrated the ever-so-secluded zones of activity inhabited by the rock pantheon. The Stones stumble on as ever, fuzzedout and restless. First it's a live album, then a studio album, then... Jagger, trapped so far into his personal imagegames, can't decide whether the Stones" collective pride can handle featuring non-originals on the new album. And oh what a turn-up: the band's pet zombie Bill Wyman, is the first out with "the solo album."

Meanwhile, the merry Zeppelin are having problems with their sixth album. It's been over a year since the previous blimp, and they haven't even started on the cover design yet. Bowie's at least got that terrain covered. The Bowie CREEMmate of last month is actually the cover of Diamond Dogs, the latest DB album, and it was rendered by Guy Rock Dreams Peellaert. But hold everything; the Stories have now dragged Peellaert in to do cover art for their album. This is getting complicated!

But if you think all those buckeroos have their problems, you better offer up a hasty prayer for cosmic bully-boys Pink Floyd. They're currently sweating blood over their moogs and tape loops in an attempt to pull together a followup to Dark Side Of The Moon, the success of which KO'd them into a state of shock that they're not yet quite recovered from.

So much for the superstars. They've been pulling the same prima-donna heists for eons now. What of the rank V file rock troops; isn't that where the real creative grist should be springing from? Weeelll, last year England proved its capabilities as the prime purveyor of ace trash commerciality, right? But now the Chinn/Chapman production team, puppet-masters for the Sweet, Mud, and Suzi Quatro, are starting to run dry, even if their product is still selling in mindlessly dariceable droves. And Gary Glitter is struggling away from the old thumping banality that made him the only truly surrealistic rock star of the 70s, towards deadpan balladeering with initially questionable results.

Gary's seeing competition in the person of one Alvin Stardust, all black leather and chisel-faced macho, who stooges about ripping off everyone from Norman Greenbaum (his hit "My CooCa-Choo" is a blatant theft of "Spirit In The Sky") to a vintage 60s rocker called Dave Berry, whose whole mysterioso stage act Stardust mimics with only slight panache. And now even the British rock critics — whose aesthetics are currently so awry that they'll pick up on anything that they notice the kids falling for — have decided that all this commercialism is artless trash, and artless trash, like artless narcissism, isn't exactly furthering the spectre of rock by that many notches.

Still, we're all behind the times and trerid-bending yet again, because the teens are apparently starting to shun the likes of Sweet in favor of bands like Queen and Holland's Golden Earring. After wooing bands who can't play their instruments and turn out flashy mindless pap, the market is now wide open for bands who can play their instruments and deal solely in flashy mindless eclectic pap.

Golden Earring, and particularly Queen, are crass eclecticism in rock personified. The Dutch band throw in every heavy riff known to God and the Divine Muses of Jimmy Page, while handling the token Jethro Tull stylistic gesture effectively enough. Queen concentrate on a hammed-up brew of Led Zeppelin dewey-eyed metal mysticism and Yes" cosmic-castrato complexities. Both bands are only inches away from the big Big BIG time, no doubt about it. The members all possess the kind of prettiifess that appeals to a 14 year old schoolgirl, and if that's not the mealticket, then what is?

Meanwhile, the precious few outposts of English rock creativity carry on. Roxy Music go from strength to strength despite (or maybe because of) Bryan Ferry's elegant paranoia, and there's always Mott of course. But you know things are getting drastic because it's summer again, and England hasn't produced one good summer rock single its last three seasons out. ©&