In praise of... the 1st Roxy Music album

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There are bands I've been getting into almost instantly at first listen like Velvet Underground or The Smiths and there are others which took me a long time to appreciate. Like Joy Division Roxy Music belong into this group.

My first audio encounter with their singer and main songwriter Bryan Ferry dates back to the summer of 1976. It was the first time I was in a foreign country without my parents and I was in Bournemouth in a guest family. Two songs were everywhere in that very dry & hot English summer: Let's Stick Together by Ferry and Here Comes the Sun by Cockney Rebel. I liked both of them and didn't realize for a long time that Here Comes the Sun was a Beatles cover. Ferry's sleazy crooner's voice was hard to resist and he was good looking too which could impress a thirteen year old.

But somehow for a long time I had a problem to connect the pop singer Ferry to the more experimental and challenging band Roxy Music which was lauded in music critics circles. And I didn't understand what was so special about them. I don't remember the name of the first song by them I ever listened to and it didn't mark me at all but I know that it was in my philosophy class at school around 1979 (our teacher was young). The class was about existentialism and the teacher said that this song was new wave.

ihttp://musik.antville.org/images/roxymusic/
Let's come back to my album of 1972. The cover is the first in a series of sexily dressed women covers. Mauvais goût but in an interesting way. All the women on the first five albums of Roxy Music have in common that they have a stupid artificial expression on their face and that from my point of view their faces are ugly in their false and unapproachable coolness. I suppose that is intended. This is part of the game. It is not the cover that is supposed to turn anyone on. It is just an eye-catcher. A false package if you want. Inside there is one of the most ear-catching records of the seventies. At least it turned me on but it took a long time.

There is a party going on. People talking, tinkling glasses. A seemingly average rock song starts with a kind of bar piano line. Ferry sings forgettable lyrics about the sweetest queen he has ever seen. With his staccato intonation he sounds like the blueprint for David Byrne in the Talking Heads. Phil Manzanera tries to be Jimi Hendrix and he almost succeeds. And suddenly the song takes a turn. The saxophone becomes freestyle, there is some guitar distortion, the piano becomes atonal, the song morphs into a free jazz session. It slows down at the end like as if the record player is plugged off and the speed is slowing down. A nice drum solo and a fireworks noise finish the song.

A lyrical classical oboe theme starts Ladytron. A song for romantic candle-light dinners. But beware this one speeds up. Never trust the beginning of a Roxy Music song. Eno adds some electronic spices to this.

My favourite song is no.3 If There Is Something. The first 90 seconds constitute about the most boring country rock ballad I have ever heard. But when Andy Mackay's sax and later oboe join in and play a new theme everything changes. Suddenly we are in melodramatic land. Ferry sings vibrato as if he had swallowed one gallon of his own tears:

I would do anything for you.
I would climb mountai-ai-ai-ns.
I would swim all the oceans blue.

The theme is repeated by the piano and varied upon. It is really fascinating how the guitar also merges in. All instruments seem to fuse into one. The oboe is reaching heights where no man has ever been. Ferry almost drowns in his tears now. How can a voice sound so desperate from deep inside? The last minute is a tad boring again with the over and over repeated line When you were young but the four minutes in between 1'30'' and 5'30'' are about the most exciting four minutes in any piece of rock I know.

Marginal note: I just read here in the AMG that there is a probably even superior 12 minute (!) live version of this song performed at the John Peel radio show in January 1972. I really need this now.

The next song is Virginia Plain and I think I'll finish now as everyone will know this anyway. As sparkling as rock music can get. I have to add that there is no weak song on this album. That there are two small rock mini-operas The Bob (Medley) and Sea Breeze which piss on Supper's Ready or anything released by The Who in this field. 2 H.B. and the beginning of The Bob foreshadow ambient. And there is Would You Believe? which anticipates the dreadful Rocky Horror Picture Show without its one-dimensionality. The end is Bitters End, the party is over, the girl is gone and has found another and Bryan asks

will someone find me?

