POLLing and turning, how can I sleep?: The Roxy Music & Bryan Ferry Results Thread

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HoDeR8aov4c/UPkkaDbFZsI/AAAAAAAAALM/TTNHpWyXqzY/s1600/Roxy%2BMusic.png

after what feels like an epic couple of weeks of listening, campaigning, and voting, i'm thrilled to be at the helm to roll out your TOP 40 ROXY MUSIC & BRYAN FERRY tracks.

43 ballots were received in total, 28 of which mentioned album covers. bravo everyone for your contributions, and also for making the ballot thread such a blast!

i hope you enjoy what's in store.

let's kick off with our TOP 5 ALBUM COVERS, shall we? then i'll reappear after some rest for tracks 40-30.

http://files.myopera.com/rato53/albums/69018/RoxyMusic.JPG

5. Roxy Music
18 points (9 votes)

that's a good start

too low

TOO LOW

http://www.carteblanche-x.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/roxy-8.jpg

4. Siren
19 points (11 votes)

^ that truly is a great one

Jerry Hall'ss makeup melted from the heat, reportedly.

When I was about 19 I spent a weekend away in Newcastle with a girl. We borrowed her father's flat in Jesmond, which was ground floor with a room in the basement. When I went exploring I found a pile of LPs in that room, prize among which were Dare by the Human League, and Siren. What a aleeve, what a record. That image! That trident!

I spent pretty much the entire weekend holed up alone downstairs with those two, playing the hell out of them.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/81eh-NQOAqL._SL1300_.jpg

3. Flesh + Blood
20 points (10 votes)

I adore it, but I do get irrationally annoyed that the lowest spear isn't quite parallel with the top two.

that's a pretty special way to be introduced to Siren, Ismael.

i have memories of being about five or six years old and being completely infatuated with the cover of Let's Stick Together, which my parents owned on vinyl.

xpost Well, her eyes are aiming somewhere else.

yeah, i can look past the directions of the arrows, because i tend to follow the gazes when i look at this cover.

Siren cover TOO LOW

http://www.soundstation.dk/images/products/large/85/125685-b.jpg

2. For Your Pleasure
30 points (13 votes)

I can't get with this one; too much black, too indistinct. itt: Ismael not reading the signs, though.

would have been so much better if the left panel was the front cover

http://www.carteblanche-x.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/roxy-7.jpg

1. Country Life
33 points (16 votes)

Best sleeve ever imo

lol nathey, true, the left panel is amazing!

Ismael, it is pretty spectacular, huh. i used to see it record stores before i was a Roxy fan and be in awe of it. for a long time i thought the women were actually lying down.

Was fashion photography like that before, or has its last four decades been an extended Country Life tribute?

Um, I think we're missing one

http://musicglue-wordpress-bryan-ferry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Another-time-another-place4.jpg

I imagine Helmut Newton might have been an influence. (Manifesto was robbed BTW.)
xp

sorry about the size of the Flesh + Blood picture by the way (though it does come to life in quite a spectacular way when enhanced to those dimensions).

http://www.salsalipm.com/media/thumbnail/spotlight-image/522dc6fdcc91c11aec9df89090c4050a/20121118_BF-Another-Time-Another-Place.jpg

I mean, come on

i'm off to sleep now. songs will commence in about 8 hrs.

AT, AP came in seventh place for the record, after Stranded (most raunchy in my opinion) and Avalon.

surprised by For Your Pleasure's ranking.

this is the one thread where photographs should be as large as possible

the more i stare at it, the more the left panel really delivers re. FYP

haha, glad to hear Iago

Are there Roxy singles sleeves of note? I've never seen one, and in fact it only occurred to me when somebody posted a Thrill Of It All image yesterday.

Not this one

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/65/Do_the_Strand_cover.jpg

sorry, meant to say just before that Another Time, Another Place came in at 8th place.

haha, yeah that Do the Strand sleeve is an all-round clunker.

haha what the hell is Ferry holding there

http://www.londonlee.com/chipshop/chippics/rmcover4.jpg

wow! is that a 45 sleeve??

wow, that's awesome

Very surprised Avalon didn't make the top five. It was my number one.

xps just an outtake

it looks like the photo-shoot from which the cover painting was made

I have to say I struggled to come up with 3 covers I actually like for this poll. Contrary to perhaps most ppl itt, I don't think Ferry has good taste (or a good eye) at all!

Part of the reason Country Life works is that there wasn't much if any pre-planning for the photo. I do like the For Your Pleasure cover a lot, but largely for the reasons Ismael doesn't. The photo sleepingsignal posted does nothing for me.

Voted for those two and, after much dithering, plumped for Taxi as my #3.

beggars belief that the crappy 'do the strand' cover is same photoshoot (& principle, sort of) as FYP gatefold, a roxy image that always always brightens my day.

some info on the country life cover

it's always bugged me that they are wearing identical underwear.

^ not actually true. If you look closely, the woman on the right isn't actually wearing a bra.

lol. panties then.

^ how you should start every meeting

Very surprised Avalon didn't make the top five. It was my number one.
--Kitchen Person

Mine too. I expected Country Life to take it but IMO Avalon is their best. So moody and evocative, even with tongue in cheek.

What's going on in it?

another time another place was my number one. nice to see flesh and blood place, considering the album itself isn't liked so much. my favorite roxy cover.

http://v027o.popscreen.com/eGRvN2QwMTI%3D_o_roxy-music---same-old-scene.jpg

was hoping this thread would be titled "POLLING POTATOES BY THE SCORE" btw

I figured CL & the debut would do well, so I threw my #1 cover vote to Viva!, which is underrated as both a Roxy sleeve and as a live album cover.

http://gloriousnoise.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Viva-Roxy-Music.jpg

Those scan lines! That member of the Sirens! Ferry's forearm!

Cover for Dance Away is great

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5247/5244413931_529568fe40.jpg

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5247/5244413931_529568fe40.jpg

yeah i like the manifesto single sleeves.

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5081/5244410063_443dd934e3.jpg

(back side of "trash")

hi.

some songs now.

fun fact: 108 songs were voted for.

yay!

I love results!

108 songs were voted for.

Is that all of them?

NVM, guess I forgot that it included Ferry's career too

how the hell did i miss this poll? i am very surprised about the bad performance of the first album. still my fave by them.

sigh

the most dangerous part of the ILM drinking game

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/83686299/Bryan%2BFerry%2B1.png

40. These Foolish Things
167 points (7 votes, one first place)

oh man I jsut realized all of these are gonna have great pictures with them

yeah, i've got it easy with this one as far as awesome pics go

alex in mainhattan, it was just a poll for album covers. in the end i decided that a side poll for favourite albums would be too much of a headfuck and shouldn't really be approached in a cursory kind of way.

something felt right about kicking things off with TFT, which tbh is one of the reasons i decided to make this a top 40 poll.

BTW, the model on the first lp cover was Mick Jagger's future sister-in-law.

For those of us who are partial to but not obsessive Roxy listeners, could you add the corresponding album/year to the individual results?

Also, I never got around to voting, so if you tell me to beat it I'd understand.

"These Foolish Things" was a revelatory performance for me as a teenage rock fan, and presaged my discovery of Billie Holiday and the like. Still one of my favorite jazz standards ever.

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_NwbotbhB1Xk/TKKaHeKrjEI/AAAAAAAAA1c/DE2IMt0dSVc/s400/Roxy-Music-Angel-Eyes-98746.jpg

39. Angel Eyes
Manifesto , 1979
172 points (8 votes)
nb: 2 votes specified the 12# version of the song

danke

no problem.

love Angel Eyes. i think both versions of this song that i have heard have their virtues.

Playlist: http://spoti.fi/1oOLKq4

"Angel Eyes" is disco-inflected pop rather than being disco. It didn't make my ballot but it's sleek and sly; it's all about Manzanera's fills, the harp, and Ferry stretching every syllable like taffy of his lower register.

second copy of manifesto i owned had the rerecorded version of "angel eyes". i'd never heard it before that and being so used to the album as-was i was pissed that one of my favorite tracks had been switched. i've come around to the single version.

i like the inquisitive bass line in the Manifesto version, particularly the bits where it gets isolated and does its own exposed little thing.

glad "These Foolish Things" made it. one of the best covers of a jazz-age standard ever by a rock artist: no period affectations or sense of being overawed---Ferry treats it the same as he does "It's My Party"

http://www.slicingupeyeballs.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/bryan_ferry.jpg

38. To Turn You On
Avalon , 1982
182 points (9 votes)

not my favourite deeper cut from Avalon, but i've warmed to it a great deal over the years.

oh man this song

And I wonder
is it fair
"You're on your own -- who cares about you?"

except me
GOD HELP ME
when things go wrong
I'll do anything to turn you on

yeah, the way he actually delivers those lines is a huge part of it. never sensed the desperation in this song the first few times i heard it

and those Prophet 5 chords simmer like a quiet fireplace

http://www.rockpeaks.com/files/imagecache/body/eggs/r/Roxy-Music/004356-Roxy-Music-Nightingale-Konserthaus-Stockholm-1976.jpg

37. Nightingale
Siren , 1975
193 points (9 votes)

Siren's an embarrassment of riches: I had to cut this one because I felt the ballot was getting too overwhelmed by its songs.

