FEATURE:
A Buyer’s Guide
PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Cooke/Redferns/Getty Images
Part Fifty-Four: Roxy Music
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I gave this feature a rest last weekend…
PHOTO CREDIT: Virgin Records
but I am back with another A Buyer’s Guide. This week, I am focusing on the best albums from Roxy Music. I am not going to put a full-career biography in here but, before getting to their essential albums, a little overview:
“Evolving from the late-'60s art-rock movement, Roxy Music had a fascination with fashion, glamour, cinema, pop art, and the avant-garde, which separated the band from their contemporaries. Dressed in bizarre, stylish costumes, the group played a defiantly experimental variation of art rock which vacillated between avant-rock and sleek pop hooks. During the early '70s, the group was driven by the creative tension between Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, who each pulled the band in separate directions: Ferry had a fondness for American soul and Beatlesque art-pop, while Eno was intrigued by deconstructing rock with amateurish experimentalism inspired by the Velvet Underground. This incarnation of Roxy Music may have only recorded two albums, but it inspired a legion of imitators -- not only the glam-rockers of the early '70s, but art-rockers and new wave pop groups of the late '70s. Following Eno's departure, Roxy Music continued with its arty inclinations for a few albums before gradually working in elements of disco and soul. Within a few years, the group had developed a sophisticated, seductive soul-pop that relied on Ferry's stylish crooning. By the early '80s, the group had developed into a vehicle for Ferry, so it was no surprise that he disbanded the group at the height of its commercial success in the early '80s to pursue a solo career”.
Having released eight albums as a band, there are some that would argue all of them were critically acclaimed - though there are one or two that did not get the credit they deserved. I am highlighting the four best Roxy Music albums, the underrated gem, their final studio album together – in addition to a book about the band worth investigating. Here is a guide to the County Durham-formed band. If you are new to Roxy Music or not sure of the albums to get, then I hope that…
THIS guide is of use.
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The Four Essential Albums
Roxy Music
Release Date: 16th June, 1972
Labels: Island/Reprise
Producer: Peter Sinfield
Standout Tracks: Ladytron/If There Is Something/The Bob (Medley)
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58135&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/4uUtkBGEiq357ts7HZYuYF?si=Gwo422PZR--yztK1_7cUjw
Review:
“Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music's eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock's boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures. Although no musician demonstrates much technical skill at this point, they are driven by boundless imagination -- Brian Eno's synthesized "treatments" exploit electronic instruments as electronics, instead of trying to shoehorn them into conventional acoustic patterns. Similarly, Bryan Ferry finds that his vampiric croon is at its most effective when it twists conventional melodies, Phil Manzanera's guitar is terse and unpredictable, while Andy Mackay's saxophone subverts rock & roll clichés by alternating R&B honking with atonal flourishes. But what makes Roxy Music such a confident, astonishing debut is how these primitive avant-garde tendencies are married to full-fledged songs, whether it's the free-form, structure-bending "Re-Make/Re-Model" or the sleek glam of "Virginia Plain," the debut single added to later editions of the album. That was the trick that elevated Roxy Music from an art school project to the most adventurous rock band of the early '70s” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Re-Make/Re-Model
For Your Pleasure
Release Date: 23rd March, 1973
Labels: Island/Warner Bros.
Producers: Chris Thomas/John Anthony/Roxy Music
Standout Tracks: Do the Strand/Strictly Confidential/In Every Dream Home a Heartache
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58142&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6gKMWnGptVs6yT2MgCxw29?si=3cLF0ZwpQXOfDYKOxSXNUg
Review:
“Roxy aimed for a melding of American R&B and avant-garde European traditions (Mackay’s oboe on “For Your Pleasure” sounds like the last thing you’d hear before bees stung you to death). You don’t hear a struggle between Ferry and Eno, just two guys with similar ideas and a band juiced on its early success and acclaim, trying to get farther from earth while still holding on to the Marvelettes and the Shirelles. The playing is so adept and surprising, and Thompson and Manzanera do such strong jobs of grounding the music’s outlandish shifts, that you only slowly realize none of the album’s eight songs has a chorus.