This was a party as it should be. It was fun but it was a disappointment as well. A good pretext for another party, don't you think?

P.S. This has been published before on my blog but I didn't get the feedback I wanted to get. That's why I have recycled it here.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:10 (twenty years ago)

Nice post! It's good to get a perspective on an album away from the time and place of its release, but close enough to be of the moment -- especially one from another place, as you talk about with the context at the start. The comment on "Would You Believe?" is interesting, I can sorta see the connections of camp you're making but wouldn't mind hearing more.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:14 (twenty years ago)

let's try that great cover again:

ihttp://musik.antville.org/images/roxymusic/

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:15 (twenty years ago)

If There Is Something is my fave too, Alex. Fave Roxy track of all, maybe. I wore this album out years ago. I COULD NOT get enough of it. If I had to pick one, this one might be the one. Just glorious in every way imaginable.

― scott seward (scott seward), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:16 (twenty years ago)

please. can someone teach me how to post images!

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:17 (twenty years ago)

"If There is Something" is the track that when I first heard the album back in 1989 made me go "What the HELL?" Ferry swooping in with that passage Alex highlights is a beautiful moment of sheer dissonance, where the calmer/higher-pitched singing earlier suddenly goes crazy.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

Alex, you're linking to a directory, not to the image. It needs to have a typical image tag at the end to work -- like .jpg or .gif

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:18 (twenty years ago)

http://musik.antville.org/static/musik/images/roxymusic.jpg

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:25 (twenty years ago)

There ya go!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:26 (twenty years ago)

Back in high school, there was a record store near me that sold all these old cassettes for $3.97. They had all the old Roxy Music albums, which my friends and I eventually purchased. This was right around the time we discovered the wacky weed, so from that moment on, my friends and I would sit around every weekend in somebodys car, smoking WAY too much pot and listening to For Your Pleasure, Stranded and Country Life OVER AND OVER...our favorite song was Prairie Rose, closely followed by For Your Pleasure (endless stoned discussions trying to figure what that girl says at the end)

A bunch of stoned, glam-rock listening teens...Is it any wonder none of us had any dates?

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Friday, 25 February 2005 21:35 (twenty years ago)

Never trust the beginning of a Roxy Music song.

OTM. Particularly here. The fact that maybe half these songs sound in the opening bars like well-realised genre pieces only helps make this a more harrowing and durable record. Ferry can be pretty scary really, but he only really demonstrates his anguish upfront on "The Bob". Actually, he's almost like that American Psycho character: carefully constructed cocktail-sipping artifice distracting from the axe right behind the couch. I think I like subsequent RM records a little less because they seem more likely to ride along on a given riff for longer, making for slightly more predictable, er, song trajectories.

Also, 500 bonus points for introducing (?) the oboe as a creepy tool of r'n'r menace.

― Nag! Nag! Nag! (Nag! Nag! Nag!), Friday, 25 February 2005 22:27 (twenty years ago)

Big love to Roxy but The Move added terrified oboe to the syntax two years prior.

― iang, Friday, 25 February 2005 23:00 (twenty years ago)

I don't really have time to read this whole thread right now but I can't say enough about how amazing this album is. Just discovered it this Christmas, actually and found my whole perception of the band change in an instant.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Friday, 25 February 2005 23:03 (twenty years ago)

I don't know if I've ever listened to the second side of the album more than once, but I'm going to listen this weekend. I'll agree with you on the greatness of the first side, though.

BTW, as much as I love "If There is Something", I think the live version on Viva Roxy Music blows it away.

― Vic Funk, Friday, 25 February 2005 23:49 (twenty years ago)

I'm glad Alex mentioned the fake look on her face. That's bugged me for awhile now, but I wasn't sure if it was just me. I mean, if it's supposed to be sexy, I don't really see it that way. It's just puzzling, kindof like the album itself.