I cut so many Siren tracks but kept this one in...

Love Nightingale

http://coolalbumreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/RoxyMusic79.jpg

36. Dance Away
Manifesto 1979
199 points (9 votes)

you're dressed to kill
AND GUESS WHO'S DYING

Ferry in full Dorian Gray mode in that picture, while Manzanera now looks like a 40-yr-old physics prof

haha

http://www.formidablemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/44_Bryan-Ferry-%2B-Amanda-Lear-party.jpg
35. Serenade
Stranded , 1973
201 points (9 votes)

bryan ferry pictures not good a month into quitting smoking

yeah, he's the kind of reason one gets involved in that sort of thing

"Serenade": The first one of mine to place, and the last one I added to my ballot.

one of my favourite Roxy moments: "a broken spell au clair de lune", in particular the fleshed-out croon of the word "lune".

speaking of croon...

Call the tune
Will you swoon
As I croon
Your serenade

first one of mine too. my number 11.

also really love that reverberated (guitar?) sound that kicks in from the very beginning.

x-post

yes! love how he manages to fit all those lines in.

and a stellar Paul Thompson performance too

not to mention 'Boo-hoo willows'!

a Stranded double feature:

http://kamertunesblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/roxy-music-stranded-inside-photos.jpg
34. Psalm
Stranded , 1973
205 points (10 votes)

the Musikladen performance of this one converted me. just an incredulously good performance (with an expert tambourine catch by BF at one point)

http://youtu.be/aloaJv3n8cI

Although this song appears on the third Roxy Music album, Bryan Ferry is quoted to have said that it was the first song he ever wrote.

"Psalm" on the DVD, from Germany maybe? Is excellent. voted for it & "To Turn You On"

Haha xp

I don't think "A Song for Europe" ever even came up on the campaigning thread...wonder if it will show?

meant to say "incredibly good": it's quite believable how good RM are in that one

Based on what we're seeing so far, I'm assuming that the large majority of the results are going to be 1972-75 tracks (like ~75%) and that there's not going to be whole lot of solo Ferry (~10%).

A bit late: "Serenade" was in my top ten. A perfect album track; it synthesizes every thing notable about Mach II Roxy.

BOO HILL WILLOWS WEEP 'ROUND YOU STILL

(and those piano chords)

http://static2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130624174105/peel/images/c/c1/Roxy_Music.jpg
33. For Your Pleasure
For Your Pleasure , 1973
207 points (9 votes, two first places)

Alfred and charlie h respectively OTM in re ferry phrasing that takes songs somewhere else.

dance away just missed my 20. very glad I ranked both "to turn you on" and "nightingale" high.

"Dance Away" their second biggest US and British hit btw

A couple songs I've voted for already. I love Psalm, really is almost a gospel song.

xxxp I always hear "from Courtney Love to costly game"

for those of you for whom Street Life: 20 Great Hits was their introduction, "Dance Away" leads the second side. What a, uh, transition from "Sign of the Times" to this.

xp I think it's a New Orleans funeral march type thing (Psalm)

whoa two first place votes! not mine but respect yo.

'For Your Pleasure' one of the few Roxy tunes I don't like: an experiment heard once, in my opinion, like "The Gift."

I agree and it did not make my ballot, can't remember but I may have voted for every other song on that album

although I could listen to "The Gift" for days on end, don;t agree w/the comparison

i dig FYP, but didn't get a vote in for it. a very icy song.

I found the Eno/Roxy "experiment" tracks have aged the worst for me: Eno was far more interesting on his own, not as an irritant in Ferry's project

Eno was a great cog in Ferry's machine though. Love that Editions of You solo and the musical breakdown in 2HB

i agree--he's great when he's under Ferry's thumb, basically. the tracks where he seems to have the dominant voice are another story

Eno admitted as such in that Roxy doc from a few years ago: "It was Bryan's band...it was his vision."

Just catching up. Very happy to see Serenade make it as I ended up putting it as my number two. Such an effortless song that is placed perfectly on Stranded (think that album is perfectly sequenced) Under three minutes long and not a second is wasted.

Eno at the 4:00 mark

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYa4TD1uhTA

it may have been Bryan's band, but:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/db/Phil-Manzanera_1973.jpg/220px-Phil-Manzanera_1973.jpg
32. Over You
Flesh + Blood , 1980
223 points (10 votes)

in which Roxy attempt the Cars and beat them. The moment when Ferry's synthesizer doubles Mackay's sax solo and ascends higher and higher = top five moment.

last one for now:

http://31.media.tumblr.com/b8a3c66edb3ed2ccab7cca85d1c411e0/tumblr_mjq5z4WvIp1qfjd2po1_500.jpg
31. Casanova
Country Life , 1974
229 points (11 votes)

fabulous photo

The smoky, slow version introduced on Let's Stick Together is best.

have to disagree: i love the Roxy version to bits. The Manzanera solo that erupts after "cocaine"; the way Paul Thompson is like a live wire all through it

i really like both versions, but think that the RM version takes the prize. so brash, rambunctious and triumphant even when it's second-guessing itself -- "heroooi-i-in... or is it cocaine?"

Recap:

40. These Foolish Things
39. Angel Eyes
38. To Turn You On
37. Nightingale
36. Dance Away
35. Serenade
34. Psalm
33. For Your Pleasure
32. Over You
31. Casanova

The drums of "Casanova" are basically Thompson at his most Bonham. Total A+ stomp jam.

yeah, it's pretty unstoppable. fell in love with it the first time i heard it.

I've only had one place so far... Psalm.
TOTALLY due to being converted by the tambo-catch video. The band grooves like fuck too.

All the songs that have placed so far are great though.

Over You is a real creeper. much more going on there than meets the eye. used to think it sounded... i dunno, a bit limp. now i think it's great.

POLLing and turning, how can I sleep?: The Roxy Music & Bryan Ferry Results Thread

I voted for "Serenade," and I was one of the #1 votes for FYP, so I am happy to see those place. I like FYP's iciness and think it progresses quite naturally. I've never really thought about it being that "experimental" before (beyond the last minute). The guitar tone is exquisite (love that part after the 1st verse), and the slow disintegration of the piano coda is really affecting. If only all experiments could fail this spectacularly.

love fyp, barely missed my ballot

great description, Kent

this has long stuck with me:

In the morning
Things you worried about
Last night
Will seem lighter

so true

and of course, the "tara tara" at the end is a splendidly obtuse touch that only BF could pull off.

Who'd a thought RM & Judi Dench would be such a winning combo?

I found the Eno/Roxy "experiment" tracks have aged the worst for me: Eno was far more interesting on his own, not as an irritant in Ferry's project

OTM, and I'm an Eno stan. It's annoying that he still gets asked if he'll rejoin Roxy Music when leaving was clearly the best thing for all concerned. Stranded + Here Come the Warm Jets >>>>> anything they would have made if he'd stayed.

i dig the experimental stuff still. there is an unresolved tension to some of the early songs -- Chance Meeting, For Your Pleasure etc. -- that is either the product of two musical forces (Ferry & Eno) taking a shared musical vision to unsettling ends, or at discordant odds with each other to begin with, i can't decide which. either way, i find the results fascinating and by and large, pretty effective.

The latter.

yeah, i think i agree.

gotta say though, the first couple of RM album are experimental and disjointed in a way that i feel genuinely enhances them. it's true that an album like Country Life benefits from the absolute clear-headedness of the vision behind it, but it's not something that i think puts it ahead of the earlier albums.

super bummed i didn't get a ballot in-- angel eyes is criminally low

"The Bogus Man" and "For Your Pleasure" grew on me exponentially over the years, and I dug them when I first heard them. That said, I don't think losing Eno was bad for them in the least; he would've surely done something interesting with the "Amazona" solo, but he wouldn't have done that.

angel eyes is criminally low

^this

and based on the placings for this and "Dance Away" and "Over You", I guess "Oh Yeah!" won't make it at all, which is almost as big a crime

curious how many solo Ferry cuts are going to make it. I can think of only 1 (i hope!) guaranteed slot.

I'm curious, for those who wanted "Angel Eyes" higher: original or single mix? (It didn't make my list at all.)

$4648.15 for a Manifesto tour poster!

http://www.amazon.com/Roxy-Music-Manifesto-1979-Concertposter/dp/B005Q6OFSQ/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1392837347&sr=8-3&keywords=roxy+music+manifesto

Sweet poster. Not a $5000-worth sweet poster.

single mix all day

Xpost Does Ferry courier it to you himself?