A few months after For Your Pleasure was released, Eno left the band, quitting before he could be fired, and starting an unparalleled career as a solo artist and producer. Bryan and Brian were incompatible. Ferry was a neurotic—Woody Allen trapped in the body of Cary Grant—while Eno was a disruptor. In interviews, Ferry withdrew like a turtle; Eno excelled at them, and talked fluidly about Marshall McLuhan, Steve Reich, or his ample pornography collection. Eno most avidly pursued the band’s androgynous style, and dressed like he was Quentin Crisp’s glam nephew (leopard print top, ostrich feather jacket, bondage choker, turquoise eye shadow). Out of the chute, he was a cult hero, and Ferry grew tired of hearing punters yell “EEEEEE-NO!” in the middle of ballads, or seeing Eno credited as his co-equal.
The music had no immediate impact in the U.S., where it grazed the album chart at number 193. The band’s two-album deal with Warner Bros. had expired and the label happily left them go. American audiences, Ferry told a British interviewer, “are literally the dumbest in the world, bar none.”
But in England, it was the album of the moment, and Roxy returned to TV’s Old Grey Whistle Test, where Whispering Bob Harris, a stodgy presenter who was still stuck in the ’60s, sneered at them, as he had the previous year as well, dismissing them as great packaging with no substance.
The notion that style and substance were contradictory was a holdover from the ’60s, and it’s one that has never gone away, revived periodically by fans and critics who long for seeming authenticity. Years later, those Roxy TV appearances would start to feel almost as significant as the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. Harris’ contempt was recommendation enough for lots of kids, of myriad genders and sexualities, who would soon come to Roxy shows dressed in sparkling tunics, glowing frocks, and immaculate dinner jackets, boys and girls both in drag. But glamor and self-invention were only part of the aftereffect: Within the next few years, plenty of future punks and new wavers went on to art school, where they immediately started acting, dressing, and playing like Roxy Music” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Beauty Queen
Country Life
Release Date: 15th November, 1974
Labels: Island/Atco
Producers: Chris Thomas/John Punter/Roxy Music
Standout Tracks: The Thrill of It All/If It Takes All Night/Casanova
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58320&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/59RclwjkzMJTJZNxrfGdLC?si=65-3Q737SkKdmP-14jdrrw
Review:
“Starting with the thrilling (pun intended) 'The Thrill of It All', the album just moves from strength to strength, switching styles and flavours at every juncture, never letting the fear of cohesion or boundary spoil its artistic excess. 'Country Life' moves from pure glam rock glory like on the opening track, to obscure, avant-garde speckles of noise like 'Triptych' and 'Bitter-Sweet', to almost anywhere else you could envision. In their finest moments Ferry and co. swap moods or genres in one single song, as evidenced by the fantastic 'Out of the Blue'. If anyone else changed direction so unexpectedly like Roxy did on said track, it would likely seem misguided and botched, but Roxy just had a knack for pleasantly surprising their listeners, not to mention the right tools for the job - the 'tools' being the wonderful musicians playing behind king crooner, Bryan Ferry’s voguish lyrics. It seemed everyone was just in tip-top shape - McKay’s sax work is gorgeous on numbers like 'Three and Nine', Manzanera’s guitar riffs are as inventive and splendid as expected throughout (but especially so on highlights like 'All I Want is You') and the rest of the band are consistent as ever, despite the succession of fresh bass players passing through Roxy’s ranks. The thing that makes 'Country Life' particularly enthralling is that, whatever the venture into different styles and moods, here, Roxy delivered the goods track after track, providing an eclectic swirl of stylish, arty glam rock that thrills and delights like few others.