I also agree with Nag! Nag! Nag! about the song trajectories and later Roxy albums not matching up in that respect.

I really love the bit in The Bob (Medley) where it goes into that piano bit, really quiet and then BLAM they go back to sounding like Black Sabbath or something.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Saturday, 26 February 2005 01:38 (twenty years ago)

kornrulez6969, I wish my friends were cool enough to enjoy the pleasures of Roxy stoned :)

As for the OP, I agree - I owe Bryan Ferry a lot of my bad habits of love: "looking for love in a looking-glass world" and all that jazz, and there's probably no band that's mattered more to me over the years.

Does anyone prefer the normalized versions of the first album's songs on "Let's Stick Together"?

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 26 February 2005 01:43 (twenty years ago)

it's not meant to be sexy, it's meant to be creepy

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 February 2005 01:47 (twenty years ago)

I've only just started getting into Roxy Music recently... I haven't heard this album, but on the basis of this thread I'm going to get it this weekend. It sounds amazing. I'll report back.
(BTW: *This* is why I joined ILM. Thanks!)

― VegemiteGrrl (VegemiteGrrl), Saturday, 26 February 2005 03:22 (twenty years ago)

concerning the association of the rocky horror picture show with would you believe i can't really say anything. it seems blatantly obvious that someone has copied someone else there. one song of this kind of thing on a record full of surprises and turns is all right but a complete film with only this is dud. i always hated the rhps. probably also a kind of reaction to the cult going on around that movie. cult records/films/books are almost always totally overrated. and rock operas are by default rubbish.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Saturday, 26 February 2005 11:09 (twenty years ago)

alex i hate the rhps too!

the party at the beginnin of "roxy music" is later on in the same party that ends "their satanic majesties request"

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 February 2005 13:01 (twenty years ago)

so the fun thing wd be to develop an endless cycle of lps which dovetail into one another via the soundtrack of a party, throughout the whole of rock time

― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 26 February 2005 13:12 (twenty years ago)

GROWING POTATOES BY THE SCORE!

― Ian Riese-Moraine (Eastern Mantra), Saturday, 26 February 2005 19:34 (twenty years ago)

Good opening post. I love Roxy, and maybe my favourite track from them is If There Is Something. It can always drive me to tears, if one can say things like that.

― zeus, Saturday, 26 February 2005 21:55 (twenty years ago)

Yeah. Not one of his descendants has quite mastered Bryan Ferry's so-ironic-he's-sincere balancing act on "If There is Something." And I've always loved how he doesn't mind looking like a fool or courting bathos.

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 26 February 2005 22:32 (twenty years ago)

Have you heard The Student Teachers? Their singer once imitated Eno's Remake/Remodel synth noise (vocally) DIRECTLY TO ENO live at CBGB'S...

http://www.thestudentteachers.com/

― mnm, Saturday, 26 February 2005 22:48 (twenty years ago)

I don't know about this Let's Stick Together thing at all. I'll check it out.

I managed to find some of the Peel Session versions of the Roxy Music songs on slsk once.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:01 (twenty years ago)

Ian beat me to it :-(

I agree w/ pretty much everything said so far, but it seems no one ever gives "Sea Breezes" its propers. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful song. The lyrics are great and the louder part is one of their best dissonant moments, I think. The way they use the soft/loud/soft formula, also, is a great microcosm of their brilliance. It probably wasn't the Great Rock Cliche it is now, but it's amazing how they make the melodrama work so effortlessly.

― Sonny, Ah!!1 (Sonny A.), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:25 (twenty years ago)

Ooh! I have to get this album now! thanks!

― -rainbow bum- (-rainbow bum-), Sunday, 27 February 2005 02:41 (twenty years ago)

The Student Teachers were my best friends when I was 18!