Poster and he also throws in the outfit from [ì]Another Time, Another Place[/ì]

Single mix of Angel Eyes, mos def.

As for "Oh Yeah!"... HAS to place way higher than "Dance Away" and "Over You" - no?
Then again, I've only had one of my ballot in here so far, so what the hell do I know! haha

Being American, I'm mostly familiar with, and prefer, "Angel Eyes" the album cut; I guess I've heard the single a time or three at best. #4 in the UK, wow.

I'm American too, but the single version of "Angel Eyes" was on my radar way before the album version due to MTV.
If my memory serves me correct, it's the single version of "Angel Eyes" that's on the first Roxy album I purchased... the cassette of "The Atlantic Years".
Super odd collection that was.

Kinda shocking how often Roxy videos would get played on MTV in '83 or so (when I first got the channel).
Mainly Angel Eyes, Avalon and More Than This... maybe they played others, but I don't remember seeing them at the time.

Just watching that "Angel Eyes" video now. I'm sure I must have seen it before, but I was poor and cable-less in the early days of MTV.

I was gonna ask! Avalon eventually went platinum, Boys + Girls gold, so Roxy/Ferry's American moment was 1980-1987, right? Was Ferry a college radio presence?

not sure but ppl my age were definitely listening to Avalon in that time period

I remember watching mtv hour after hour and, out of all the cuckoo artists they played, my mom fixated on Bryan Ferry being weird.
I think it was his pained facial expressions and ungainly movements that bugged her.

"That's that Roxy Music, right?" she'd say before making a weird face impression of Ferry.

Avalon, iirc, didn't go platinum (or gold?) until long after release. I think.

Ppl a bit older than me might have a better idea re: why they were popular.
When I got into them at 12 (1983), I was just investigating the stuff that Duran and ABC were telling me to check out.
All their heat in my household came from MTV and Second Brit Invasion bands repping hard for them.

read somewhere recently that avalon went platinum in 87 iirc.

Gold in '86, platinum in '92.

ah ok. that's in the us?

So that's Avalon going gold off the back of B&G and "Slave to Love" being in 9 1/2 Weeks, I guess.

...and Ferry being on the poster above Ferris Bueller's bed.

haha was just about to post

http://www.timlybarger.com/blog/fbdo034.jpg

In the eighties Ferry existed as soundtrack fare.

LEGEND

Kiss and Tell was my introduction to Ferry -- it played on MTV a fair amount and on VH1 a lot. I think the first Roxy Music song I heard (but didn't know it at the time) was Love Is the Drug when Dave Gahan sang a line or two of it while playing pinball in the 101 movie.

he looks fabulous in the "Kiss and Tell" video.

(Ferry and Roxy have the dubious distinction of each being American one hit wonders)

Ferry was a hipper James Bond than the actors playing JB in the '80s

...and Ferry being on the poster above Ferris Bueller's bed.

― Virginia, Plain and Tall (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, February 19, 2014 5:22 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Legitimately mind-blowing realization right here.

I really wanna see 101 now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEzj8xobdCY

Before they got ClearChannelled around 2000 or so, my area Adult Contemporary/New Music station did amazing all '80s Friday nights, with deep cuts, MTV faves, trivia contests etc. One night they asked listeners to id who was on the poster above Bueller's bed and nobody got it. The DJ gave up after an hour and after revealing the answer, he talked a little about Ferry & Roxy before cueing up "More Than This".

That totally makes sense.

Contrary to all the Roxy didn't do well in America, I'd say that for a band of their (very very low) profile,
they actually DID sell a decent amount of records here.

Who was buying them and why?

Ferry was a non-entity in the nineties; liking him in '93 and looking forward to new product was akin to buying hardcover George Saintsbury or something. The lifeless 10,000 Maniacs cover of "More Than This" was my friends' intro.

Pretty sure I was first aware of RM around the time "Over You", "Same Old Scene" and "Oh Yeah" first received radio play here. That smooth, vaguely haunting, partially synthetic sound (Sparks' "When I'm With You" is lodged in the same category in my juvenile memories) is pretty much what being a pre-schooler sounds like in my mind. :)

Surely accounts for the hefty amounts of points I allocated to the first two of those songs. I do hope "SOS" fares better than "Over You"!

I ended up buying all the cassette reissues (as cutouts) at some point in the early 90s—all of them except Avalon, which I didn't hear until much later.

I can tell you working in a record shop in '82, everytime we put Avalon on the turntable, we sold one. We sold some stereo gear too, and used to use that as a demo disc.

here we go:

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uO8cB68QwqI/TLYV9r3KfII/AAAAAAAABZU/4cBE1xEiBvU/s1600/ferry.jpg
30. Prairie Rose
Country Life , 1974
236 points (10 votes, one first place)

TEXASSSSSSSS!

xps Ferry's always had some kind of national treasure status here, but somehow it seems entirely separate from his music. I remember seeing a satirical review of Taxi when it was released, in Melody Maker, which featured a Ferry talking in broad Geordie about how sophisticated he was: "Ah'm gannin' doon the taxi rank, 'cos ah am a reet sophisticated guy like" - it made no sense, and now I look back was in many ways the beginning of the end for Melody Maker.

he's never sounded happier!

In the other thread I pointed out the chasm between Ferry's art and person. When he's interviewed he could be discussing tea cups.

wonderful stuff: if there was ever a Douglas Sirk Western, this would be its theme song

Talking Heads' "Big Country" alleged inspired by/ answer song to this?

love the sax in this

@Ismael
I remember MM doing something like that with Sylvian too.
Called him "Sylvo" and had him talking about football. ha

Looking back, it's a bit of a weird thing to be a kid scratching the surface of indie music in 1993 or whenever, picking up one of the rags, and being confronted by a page of David Sylvain in-jokes

http://2r62j11x4zsy3ytak02nzvbk24y.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Amanda%2BLear%2B%2BBryan%2BFerry%2B%2BDavid.jpg
29. Just Like You
Stranded , 1973
237 points (10 votes)

this one breaks my heart. beautiful

Beautiful piano line, Ferry often likes to use piano lines that mirror the melody and this is the best example I think.

yes; love everything about it. my #3.

the end does that same trick as 'Serenade'

such a simple yet wonderful development from the opening sequence into the "hopelessly grounded..." section. and the guitar solo is top notch.

Great to see "Just Like You" make it. That was another last minute ballot addition for me.

this one benefited from some consistently high voting:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/Roxy_Music_band.jpg
28. A Song for Europe
Stranded , 1973
244 points (9 votes)

Lovely Manzanera solo.

I have....cooled on "Song for Europe" over the years.

only pop song ever to have a verse in Latin?

me too on the SfE cooling.

Going back to that photo with Bowie....it tickles me how Bowie's enthusiasm for Roxy never ebbed while Ferry was at best wary.

with good reason on Ferry's part (i.e. Foolish Things/ Pin Ups)

xp do tell (or link) re: Ferry's wariness...

always get a kick out of the gloriously mangled French at the end of ASFE. sounds kinda like somebody's dad having a go on a family trip to Paris.

yep, also curious to know about Ferry's wariness?

jamais jamais jamais jamais jamais jamais

Every track from Stranded made my poll, except for "A Song For Europe." I dig it ok, and it flows perfectly within the rest of the record, but it's Ferry at his most grandiose/absurd, a little of which goes a long way.

http://walkingthelongmileshome.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/roxymusic.jpg
27. 2 H.B.
Roxy Music , 1972
251 points (13 votes)
nb: the BF re-working received 2 votes for 40 points)

There was a piece in Spin (i think), maybe around the time B&G came out, that spent quite a bit of time on the Bowie/Ferry back and forth. Once again, this is a lonnnnng time ago, so... my memory might be playing tricks on me regarding the magazine and time period, but I feel like it must've been Spin.
I remember wondering why Ferry would be so wary (wary-ferry). Not a very happy-go-lucky dude, eh?

yeah, not usually a very light-hearted individual from what i've seen

it's mainly rooted in Pin Ups/ Foolish Things. BF cuts Foolish Things, then hears Bowie's doing his own covers album, and gets irritated/paranoid. DB allegedly knew about it and a few sources have DB saying he wanted to get the jump on Ferry's LP. The albums come out roughly at the same time (Foolish Things a week or so ahead) after some negotiations

but add that to Ferry having Jerry Hall stolen away from him by Mick Jagger, and it's not surprising he has a jaundiced view of the '70s Brit rock elite

anyhow "2HB" is a gem

The Spin piece I'm remembering also went into both Bowie and Ferry's late 70's. Comparing and contrasting Bowie's well-played Berlin sojourn vs (essentially) Ferry being an out of touch dodo who put out The Bride Stripped Bare. Their success or failure being measured against how "the punks" felt about them. Maybe this was Spin's way of green-lighting a Ferry feature? Make sure there's lotsa Bowie in it!

Does anybody else remember this or am I imagining magazine articles again?