'Country Life' also captures the final showing of the early Roxy style, i.e. before funk and soul elements seeped into the mix more and more until the group gradually became a vehicle for front-man Ferry’s seductive crooner persona to run wild with romantic glimmer and enticing, silky soft rock tunes (something that would become fully realised with Roxy‘s final outing, the brilliant 'Avalon'). As such, the record is simply all that was great about the art rock sound of early Roxy, but taken to the extreme and its natural, satisfying succession point. A truly phenomenal album, 'Country Life' enraptured and influenced an innumerable amount of listeners, and with glistening gems such as 'The Thrill Of It All', 'All I Want Is You', 'Out Of The Blue' and 'Prairie Rose' being just a few of the high points, its not very difficult to understand why. No matter the taste preference for a certain time period or style in the bands eclectic discography, 'Country Life' is undoubtedly one of the best Roxy albums, and some would say (with great reason), the best” – Sputnikmusic
Choice Cut: All I Want Is You
Siren
Release Date: 24th October, 1975
Labels: Island/Atco
Producer: Chris Thomas
Standout Tracks: Sentimental Fool/Both Ends Burning/Nightingale
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58352&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5Tpor3YZBVEJ9tWD5L31mH?si=W0ktCJ8BTNWVeiNEc3T87A
Review:
“But Siren, which was released on Oct. 24, 1975, was something different for the London-based sextet: an album of nervy art-rock swathed in what would be the start of the lush landscapes that would dominate their later work. Self-aware, clever and maybe a bit too arch for its own good at times, Siren is the sound of a band claiming a faraway corner of mid-'70s music as its very own.
On earlier albums like For Your Pleasure, Stranded and Country Life, Roxy Music developed a reputation as one of rock's most adventurous groups, with Brian Eno's oddball synth squalls colliding with Bryan Ferry's hotel-lounge-ready vocals. Eno was gone by the time of Siren, which gave Ferry even more room to play the oily crooner.
But that winking persona gives way to something more romantic, and even more genuine, on Siren. It's there in the tracks "Sentimental Fool" and "Nightingale," covered in sheets of artsy adornment, and it's there in the opening "Love Is a Drug," the band's first U.S. chart hit. Ferry lets down his guard, relatively speaking, here, giving the emotionally detached robot of past Roxy Music albums a heart for once. Though that may be part of the act too.
It doesn't really matter. Roxy Music were never stronger or more focused than they are on Siren. They recorded it in London during the summer of 1975, seven months after Country Life was released as their fourth album in a brief two-and-a-half-year period. And unlike those earlier records, which seemed to force the band's nutcase appeal at times (during Eno's two-album stay, for instance, synthesizer bombs would fall out of nowhere, often taking entire songs out of their grooves), Siren stays on course, leaving few gaping holes in the arrangements.
It wasn't necessarily a breakthrough moment for the group in its native U.K., where the album made it to No. 4 -- Stranded had hit No. 1 there in 1973, and predecessor Country Life reached No. 3. And in the U.S., Country Life climbed to No. 37 while Siren stopped at No. 50. But thanks to "Love Is the Drug," Roxy Music were reaching a whole new batch of fans. The song made it to No. 2 in the U.K., their highest showing at that point. In the U.S., it made it to No. 30, their only Top 40 appearance.
But on another level, Siren was a breakthrough moment. Freed from some of their past shackles (at least the ones that kept them from reaching a wider audience, particularly those music fans who might have been frightened away by some of their earlier, more experimental material), Roxy Music steered their art-rock into a brave new territory, one that infused some warmth into their inherent coolness. After this, they never looked back” – Ultimate Classic Rock
Choice Cut: Love Is the Drug
The Underrated Gem
Manifesto
Release Date: 16th March, 1979
Labels: E.G./Polydor/Atco
Producers: Roxy Music
Standout Tracks: Trash/Stronger Through the Years/Dance Away
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58340&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1LDD2nUQ17tm1WMchsevtp?si=rqP3q8g6TQ-3CHYtgDPF7g
Review:
“Manifesto is the band’s first release since it broke up after the obligatory lousy live LP in 1976. Though far more interesting than most such sets (Who can forget the Byrds’ numbing 1973 reunion album? Who can remember a thing that was on it?), it offers only embellishments on the Roxy sound and story. The new record is a lovely footnote, but it can lead nowhere.