― Guitarthur and the Ecstasy Defecators (Arthur), Sunday, 27 February 2005 05:54 (twenty years ago)

This is a great LP of course. I have long been planning to do an 'In Praise Of' on Flesh and Blood - the untrendy, opulent, smooth end of Roxy. (almost). It's also one of the bleakest and frightening recds ever made. Maybe I'll write it up this week.

Oh and good job, Alex!

― Dr. C (Dr. C), Sunday, 27 February 2005 11:08 (twenty years ago)

It'd take a strong man to defend "My Only Love" and "Rain Rain Rain."

― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, 27 February 2005 15:29 (twenty years ago)

Ian Penman on this album
(scroll down)

― Joe Kay (feethurt), Sunday, 27 February 2005 16:44 (twenty years ago)

Yay on Dr. C doing Flesh and Blood!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 27 February 2005 16:51 (twenty years ago)

I don't know about this Let's Stick Together thing at all. I'll check it out.

iTS: Roxy Music songs vs. Bryan Ferry covers of RM songs

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 27 February 2005 16:56 (twenty years ago)

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 27 February 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

More caffeine, please.

― RS £aRue (rockist_scientist), Sunday, 27 February 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

u sed "i" cz it's yr thread RS!

― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 27 February 2005 17:02 (twenty years ago)

just picked up Valentine, that enhanced CD of musikladen performances of eno-era Roxy; the performances are excellent even if the sound isn't. The video is small, but big enough to convey exactly how incredibly BIZARRE this version of Roxy was to behold live. Absolutely frenzied and manic. Ferry and Eno look completely demented.

― kyle (akmonday), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 07:14 (twenty years ago)

Yeah I was going to say. This thread inspired me to purchase the early Roxy Musiklanden video stuff I rented over Christmas break and enjoyed so much. There's six songs, 5 with Eno and it's just some fantastic stuff to watch, really is. Plus the DVD/VHS cassette includes some T.Rex performances, too! Can't go wrong.

― Bimble... (Bimble...), Tuesday, 1 March 2005 07:43 (twenty years ago)

four years pass...

It'd take a strong man to defend "My Only Love" and "Rain Rain Rain."
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Sunday, February 27, 2005

Well, dunno about "rain, rain, rain" but "my only love" is grebt on the basis of melody and manzanera, and i can't even bench my bodyweight.

― all yoga attacks are fire based (rogermexico.), Wednesday, 2 December 2009 04:56 (fifteen years ago)

'rain,rain, rain' doesn't require a gym membership either - it's great murky, moody stuff, with a sinister, bass heavy sound that threatens to pull Ferry under. Ferry for his part seems like he's suffocating, or snorting coke, or doing both - at any rate, he's got a breathy, desperate sound on it that cuts against his resignation. Love how it just cuts off as it seems to enter another verse. Only thing on Flesh & Blood I'm not willing to defend is "In the Midnight Hour," but only 'cause I got ears.

― MumblestheRevelator, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 07:05 (fifteen years ago)

Marginal note: I just read here in the AMG that there is a probably even superior 12 minute (!) live version of this song performed at the John Peel radio show in January 1972. I really need this now.

needs to be said that the long peel session version (there were two versions recorded on different dates) is total genius despite the poor sound quality. it has more whooshing noises than a hawkwind track!

― Rosy Rube (haitch), Wednesday, 2 December 2009 07:30 (fifteen years ago)

Not one of his descendants has quite mastered Bryan Ferry's so-ironic-he's-sincere balancing act on "If There is Something." And I've always loved how he doesn't mind looking like a fool or courting bathos.
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Saturday, February 26, 2005 5:32 PM (4 years ago) Bookmark

100% OTM.

― dad a, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 08:25 (fifteen years ago)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8347178.stm

― piscesx, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 10:40 (fifteen years ago)

I like their first two b-sides, "The Pride and the Pain" and "The Numberer"

So there you go.

― Mark G, Wednesday, 2 December 2009 11:06 (fifteen years ago)

ten months pass...