Just catching up. Prairie Rose was my 2. Love love love it!!

I thought A Song For Europe would be higher.

this is one of the few polls where it really hurt not to include 90% of the RM catalogue

in re "2HB," was there a Bogart revival of sorts in '72? Play It Again, Sam came out the same year.

http://musicglue-wordpress-bryan-ferry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Jerry-Hall-and-Bryan-Ferry-Roxy-Music.jpg
26. She Sells
Siren , 1975
279 points (13 votes)

This song is fucking amazing. Voted for it.

so much good about "She Sells" but Jobson's violin is the MVP

Cool, it was my number 20, glad it made it. Looks like a good chunk of For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life, and Siren are going to feature.

yeah, She Sells is electrifying. love it when this band cuts loose so fearlessly.

The last Siren song I learned to love. A perfect throwaway like "Serenade "

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_oTOXnQhYhEM/TMjshasj5zI/AAAAAAAACOE/GPG8bM67DhY/s1600/Bryan+Ferry+piano.jpg
25. Sentimental Fool
Siren , 1975
290 points (14 votes)

too low!

yeah, i agree. my favourite Siren song.

^^ditto

how does Ferry rate as a lyricist? i don't think i've ever heard a word of praise....

http://userserve-ak.last.fm/serve/500/2127584/Roxy+Music.jpg
24. A Really Good Time
Country Life , 1974
315 points (14 votes, one first place)

personally, i rate him very highly. a better lyricist than a lot of people are aware of, i suspect.

beyond love this, my #7...I had to choose either this for Just Like You it killed me to kill the latter

choose either this OR (sorry)

xp: an always fine, sometimes masterful lyricist who consistently manages to make his lines better w/his phrasing. but seriously "Do the Strand" alone puts him up there in the top rank

I dunno if he's top 10 all time or whatever but he has penned a shit-ton of great lines imo.

I like to think Cole Porter would have appreciated Do the Strand

there's an undercurrent of sadness to ARGT, which has been getting under my skin lately

I mean, "Louis XVI (or says) il prefere, laissez-faire le Strand" is just all fucking time

xp that's no undercurrent, that's pure current of sadness

yeah, you're probably right. though the title is a bit of a red herring.

yeah. that ain't a good-time jam! john taylor always reps hard for ARGT.

really, what does john taylor say? i'd be curious to hear specifics from the ABC-Duran crowd on Ferry

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m33pyoW2vw1qa1iiqo1_500.jpg
23. Just Another High
Siren , 1975
317 points (14 votes)

jesus that's great hair

ha. this is on my headphones right now.

man just the electric piano tone at the beginning...

speaking of Ferry as a lyricist, this is one of his finest:

"marriages made in heaven/ can they survive in this life?"

or how he pivots from all the "I" rhymes in the 1st verse to the broader rhyme scheme of the later ones

Yeah, good timing on the Ferry as lyricist question.

Surely it came as no surprise
Love was too hot to handle
I really blew my cool and you
You just blew out the candle

Just Another High is masterful.
Drums sound AMAZING when they kick in.

Incredible song. Top five. The chorus, the electric piano, the regular piano, the drums.

man, the bit in the fade, too...

Maybe I should start anew...
Maybe I'll find someone who...
(will) Maybe love me like I love you...
Maybe I'm too stuck on you...
Maybe I got stuck on you...
Maybe... [unintelligible as track fades]

ok, before anyone else gets a word in i'm gonna call this out as TOO LOW:

http://www.londonlee.com/chipshop/chippics/rmcover5.jpg
22. Amazona
Stranded , 1973
324 points (13 votes, two first places)

yup, too low - stranded really is the best rm album (for me)

top 20 is gonna be interesting

What the hell? Too low is right. This was my number one for so many reasons but the main one is that guitar solo. It should go on forever.

It took me long time to come around to "Amazona," but the "hey little girl..." part kept me coming back. Now I really dig it and happily threw a vote its way.

I can't say the same for some of the Siren tracks that have placed - "Just Another High" excepted. Ferry's delivery of those great lyrics make it a top 10 Roxy track for me.

"A Song For Europe" has always felt like the centrepiece of Stranded to me and it's low placement is the biggest surprise thus far in these results. My #3.

just another high was my first siren vote to place but I'm looking for a few more still...

I remember Jonathan Ross playing this on his Saturday morning Radio 2 show many years ago. He had in well known terrible indie band Starsailor who were raving about Dylan as an influence to which he wasn't too impressed. He asked them if they liked Roxy Music. Think they kind of said we don't know their stuff. He demanded they listened to Amazona right then. Not sure if it persuaded them to become fans or blew them away at all but I remember thinking that was by far the coolest thing Jonathan Ross had done at that point.

He later did a similar thing when he had in Yeah Yeah Yeahs and started asking them if they knew The Associates, he then played one of their strangest songs (Transport to Central) Would love to think Karen O went and bought all their stuff later on.

and the last one for a bit:

http://rockcriticsarchives.com/audiovisual/RM02.jpg
21. The Bogus Man
For Your Pleasure , 1973
342 points (17 votes)

stoked to see this get an unexpectedly high placing.

For me this is the only less than brilliant song on those first three albums. It's an interesting song with a cool groove but it just goes on way too long and I'm always willing it to end to get to Grey Lagoons.

there is so much that i love about Amazona. it was the first Stranded song that i got stuck on.

Shocking. I was sure Just Another High was a lock for top ten.

Just listening to Stranded. No idea why I didn't vote for Just like You. Such a beautiful song.

the long groove part is my favorite thing about Bogus Man, such a slinky tight jam, really loose and open. reminds me of Sonic Youth's "Hits Of Sunshine" which is one of my faves by that band, and I like it for similar reasons. I think they get similar criticism too, which I understand, but it really doesn't go on too long imo.

"Prairie Rose" was my #1: after years of only knowing the singles, I think I became a real fan when I first heard this one.

Baffled by the low placement of "Amazona" (my #3). Figured it'd be a lock for the top 5. Kitchen Person otmfm re: the guitar solo. I'd say it's the defining moment of Stranded.

40. These Foolish Things
39. Angel Eyes
38. To Turn You On
37. Nightingale
36. Dance Away
35. Serenade
34. Psalm
33. For Your Pleasure
32. Over You
31. Casanova

30. Prairie Rose
29. Just Like You
28. A Song for Europe
27. 2 H.B.
26. She Sells
25. Sentimental Fool
24. A Really Good Time
23. Just Another High
22. Amazona
21. The Bogus Man

The strange thing about listening to Roxy as a American is that I heard the records mostly in the wake of all the 80s UK stuff that descended from it, even stuff that isn't obviously in it's wake. So I hear a track like Bogus Man, and it's like a Combat Rock outtake.

Bogus Man could be a Can outtake.

I vividly remember the first time I heard "The Bogus Man," because it was the same day I first heard Miles' Pangaea and Sketches of Spain and Scrawl's He's Drunk. That was a good day.

But it was so wonderfully baffling, and Thompson kept that shit swinging like mad.

i haven't listened to The Bogus Man in a while because it can be too wild for everyday purposes, at least for me, but it's pretty unforgettable.

i know we have some committed Roxy warriors following the rollout, but is anybody getting a kick out of discovering some of these songs for the first time?

Was thinking today how almost preturnatural a presence Ferry is as frontman. By point of comparison, Win Butler is 33 right now, which is 5 years older than Ferry was when "Stranded" was released. Justin Timberlake is 33, too. You watch them, and they look like kids compared to Ferry. The guy really knew how to carry himself.

i was thinking a very similar thing recently, Josh. thanks for putting it so eloquently!

Like, the cover of "Another Time, Another Place," Ferry looks 45 years old, not 30.

http://i1.wp.com/potholesinmyblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/justin-timberlake-hands-live.jpg?resize=594%2C384

"Lumber up, limbo down ..."

yeah, very true. his physical aura projects something more worldly and assured than his age would suggest.

on a similar level, i find it absolutely remarkable that those Steely Dan records came out when those guys were in their twenties.

meanwhile, Jerry Hall chops off her locks

At least those guys projected the aura of precocious geniuses at work, like unkempt grad students. Ferry always looks like he's been up all night gambling in Monaco.

Ferry is a master of the baroque lyric and the ornate one. He's better than Bowie.

i think the fact that he has always come across as almost cautious as a speaker and personality contributes to the preserved composure that he was able to uphold when he was young. you get the immaculately-dressed physical side of Ferry, which was never defused by anything infantile or bratty that he said.

...or in the way he acted.

obv. i'm not referring to the more controversial stuff he is cited as having said.

i mean, even Bob Dylan was much more of a brat than this guy in his twenties.

"a song for europe" oddly appeared on the first roxy greatest hits album. it's a song i think i don't care for but sing along with every word when it's on (along with the rest of stranded).