That sound and story deserve a footnote: both were among the most glorious and eccentric of the Seventies. The band — especially guitarist Phil Manzanera, saxophonist Andy Mackay, drummer Paul Thompson and Eddie Jobson (missing on Manifesto) on synthesizer — produced railing hard rock or smoky dreamscapes; always the musicians played with precision, individuality and intelligence. Bryan Ferry sang as if he never noticed there was anyone behind him, so lost was he in a strange, abandoned theater of heartbreak, desperate longings and general post-Great Warangst. Roxy Music made it all funny and stirring at the same time, storming through Stranded and finishing up with Siren. Siren was perhaps the most perfectly crafted album of the decade, as well as Ferry’s heart-on-his-sleeve break with the cynicism of the confused hustler’s persona he’d carried so long.
Manifesto is bits and pieces of all that. The songs ending each side fade out with real grace and leave you hanging, wanting more — drenched in a romance out of reach. “Still Falls the Rain” is a quiet, forgiving ballad in the purest Roxy style, full of tiny touches that occur only once, teasing you to wait for a repetition that never comes. Manzanera’s four little notes, almost buried in the distant band sound, underline Ferry’s emotion: those notes are as surprising as anything Manzanera’s ever played, and they carry as strong an echo. “Cry, Cry, Cry” is a horrible piece of old-fashioned soul, and yet, as “Spin Me Round” takes over and closes out the set, you forget all about the mistakes and drift away, just like Dobie Gray said you could.
So the record has its moments — moments few bands even know about — but as with the brazenly (and meaninglessly) titled “Manifesto,” they add up to little. Ferry announces he’s for the guy “who’d rather die than be tied down”; he’s rarely traded on such banality, and he mouths the lyrics as if he hopes no one will hear them. The sound may be alive, but the story is almost silent” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Angel Eyes
The Final Album
Avalon
Release Date: 28th May, 1982
Labels: E.G. Records/Polydor
Producers: Rhett Davies and Roxy Music
Standout Tracks: The Space Between/Avalon/Take a Chance with Me
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=58313&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3JXODSjT9mUz2lIb4YIErw?si=GS2VyMXPSVuFm3xoliPgbQ
Review:
“Flesh + Blood suggested that Roxy Music were at the end of the line, but they regrouped and recorded the lovely Avalon, one of their finest albums. Certainly, the lush, elegant soundscapes of Avalon are far removed from the edgy avant-pop of their early records, yet it represents another landmark in their career. With its stylish, romantic washes of synthesizers and Bryan Ferry's elegant, seductive croon, Avalon simultaneously functioned as sophisticated make-out music for yuppies and as the maturation of synth pop. Ferry was never this romantic or seductive, either with Roxy or as a solo artist, and Avalon shimmers with elegance in both its music and its lyrics. "More Than This," "Take a Chance with Me," "While My Heart Is Still Beating," and the title track are immaculately crafted and subtle songs, where the shifting synthesizers and murmured vocals gradually reveal the melodies. It's a rich, textured album and a graceful way to end the band's career” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: More Than This
The Roxy Music Book
Roxy Music's Avalon - 33 1/3
Author: Simon A. Morrison
Publication Date: 1st July, 2021
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Synopsis:
“Having designed Roxy Music as an haute couture suit hand-stitched of punk and progressive music, Bryan Ferry redesigned it. He made Roxy Music ever dreamier and mellower-reaching back to sadly beautiful chivalric romances. Dadaist (punk) noise exited; a kind of ambient soft soul entered. Ferry parted ways with Eno, electric violinist Eddie Jobson, and drummer Paul Thompson, foreswearing the broken-sounding synthesizers played by kitchen utensils, the chance-based elements, and the maquillage of previous albums. The production and engineering imposed on Avalon confiscates emotion and replaces it with an acoustic simulacrum of courtliness, polished manners, and codes of etiquette. The seducer sings seductive music about seduction, but decorum is retained, as amour courtois insists. The backbeat cannot beat back nostalgia; it remains part of the architecture of Avalon, an album that creates an allusive sheen. Be nostalgic, by all means, but embrace that feeling's falseness, because nostalgia-whether inspired by medieval Arthuriana or 1940s film noir repartee or a 1980s drug-induced high-deceives. Nostalgia defines our fantasies and our (not Ferry's) essential artifice” – Waterstones
Pre-Order: https://www.waterstones.com/book/roxy-musics-avalon/simon-a-morrison/9781501355349