Fascinating article in last month's Wire about Graham Simpson, the bass player on this album. At the time he was in Roxy he became interested in Eastern mysticism and started doing too many drugs. Ferry fired him after the LP was finished but told him the door was open for him to come back once he got himself together. But he never did, he had two failed suicide attempts and drifted penniless in India and Morocco. There is now a new documentary film about his life.

― margana (anagram), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 13:12 (fourteen years ago)

That film sounds amazing! Holy hell, the photo...

http://api.ning.com/files/alLcsKxaxzJVL*yLPTC-wNiMNqwuh0TWRuLH39lGNtX*jZ67tddjN9t3pGua*GS9uqN*QJF7tvRtCn3LY2ZMymQ1Z*g-uy-n/GrahamSimpson6.jpg

― Taller than the president (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:08 (fourteen years ago)

Film is only 6 minutes long, though, bummer.

― Taller than the president (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:12 (fourteen years ago)

Yeah I just noticed that as well, obv just a short interview.

― margana (anagram), Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:18 (fourteen years ago)

i am still waiting for that in praise of flesh and blood thread, dr. c. i have never heard that album!

― alex in mainhattan, Wednesday, 6 October 2010 14:38 (fourteen years ago)

this is one of the greatest albums of all time.

― butthurt surfers (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 7 October 2010 15:29 (fourteen years ago)

This is a great thread, reading it made me put the album on straight away.

The first three Roxy albums is a run that has never been topped in my opinion. The debut would make my all time top thirty but Stranded is in my top ten.

Flesh and Blood is their only weak album, apart from the singles I can't remember anything about it.

― Kitchen Person, Thursday, 7 October 2010 16:08 (fourteen years ago)

I would love to see that "in praise of Flesh and Blood" too. I worked in a record shop when F&B was released, so I listened to it heavily at work and home, and I still love it a bunch, and remember all the songs (yes, even the covers) fondly. It's no match for the first 3, or 5, but fits right in with concurrent records that Roxy certainly influenced: Duran Duran's debut; The Cars' "Panorama"; Human League's "Dare"...

― Taller than the president (Dan Peterson), Thursday, 7 October 2010 16:28 (fourteen years ago)

If There Is Something

― surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally, Friday, 8 October 2010 00:43 (fourteen years ago)

If any of you guys are interested, sw00ds and I spend about 15 hours discussing all things Roxy and Ferry here.

― raging hetero lifechill (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 8 October 2010 00:52 (fourteen years ago)

I concur w/ Kitchen Person.
I received the Roxy "Re-Make, Re-Model" bio today. Any opinions?

― That Blippity Bloop Music (Capitaine Jay Vee), Friday, 8 October 2010 02:32 (fourteen years ago)

seven years pass...

Roxy Music's magnificent 1972 debut will be reissued in a deluxe edition by @UMG on 2nd February. This one has been a long time coming, since I completed the remix over 5 years ago, better late than never I guess! #roxymusic @bryanferry @brianeno @dark_shark pic.twitter.com/maRH3m2zBI
— SW Remixes (@swremixes) December 8, 2017

― willem, Friday, 8 December 2017 15:46 (seven years ago)

has the bataclan footage been seen before? there's a bootleg of a roxy music gig in croydon a week earlier and "if there is something" is an all-time epic monster that puts the bbc version to shame. (it's also unlistenably poor quality.)

― bob lefse (rushomancy), Saturday, 9 December 2017 02:10 (seven years ago)

I'd love to hear Avalon in 5.1

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Saturday, 9 December 2017 09:35 (seven years ago)

It would almost be too much to bear.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Saturday, 9 December 2017 15:41 (seven years ago)

i don't have 5.1 so this doesn't excite me that much I do want to hear the outtakes etc. i hope he did a stereo mix as well because I think Wilson's stereo mixes based off his 5.1s are all really great and underrated (speaking of the XTC and Crimson albums)

― akm, Saturday, 9 December 2017 18:45 (seven years ago)

I like Wilson's mixes more than his actual music.