...but is anybody getting a kick out of discovering some of these songs for the first time?

i heard all of these records in order, when they came out, and can't imagine trying to make sense of them backwards. or, say, starting w/ later Ferry.

That '77 comp was huge for me, bought it in high school and practically memorized it. "Love Is the Drug" was the only song on it I didn't think much of at the time.

surprised "amazona" is so low. excellent lyrics:

Hey little girl
Is something wrong?
I know it's hard
For you to get along
The bell-tower rings
It tolls a hollow sound
But your castles in Spain
Still may be realized
And longings more profound

is anybody getting a kick out of discovering some of these songs for the first time?

"Over You" is sounding nice and I don't know it at all, I tried to give a cursory listen to F&B but it didn't stick, this is like the bridge between the 1st 6 albums and Avalon

the viva! version of "the bogus man" is great.

"Just Another High" in my top five.

re: amazona

Rap artist Ice T used a sample of the opening guitar motif as the foundation of one of his tracks, 'That's How I'm Living (On The Rox Mix)'.

I've been reading since the ballot thread started, but didn't vote, because (1) I'm pretty new around here and (2) I'm having soundcard issues at the moment and didn't want to vote without checking out the later stuff I'm not as familiar with. I'm a huge fan of early RM - saw them on the Siren tour when I was a teenager, and yes, that intro of "Sentimental Fool" was an all-time moment - and I just wanted to say how much I am enjoying this poll. Thanks so much for doing this!

(If I had voted, my #1 would have probably been "End of the Line," btw)

I was the other voter who had Amazona at #1. I love the way the song is mixed, how Jobson's violin and Thompson's drums move within the mix.

The Stranded LP was my teenage musical obsession. In terms of how many times I've listened to any single record, nothing else comes remotely close.

When is the Ferry poll starting?

this is a combined poll because i think it's fun to see how RM and BF songs stack up against each other (These Foolish things has obviously already placed), but we can definitely take a bit of a closer look at the Ferry tracks that did well once this rollout is done.

thanks for following, Sandy, and glad you're enjoying the thread!

i had Amazona at no. 4 by the way. my highest placed song to chart so far.

gonna kick the rollout into gear again in about half an hour.

http://eil.com/images/main/Roxy+Music+-+All+I+Want+Is+You+-+Promo+-+7%22+RECORD-460422.jpg
20. All I Want is You
Country Life , 1974
371 points (16 votes, one first place)

^ perfect little single

Glad Ferry quickly moved on from the "accounts manager on vacation, 1975" look

switched to the "morose gaucho" look

lol

"All I Want is You" should've been the U.S. breakthrough instead of "Love is the Drug." The controlled fury of Manzanera, the way the chorus is slower the verses, the way the band holds it together after the solo.

I forgot to vote for "Amazona", but I meant to vote for it!

here he is in a t-shirt and jeans!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OgSzq5vZzIU

it sure packs a punch. deceptively labyrinthine, both the words and the music, for something that at first glance seems linear and straightforward.

i'd say "controlled fury" sums up the song pretty well

and the segue into "Out of the Blue" – oof.

the way the "all i want! all I want!" backing vocals come in perfectly in the last verse. and good Lord, Manzanera on this one

wow, such an understated look from BF, right down to the thumbs in the pockets.

That clip is why, generally, I prefer Ferry to Roxy. It's the full-spectrum sound, I find it difficult to listen to in the same way I find heavy compression physically painful. It's great when it works, but unless everything is right I can't relax into that sound. Give me synths and tasteful clipped guitars most days.

http://cdn.iofferphoto.com/img/item/197/402/006/o_roxy-music-live-8-10-1975-glasgow-apollo-rare-fb963.jpg
19. Love Is The Drug
Siren , 1975
388 points (18 votes, one first place)

look at that ass!

man it's so true: Ferry made sure to surround himself with uglier men.

So he was the Adam Levine of his day

In that respect, at least

xps re all i want

damn that live version is great. It wasn't near my ballot - always felt like one of those fairly straightforward country life songs; liked it, but never roused me - but I think I've underestimated it. I underestimate Country Life generally, maybe.

just had to do a search for Adam Levine. proud of myself for not knowing who you meant ;)

yeah, i underestimate Country Life sometimes too, but at least part of that is due to the fact that it flows so gracefully.

Number 19!

Yeah, I'd say that Ferry can carry the street look equally well. Also, the TOTP performance is kinda funny in light of RM's long history of the dispensible bassist.

I mean some days this is the greatest song ever, and here on ILM it's number 19.

xp dispensable, even

Yeah, only ILM would rank Love Is the Drug the 19th best RM song.

Maybe due to vote-splitting with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra version, that's all I can think of.

I mean some days this is the greatest song ever, and here on ILM it's number 19.

solitary posts that effortlessly sum up ILM

"love is the drug" was the only Roxy song I knew until I got into 'em---as others have said, it was the band's only US hit. It's such a cold record, Ferry autopsying a seduction, with each instrument seemingly in its own world. A bit ironic that one of the band's best-known songs is defined by a bassline--the role they usually outsourced to session guys

LITD ain't one of my favourites, but i have very fond memories of routinely lining it up on the jukebox at a bar i used to frequent. the delivery of "you can guess the rest" is something to behold.

oh, and i agree that it sounds super cold

The post-reunion material proves it was a fluke. Those bass lines are busy instead of funky, or else mixed real high.

btw my karaoke version of LITD is fabulous

LITD was the only Roxy song I knew for a long time, but now I think that there are at least four songs on Siren alone that are even better

have you guys read British reviews of Siren? At the time it was their worst reviewed, while in America the critics finally got it.

i never get sick of Love is the Drug, I don't know how that is possible.

'toll of the bell'. God I love that. almost distracting lyrical grace-note, changing a knocking-off clock (or something else? actually I'm a bit unclear on what that bell is - I've always imagined we're hearing someone waiting to get off work at the beginning, but i can miss obvious stuff in lyrics) into donne's death bell to open a lust-as-pathology song. anyway, ring->toll, beautiful.

http://www.securecrazydiamond.com/dizq2/66718.jpg
18. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
These Foolish Things , 1973
391 points (15 votes)

YES

^^ should've been top three. His approach defines Ferry's ethos.

does anyone have trouble listening to Dylan's version? Ferry firebombed it for me.

It's such a cold record, Ferry autopsying a seduction, with each instrument seemingly in its own world.

This. And Chris Thomas was Roxy's secret weapon, managing to make the songs sound alive without sounding shrill or brash, but still off-putting and mysterious.

yeah, i'll usually reach for this version over Dylan's. but Dylan earns most of the respect for coming up with the words.

One of the most amazing covers: the sheer audacity of it.

Robert Forster of the Go-Betweens once wrote about it: ‘A Hard Rain’ being a three-chord folk song, Ferry not only saw the possibilities of pounding it into a three-chord rock song, but the opportunity to add all the touches so characteristic of his work at that moment: grand camp gestures that the song just had to lie down and take.

I'm so impressed with all his Dylan covers. I ultimately picked a different one, but boy does he deliver on them.

He goes so far into camp that the performance becomes a masterpiece of sincerity.

general otm, A1 writing job by dylan, but if I listen to his, I wish i was listening to ferry's.

Never realized the B-side was where the new version of "2HB" came from. That's really a double A side of remake/remodelling source material imo.

am I missing anything with the edited version of Hard Rain that's on Spotify?

Ferry celebrates the imagery in a way that Dylan isn't able to, or more likely isn't willing to.

once played this while my v. self-serious Baby Boomer aunt was visiting. "Oh, this is AWFUL..who is this?"

my darling young juaaaaaaan

once played this while my v. self-serious Baby Boomer aunt was visiting. "Oh, this is AWFUL..who is this?"

― col,

what about when she heard the Ferry version?

xps on imagery

yeah, that makes sense - in general liberates its aesthetic allure (& find weird depths in that) by extracting it from the gnomic/prophetic dylan-context

love the drumming on Hard Rain; is that Paul Thompson? my #10

pretty sure it is

Spotify says "You listened to Roxy Music yesterday - want to try Yes or Starship?"

"You listened to Roxy Music yesterday - want to try more Roxy Music?"

WELL NOW THAT YOU ASK

haha yeah that sounds more like it

funny – the college station is playing Yes' awful "It Can Happen."

LITD was the only Roxy song I knew for a long time, but now I think that there are at least four songs on Siren alone that are even better

― voodoo chili, Thursday, February 20, 2014

no knock on LITD but my ballot agrees with you

I only properly discovered this after submitting my ballot. You're right Alfred - he nukes it. The audacity is joyous.

Has Dylan ever commented on it?

http://newstalgia.crooksandliars.com/files/uploads/2010/04/roxy_music_1_5e65d.jpg
Both Ends Burning
Siren , 1975
406 points (23 votes)

no. 17 obviously

would have made my ballot regardless but the Roxy Music Live version def pushed it higher

so frantic!

feels like the intro could go on forever---Ferry finally popping in around the :50 mark is a bonus

love the synths

and KEEP ON BURNIN TILL THE EEEEENNNN-EEEENNDDD-EEEEENNDDDDD

is almost all of Siren going to place? I can see one more track making it

Genius tune. Urtext for the New Romantics.

and his vibrato is funnier than Tony Hadley and David Sylvian's

YES. Thank heavens for that.

http://images.popmatters.com/film_art/r/roxymusic-splsh.jpg
16. Avalon
Avalon , 1982
418 points (19 votes)

xp Both Ends Burning made my top five. Possibly my favorite Ferry vocal performance

my first TOO LOW

i couldn't find a spot for Both Ends Burning, but i do get a tremendous kick out of it.

for me 16th place seems just about right for Avalon.

more Prophet 5 beauty

Love the guitar on Avalon. How did this not make my list? UGH.

Anybody know how the parts broke down between Phil and session dudes on the later albums?
I mean, I assume I know what Phil did, but...

"All I Want is You" was my number one. Reviewing the catalog made me realize that my favorite sort of RM songs are the tracks that are a swirl of instruments, six people going at once. What I especially like about this one is that it doesn't worry too much about having a bridge or a turnaround. They're there, but don't dispel the wall of sound. So it gets to be a tidy pop song and a groove tornado at the same time. I get a vulnerability in Ferry's delivery that I don't hear in Siren or subsequently. He really needs to hang on to this woman. He's still learning from glossy magazines. Another favorite, "To Turn You On", has the same yearning, but the guy in that one- so smooth in comparison.

yeah, there's a clinginess to All I Want is You. i guess Ferry, or to be exact, Ferry's romantic protagonists, hadn't yet arrived at a point where they could lose a woman gracefully.

i don't think music get much smoother than Avalon. does it?

for me 16th place seems just about right for Avalon.

― charlie h, Thursday, February 20, 2014 8:08 AM

i had it at #4. "more than this" is the big single but "avalon" just feels like the apotheosis. where it's all been leading and after which what more is there to say. within one mystery for a little while we find another before we fade into the mist.

the composition's never been more masterful, manzanera's never been more sublime, and the backing vocal is up there with "gimme shelter."

love is the drug, 2HB, and amazona would have been my 2, 3, and 4.

TOO LOW:

http://www.manzanera.com/RoxyArchive/Images/1973/ferrymerryxmas.jpg
15. Beauty Queen
For Your Pleasure , 1973
419 points (18 votes)

That was my number 5. What a vocal!

WAY TOO LOW!

i placed it very high indeed. my very favourite Ferry lyric. and yeah, sung so brilliantly

My favorite picture yet, besides maybe the Nightingale mustache masterpiece

possibly my favourite SONG yet

but the picture reminds me vaguely of The Shining for some reason. one of the reasons i think it's so great.

those lyrics! and that foreboding intro!

so good

One thing we share
Is an ideal of beauty

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_0L0A9REPDxU/TBldJrDTFDI/AAAAAAAABH4/1oDjIKQUKYs/s400/same+old+scene+01
14. Same Old Scene
Flesh + Blood , 1980
434 points (19 votes)

re: BQ

i love the HEY LET'S GO FASTER! break so much.

want to say too low, but this is really an insanely packed poll

their best reunion single.

here's where they beat the New Romantics at their game

oh, that's a nice cover. I like it with the definite article too.

xp If Roxy Music 1972-82 is a movie then Avalon's the final scene: "Now the party's over/I'm so tired." (And A Really Good Time is the midpoint) TOO LOW, basically.

the interesting thing about BQ is that it's such a complete and well-resolved song, even though it's so unique and abstract in many ways.

agree that Avalon perfectly encapsulates the end of the journey

as for Same Old Scene, yeah it totally rules. a rollicking, tuneful good time with A+ falsetto.

yeah. that's some seriously sassy falsetto.

it's the hero of a massive chorus

clipped guitar, stuttering synths, good bass

feels like Duran Duran spent their whole career trying to emulate/top "Same Old Scene" & never quite got there

my favourite makes-no-sense/makes-strange-sense life-soundtracking was listening to Avalon while driving round the Isle of Avalon on a stoned wander-the-cathedrals-of-england holiday my friends & i took years and years ago. Glastonbury pastoral mysticism in theory a v bad match for Ferry's after-the-party vanishing beauty but I loved those moments very much.

http://images.smh.com.au/2011/02/25/2203367/roxy-420x0.jpg
13. Ladytron
Roxy Music , 1972
459 points (22 votes)

"Same Old Scene" another chapter in the I'm-addicted-to-this-sordid-social-world Ferry book.

Thompson always looks so sheepish in these pictures

Ladytron: castanets!

posted this in the noms thread, but i just cant get enough of it. never fails to lift my mood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYgVORvXGAs

love that the Mackay oboe solo sounds like it could an Eno synth solo

oboesoloenosolo

there's a band name

http://musicglue-wordpress-bryan-ferry.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/BF-piano.jpg
In Every Dream Home A Heartache
For Your Pleasure , 1973
461 points (19 votes, one first place)

damn, that's no. 12

i love Ladytron (my 17), but I am not sure what a ladytron is. A robot lady? A machine for accelerating ladies? Is the implication the lady he's pursuing is an instrument to be played like a mellotron? Is it something to do with fundamental particles? Like I basically don't understand the significance of the -tron suffix in 1971.

(I've always assumed robot, fwiw, so it's a version of the unreachable, & nearly or entirely inhuman ideal that runs thru the first 3 albums.)

and there's another version

And you blew my mind

from memory this is the first RM song that made me think "holy shit, this band is worth paying serious attention to"

ladytron's my #3. talk about coming hot right out of the gate. and again, don't sleep on the RML version.

I played "In Every Dream Home" late one night on my small-town radio show (to which probably <100 people ever listened, to my knowledge) and the chief engineer called from the transmitter shack to say I was scaring him.

To be fair, it is scary

lol

kind of amazing that Every Dream Home was a product of the 70s. i mean it's the kind of thing that sounds like it hasn't even been invented yet

The Ladytron opening of oboe and white noise is they type of texture I've been searching for on other records- Marble Index comes to mind, but where else? Love how this track and "Mother of Pearl" start bizarre and then settle into something approachable, the opposite of a rave up.

i mean it's the kind of thing that sounds like it hasn't even been invented yet

otm

one more and then i must sleep

wow ive never heard this ferry/birkin version of "in every home"

http://eil.com/images/main/Roxy+Music+-+Pyjamarama+-+7%22+RECORD-419013.jpg
11. Pyjamarama
Single , 1973
504 points (19 votes, four first places)

xp - yes - the first two albums especially feel like a collection of signposts to strange new dimensions for popular music - feel sad that we never really went there.

apparently Ferry plays guitar on "Pyjamarama.'

Just discovered Paul Gambaccini's Rolling Stone review of For Your Pleasure. OffTM

...remarkably inaccessible...Side two drones on with a nine-minute instrumental that sounds like a rip-off of the Doors' "Alabama Song." The title tune ends the album, but is it a tune? It sounds like dogs barking repetitively for minutes on end. Maybe it is Eno's genius at work, but if so you've gotta be Mensa level to understand him or be so stoned you still think the drum solo on "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" is a tour de force.

Always wondered how/where "Pyjamarama" would've fit on For Your Pleasure

Voted for In Every Dream Home A Heartache but it'd be 10x better if the rockin' out bit lasted only a few bars then the song cut back to the sinister organ for the fade out.

Pyjamarama TOO LOW (but I guess it's all bangers from here onwards).

I'd never heard that Birkin version either!

lol @ RS review

I must own that Pyjamarama single

lol rolling stone. f the doors so hard.

I remember that RS review. So "Bogus Man" must be the 9 minute "instrumental," huh?

A BF or RM version of "Light My Fire" could be cool.

Yeah, hate on The Doors if you must, but it's impossible that Ferry wasn't taking a few cues from them.

RS reviews of Roxy are hilarious

Greil Marcus on Manifesto: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/manifesto-20021018

Flesh + Blood = http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/flesh-blood-19800904

Marsh dug Viva! (and is generally otm): http://www.vivaroxymusic.com/articles_245.php

I guess everybody's right at least once in their lives

Flesh + Blood's one clearheaded success, Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour"

Hmm. I like GM's Manifesto review though.

Why does Marcus call Bride Stripped Bare "astonishing" in the Manifesto review?

btw imma just say nothing from "taxi" made my 20 but "i put a spell on you" and "will you still love me tomorrow" both slay.

Why does Marcus call Bride Stripped Bare "astonishing" in the Manifesto review?

― Iago Galdston,

It often is. He also P&J'ed In Your Mind. He understood Ferry better than xgau though.