― Gholdfish Killah (Turrican), Saturday, 9 December 2017 19:24 (seven years ago)

Yeah I'm here for the outtakes and stereo mix as well (never had nor desired 5.1).

― Le Bateau Ivre, Saturday, 9 December 2017 21:31 (seven years ago)

If There Is Something

― surfboard dudes get wiped out, totally, Thursday, October 7, 2010 8:43 PM (seven years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol i love this song and how it almost veers into straight faced MOR southern rock at times. that guitar solo always stirs up images of slow motion horses and pick-up trucks like this could be the alt universe Bob Seeger's "Like a Rock".

i always loved the first album the most. i could hear just that first side over and over again.

i still remember the first time i heard them. a friend had played me the "Virginia Plain" and "Ladytron" live videos and it was stunning. here was a band that really looked like 50s space aliens, they looked like a live action band from The Jetsons or something, the music was the perfect fusion of retro 50's rock and futurism. it felt like a band had suddenly invented the 80s like 15 years ahead of time but with way cooler music and fashion.

highly recommend the "Thrill of It All" DVD set, also there is a good T-Rex/Roxy Music Musikladen/Beat Club video collection out there. musically Roxy Music were fucking awesome but when you throw in the visual element, the costumes, the psychedelic glasses, Brian Eno's christmas tinsel sweater, etc. it takes it to a whole new level.

― AdamVania (Adam Bruneau), Saturday, 9 December 2017 22:20 (seven years ago)

text in the gatefold sleeve literally says

what's the date again? 1962? or twenty years on?

― new noise, Saturday, 9 December 2017 22:28 (seven years ago)

three years pass...

Never seen this before... is this a well known clip? Incredible sound and performance.

Roxy Music Ladytron live on Full House 1972

― visiting, Wednesday, 3 November 2021 20:17 (three years ago)

Never seen this before... is this a well known clip? Incredible sound and performance.

Roxy Music Ladytron live on Full House 1972🕸

Disappointed it’s not that Full House.

― A Pile of Ants (Boring, Maryland), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 22:17 (three years ago)

There was a longer bit of film posted a while back on a thread somewhere, where they played the "Bogus Man" and two(?) other songs, I wonder if this is from that? Possibly completely new though.

― Des Weerelds Dool-om-berg ont-doold op Dool-in-bergh (Tom D.), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 22:21 (three years ago)

three years pass...

the spooky version...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpUPe7PSQaM

― scott seward, Sunday, 8 December 2024 01:19 (seven months ago)

Manzanera and Thompson really tightened them up.

― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 8 December 2024 02:34 (seven months ago)

I've just been revisiting this album - prompted by getting interested in the early Roxy Music history.

RIP very recently Ian 'Sparky' Watts, the guitarist and organiser of Ferry's earlier band the Gas Board.

https://readysteadygone.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/gas-board-2.jpg

― Bob Six, Sunday, 8 December 2024 13:17 (seven months ago)

Wow, thanks Scott, what a way to start my morning. “Chance Meeting” and “2HB” 1971 demos too, I had no idea such a thing existed. These are absolutely fascinating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8yGLk-Rp64

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzWNii7bGC4

― Glam conspiracist (Dan Peterson), Sunday, 8 December 2024 14:04 (seven months ago)

There's a great quote by Graham Simpson on early Roxy Music from an article/interview:

As I leave, he tells me he's overjoyed that Chance Meeting, my favourite Roxy song, "turned you on so much". I tell him the early Roxy Music are probably the biggest musical influence in my life, and his parting words support what many aficionados feel: that the 'unfinished' nature of those early ideas can act as a form of muse. "Where Roxy Music is, everybody knows. Where it might have been, could have been, very possibly should have been, is something that can be investigated by other young musicians, using Roxy Music as a departure point."

― Bob Six, Sunday, 8 December 2024 19:45 (seven months ago)

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