15. Beauty Queen

Just catching up. I was sure Beauty Queen would be the Sway of the poll, as we discussed in the earlier thread.

iirc, Marsh picked "Over You" as the sole Roxy entry in his 1,001 Singles book

from Marcus' Stranded

did Ferry insult Marsh's mother between 1976 and the late eighties? His "Over You" entry in the book offers the most reluctant praise, and along the way gets art rock, emotion, camp, British people, and synths wrong.

I could bash Marsh all day long, but are you really surprised by him getting any of that wrong? That's like a perfect summation of his blind spots.

yeah, he uses that entry to basically pan the entire nation of Great Britain

yet he loved Madonna, Donna Summer, and "Jam On It."

And Metal Box and Culture Club.

the whole Marsh screed here

the naked elitism of Brian Eno

a Pecksniffian coterie

I'm starting to think Triptych might not make it.

i was thinking the same thing! :(

Will "Three And Nine" be the "Sway"?

does every poll have a "sway"?

sadly, i can make a plausible top ten w/o three and nine.

Why does Marcus call Bride Stripped Bare "astonishing" in the Manifesto review?

― Iago Galdston,

It often is. He also P&J'ed In Your Mind. He understood Ferry better than xgau though.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 20, 2014 1:02 PM (48 minutes ago)

I'll have to try it again, I only remember liking "This Island Earth" and "Can't Let Go", the latter which seemed better on the live EP

i can think of only 4 sure-things for the top 10, so am curious if stuff like "Three and Nine" gets in

does every poll have a "sway"?

Not every one, but most have at least one obscurity that cracks the top ten. Sway reaching 4 in the Stones was an extreme example.

did Ferry insult Marsh's mother between 1976 and the late eighties?

I'm pretty sure Marsh wrote the Roxy entry in the old Rolling Stone blue book, and gives most everything 3-4 stars (5 for "Siren")

Shoulda voted. Same Old Scene TOO LOW.

My guess:
Top 10 split will be 4 UK singles / 6 album tracks.

There's got to be more than one Ferry track in the top forty?!

Two so far, #40 and #18.

There are two as of right now.

Like I said (ahem)

guessing my vote for "Is Your Love Strong Enough" is not going to push it into the top 10 alas

& yeah, unless "Slave To Love" creeps in, no more Ferry solo tracks forthcoming

There's three Ferry tracks I voted for that haven't shown up yet.

In other (possibly related) news, I long since gave up trying to fathom the ILM consensus.

Which song has the best Gilmour solo: "Is Your Love Strong Enough" or Macca's "No More Lonely Nights"?

I can think of eight songs left that are guaranteed to place.

Pardon a slight digression, but listening to Viva on Youtube today I found this. This guy rules.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fQ57U4KdI-Y

Could True to Life be the Sway of this poll? It's always been a favourite off Avalon, and it was mentioned in the polling thread, but it might be the one song on my ballot that doesn't make it.

Which song has the best Gilmour solo: "Is Your Love Strong Enough" or Macca's "No More Lonely Nights"?
--Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

You're not going to trick me into listening to "no more lonely nights" again so it's gotta be "is your love strong enough" - gilmour's contribution def pushed it higher on my ballot than I thought it would be going in.

obv "Ain't That So" will be the poll's "Sway": a Doobie Bros song that for forty seconds transforms into Ultravox.

Top 10 now? Here come all the "Frantic" tracks!

didn't vote in this (too busy) but I will have opinions when Slave to Love places

didn't vote on this poll 'cause i'm a roxy fan but don't feel i have nearly enough of a grip on their catalog to make a useful ballot. but stunned, even in the ILM-being-ILM world, to see "love is the drug" at a lowly #19. i would think just the basic mathematics of polling a crowd would make it automatic top 5 or 10.

very happy to see the love for "same old scene" and wondering if "oh yeah" is top 10 (i hope) or not even top 40. i guess either way is totally plausible at this point.

i'm guessing "love is the drug" is ranked highly in the us but not as much elsewhere? i like it enough now but for me (a brit) it's never been a track i loved and was a barrier that made it harder for me to get into siren.

didn't vote on this poll 'cause i'm a roxy fan but don't feel i have nearly enough of a grip on their catalog to make a useful ballot.

Sometimes this stops me from voting but usually not.

late 70s Roxy is a blind spot for me, plus I've been super busy. excuses.

i'm in the US and "love is the drug" didn't make my ballot. one track from "frantic" did though...

barrier that made it harder for me to get into siren.

same here.

I dunno. Love is the Drug seems to me like a song a lot of people could have written. Huey Lewis and Robert Palmer did sort of re-write it, minus the foreboding. I think there's easily 21 Roxy songs that are more distinct . I'd like it better without the turnaround and harmonies, leaving it all strut.

^^ you can guess the rest

PYJAMARAMA! My #1. Incidentally, another one of those astounding earlier RM songs in which no line is repeated. This song is so captivating that I need to stop everything when I hear it, so glorious and transporting, even after hundreds of listens.

it took me a while to warm to Love is the Drug - but it's all the unsettling detail - something slightly too shrill or off with mackay's horn riff, the niggly little keyboard bits, ferry demanding your attention for something unusually close to a narrative – & I love the beat: hearing it LOUD in clubs (or lol wedding discos or w/e) it just sounds tremendous, this massive poised but pulsing thing.

re ferry/bowie upthread: "love is the drug" was kept off the number one spot by the rereleased "space oddity".

was just listening to Hard Rain before sleep - the literal sound effects passages are so nuts & brilliant, a real transformative gesture - there should definitely be MORE OF THIS SORT OF THING in the world.

speaking of dylan covers that won't make the cut in this poll, i love that ferry is slowly turning into leonard cohen... really looking forward to seeing him in april

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAid8EN17eQ

in a weird way I agree with both of these posts, but in my world there is no way that LITD would be in a Roxy top ten

Love is the Drug seems to me like a song a lot of people could have written. Huey Lewis and Robert Palmer did sort of re-write it, minus the foreboding. I think there's easily 21 Roxy songs that are more distinct . I'd like it better without the turnaround and harmonies, leaving it all strut.

― bendy, Thursday, February 20, 2014 2:58 PM

I love the beat: hearing it LOUD in clubs (or lol wedding discos or w/e) it just sounds tremendous, this massive poised but pulsing thing.

Well that was a great run.

I hope you can indulge me a little Roxy Music story involving In Every Dream Home a Heartache from my youth. In 1999 my friend who had a Roxy Music obsessed Dad got me into those first few albums. We were about 16 at this time. I got For Your Pleasure and played it to death. Around that time we were going to a decent amount of house parties, as you do. A mutual friend of ours from school would sometimes bring his friends who were from a another school. There was definitely a bit of rivalry with this group and I'm not claiming we were perfect but these guys were kind of obnoxious and definitely too cool for school types. Anyway they would often take over the stereo and play their usual mix of Green Day, Rancid or Red Chilli Peppers, kind of guarding the stereo so we couldn't get to it. At this one party me and two of my friends approached the stereo with my copy of For Your Pleasure and ejected their Pennywise album. We went straight for In Every Dream Home and promised them if they stuck with it they'd get a big amazing rock moment. It went on and no one said a word. Just before it got to the "But you blew my mind" bit we kept telling them "It's coming, get ready, it's going to blow you away" When it did me and my two friends just started kind of head banging, loving every second of it. I wish I could say these guys were impressed but I still remember to this day the sound of when they all just started laughing at us. Needless to say we had the last laugh though.

I should point out I don't look back at this and think how cool we were, it could have easily mean Mansun or Gay Dad (yes really) that we put on but it just happened to be an obviously brilliant band. Every single time I hear this song and I get to that moment I always think about that time and it always makes me smile.

rad story, Kitchen Person. Every Dream Home is about as far as you can get from Pennywise on the "stand the test of time" spectrum. i'm glad you seized the opportunity to play it. my high-school house party claim to fame was curtailing a wretched onslaught of Ben Harper, Finley Quaye & (shudder) Gomez tracks with some Les Savy Fav.

love love love Pyjamarama. the vocal line just floats.

listening to Bete Noire again now. keep thinking i should have thrown a sly vote to Limbo or Zamba, but nah.

That first Gomez album was a regular at parties we went to. For some reason it was one of the few albums we all owned. Good times.

Had no idea Pyjamarama was so popular, really happy to see it so high. Great song and perhaps their most camp moment.

As I submitted that I realised I'd forgotten about Bitters End for camp Roxy moments, don't think anything beats that.

Crap, I can't believe I forgot Pyjamarama on my ballot. Probably would have been top 5 and I spaced it completely.

here's a recap just for kicks:

40. These Foolish Things
39. Angel Eyes
38. To Turn You On
37. Nightingale
36. Dance Away
35. Serenade
34. Psalm
33. For Your Pleasure
32. Over You
31. Casanova

30. Prairie Rose
29. Just Like You
28. A Song for Europe
27. 2 H.B.
26. She Sells
25. Sentimental Fool
24. A Really Good Time
23. Just Another High
22. Amazona
21. The Bogus Man

20. All I Want Is You
19. Love Is The Drug
18. A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
17. Both Ends Burning
16. Avalon
15. Beauty Queen
14. Same Old Scene
13. Ladytron
12. In Every Dream Home A Heartache
11. Pyjamarama

10. The Name of the Game

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtwtFomfkto

great chorus in that one!

verses even better

it wouldn't have changed my ballot any but man i am really enjoying this dive back into solo Ferry. maybe I just had to be older to really get it :D

Zamba is such a creeper.

I have 10 songs left on my ballot and I reckon they all have to place. Not sure what #1 will be though. Virginia Plain would be worthy yet boringly predictable.

Clearly, "______ __ _____" will be #1.

yeah, i would have assumed that was a lock, but on the voting thread charlie said 2 songs were neck-and-neck at the top, so i dunno

i think i made that comment about halfway through the voting process. not that i'm confirming one way or another whether that trend remained true to the end or not... :)

your top ten begins in about 45 mins.

!!!

Took some Roxy songs to my guitar teacher yesterday for my lesson. Kind of fascinating how ego-less Manzanera is. A lot of the songs are almost Ramones simple, and he's happy to be buried in the mix or otherwise distorted into a synthesizer/stylist. And then when the band shifts direction, he stays on board, doing something totally different. The echoey muted shading of "Same Old Scene," for example, really sets the stage for the compressed/choruses sound of the '80s.

Also, we really noticed what a template Bryan Ferry was for David Byrne, in a way.

http://ww2.hdnux.com/photos/02/11/44/563509/3/628x471.jpg
10. Out Of The Blue
Country Life , 1974
560 points (22 votes, three first places)

Hit the nail on the head there, Josh.

When I started playing guitar as a kid, one of my first music books was this thing called "New Wave Guitarists" or something like that... and PM was heavily featured.
He's killer at little painterly touches... but can also rock at the drop of a dime. Love him.

never realised how much-loved OOTB was until recently. and what a thumper it is.

one of the greatest, if not the greatest, Roxy intros---the slow, luxurious fade-in; the oboe and bass line; and then Ferry: "ALL your cares..."

I love how Manzanera can barely contain himself on the solo.

& how the chorus (which doesn't show up until 2:00 in!) is preceded by a bass/drums breakdown that feels like it's about to go into Eno's "Sky Saw"

xpost Do you mean the violin solo?

there should be more oboe in pop music.

I was also thinking how interesting it is that the third single from Roxy's least regarded album is likely to place as high as it is.

No, I mean his own solo...although, technically I guess it's more counterpoint to Ferry's vocal than a solo.

xp

TOOOOO LOWWWWWW

TOO LOW

xpost You actually get a lot of fake oboe in synth-pop, because apparently it's one of the easier sounds to program. Think of songs like "Your Silent Face" or "This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)." Or OMD's "Talking Loud and Clear."

The whole song is great, but that drum breakdown is really what does it for me.

My #1

Ditto. Damn, I really thought this would be in the top 3

aaaaaaaah yeah. good call, JiC. it can be a nice punchy sound on synth. cuts right through.

http://25.media.tumblr.com/b41f549c2f77514da1302ae96081bcf7/tumblr_muxaa0g5F61ri8xzao1_1280.jpg
9. The Thrill Of It All
Country Life , 1974
583 points (25 votes, two first places)

Great song, excellent intro

Live it smokes!

Beginning to think maybe Country Life beats Stranded. I wish there'd been an albums ballot too because it's so hard to pick the best.

That vocal! Those lyrics! Band on fire!
Goddamn this one is great.

Jobson's violin sounds like a whole string section. Also love Mackay's quiet wandering countermelody to Ferry in the bridge

Love how the mania of "Thrill of it All" is cleared away with the first notes of "Three and Nine." What an album.

The Thrill Of It All was my no.1. There's a certain descending pattern that I think Roxy are at their best when deploying, and this is their peak.

Ferry's ability to flip between immaculate loucheness and desperate frenzy is really something.

^^^^ what DL said x 1000000

That's got to be the end of the Country Life songs, one would imagine. Unless Triptych is the Sway.

The way he chews up "the dizzy spin I'm in" is perfect.

I don't recall how much headphone listening I've ever done to Roxy, but "Thrill Of It All" yesterday even on youtube/office earbuds was revelatory. SO much going on in the mix!

I would like to lodge a formal complain because All I Want Is You is superior to Out Of The Blue.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/75/Roxy_Music_-_TopPop_1973_12.png
8. Do The Strand
For You Pleasure , 1973
610 points (27 votes, one first place)

superb pic

one of THE most joyous Roxy songs.

yes nathey, possibly my favourite of all of these.

Apparently, seven things can beat Strand Power

DtS: they totally get punk rock in the instrumental section before the creepy breakdown.

I taught myself to play this one on the piano recently. Such a batshit chord progression.

Ferry says "Do the Strand," "Mother of Pearl," and "In Every Dream Home" are his best songs. Who can disagree?

Ferry's ability to flip between immaculate loucheness and desperate frenzy is really something.

― What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL),

and he never sounds gross! The title track of Flesh + Blood is the only example I can think of.

Rhododendron is a nice flower!

I can disagree with "In Every Dream Home."

Editions Of You is going to beat the Strand? Blasphemy!!!!!!!!

Mother of Pearl is my #1. Ferry OTM.

I can disagree with "In Every Dream Home."

― mr.raffles, Friday, February 21, 2014 8:57 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

though it's fine; I like it up to the "rocking out" part, and then after that, less so.

i love how "Strand" feels like it just keeps going, Ferry piling up line after line. The closest rock ever came to the Mad Hatter's tea party

also some of the greatest rhymes ever: Who's Who/ La Gouloue... Mona Lisa/Lolita and Guernica

xp

totally otm - that's part of ferry's genius in the early singles i think - just the accelerated pile-up of references racing by but not exactly progressing - it's exhilarating

Nijinsky/Strandsky

Also love how Mackay's sax bursts sound a bit like a shofar

I'm wondering if we have one aong or two songs left from late period Roxy. hmm.

*song

the only thing I've ever heard Bono say that was remotely helpful is that In Every Dream Home is like a great film...brilliantly paced suspense, amazing roving camera eye for detail, etc

xp: with one obvious exception, I don't see anything post-'75 placing by this point (a prediction probably disproved by the next entry)

Ha, I just watched that Roxy doc last night, and was about to skip past Bono, but yeah, he was shockingly perceptive on that one.

xp

some more pics from the same session (bottom section, though please scroll slowly, there's lotsa great pics)
http://www.beeldengeluidwiki.nl/index.php/Gallery:_Toppop_%281973%29

http://images.popmatters.com/columns_art/b/brianferryroxy-splsh.jpg
7. Re-Make/Re-Model
Roxy Music , 1972
613 points (28 votes, one first place)

I TRIED BUT I COULD NOT FIND A WAY!

def has to be one more late period, right? Or could it be there is nothing...

Ahh yes! R-M/R-M. They opened the reunion show I saw with this. BOOM.

a spectacular song. so much abandon, so little to lose.

lol the idea of More Than This not being in the top 10 is hilarious.

one of the greatest openers on a debut ever

a bulldozer of glamour and abandon

something i heard for the first when revisiting "R-M/R-M" the bassist sounds like he's playing the "Peter Gunn Theme" sometimes during the solos

also from wiki: the esoteric CPL593H was supposedly the license number of a car spotted by Bryan Ferry that was driven by a beautiful woman

Unless I'm wrong, there is one late period song that has yet to come. The rest are from the first 3 albums.

thrilling, just an amazing way to open the debut. i love it when each of them does their little 3-second solo bit towards the end.

ahaha Ismael, so back in those days all Ferry could get were the license plate numbers.

thrilling, just an amazing way to open the debut. i love it when each of them does their little 3-second solo bit towards the end.

Which is the best one, the "Day Tripper" bass, or Mackay's sax?

one of the greatest openers on a debut ever

― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080)

Yeah this. Perfect opener to a perfect album.

such a thrilling group effort. breathtaking.

I got into Albert Ayler around the same time I was getting into Roxy. I had no idea of the breadth of Ayler's influence until MacKay's blasts after "show me!" It was slightly revelatory: the influence of the new music, a music I didn't know existed six months earlier, was far more pervasive than I'd thought.

There's no way all their other perfect songs can fit in the top six.
What the hell is going on here?

My #1. And they STILL nailed it in 2001.

Which is the best one, the "Day Tripper" bass, or Mackay's sax?

Eno white noise ftw

TOO LOOOOOW (and an early frontrunner):

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/multimedia/archive/00340/113860127-live1_340525c.jpg
6. If There Is Something
Roxy Music , 1972
650 points (26 votes, two first places)

they're so much fun these records. i mean yes we all know that but i feel like it might not be part of Roxy's wider reputation.

ITiS is like a buncha good songs in one. SO amazing. My #4.