It’s been quite a Roxy Music roundtable in the semi-comics blogosphere lately, as the Roxy conversation mentioned in this piece by me begat this post by Johnny Bacardi begat this post by Bill Sherman begat another post by Johnny Bacardi. So it’s time for me to throw my hat back in the ring re: Bryan, Brian & Co.
I discovered Roxy Music thanks to the film Velvet Goldmine, which I’ve often and accurately said changed my life a few years back. Bowie’s definitely my primary VG-inspired obsession, but Roxy runs a very close second. And I’m one of those guys who enjoys every stage of Roxy’s career: the early, weird, Eno-driven glam; the more elegant glam of Stranded and Country Life, the transitional albums like Siren and Manifesto, and the yuppie pop of Flesh and Blood and Avalon. The thing that amazes me about this band, aside from the raw experimental zeal of the early albums and the seemingly effortless pop perfection and glamour of the later ones, is the utter confidence with which lead singer Bryan Ferry offers his paeans to romance, handed down from sources as diverse as Rudolph Valentino, Bob Dylan, Kurt Weill, Elvis Presley, Edith Piaf, Christopher Isherwood, Marilyn Monroe, Fritz Lang, Andy Warhol, and Humphrey Bogart yet somehow made not only new but completely convincing and moving by the sheer ability and versitility of the guy’s voice and the clever simplicity of his lyrics.
If I were forced at gunpoint to pick a favorite, I’d probably have to go with Avalon, surprisingly enough. I know it’s less adventurous, etc., but the instant I hear those first few notes of “More Than This” it’s like I’m off to another world. And the hits just keep on coming: “Avalon,” “Take a Chance with Me,” “To Turn You On,” and (especially) “True to Life” straddle the line between luxury and gloom, romance and loss, richness and emptiness better than any other line-up of tunes I can think of. And the production is simply gorgeous.
But I really do love almost all the other records, too. Aside from Avalon (and possibly For Your Pleasure), Stranded is, I think, the most solid, best-structured Roxy record. There’s simply no denying the juxtaposition of the exuberant “Mother of Pearl” and the quietly tragic “Sunset,” that’s for damn sure. And besides being Johnny & Bill’s favorite Roxy disc, it’s Brian Eno’s as well, despite the fact that he’d left the band (on somewhat acrimonious terms, at least as far as Bryan Ferry was concerned) just prior to its recording. It’s companion disc, Country Life, besides having one of the best album covers ever, also has the epochal “Bitter Sweet,” the super-urgent “The Thrill of It All,” and the swirling violin woodwind and string vortices of “Out of the Blue” (which in its live version on Viva! is just unbelievable). My only quibble: CL should have ended, as Roxy albums at their best tend to do, on a quiet (if not down) note with “A Really Good Time,” rather than in a musical salute to Jerry Hall with “Prairie Rose.” But hey–that’s what iPod playlists are for!
The first two Roxy records are like Bjork 25 years before the fact. Like the Icelandic maverick at her best, there’s simply not a boundary or a rule that Roxy accepted back then. Song structure, vocal techniques, instrumentation–they’d simply try anything, and goddammit, they got it to work, whether it’s “growing potatoes by the score” in “If There Is Something,” unleashing a prog-rock explosion in “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” watching Brian Eno walk away in “For Your Pleasure,” “flying down to Riooooooo” in “Virginia Plain,” watching LaGoulue and Nijinsky do the Strandsky in “Do the Strand,” or crooning an impossibly romantic salute to Humphrey Bogart in “2HB” (my favorite Roxy tune). This music must have just blown people’s brains out their ears when they first heard it.
Though the mid-career trifecta of Siren, Manifesto and Flesh and Blood are not my favorites, the highs are still ridiculously high. “Love Is the Drug,” for all its association with Roxy’s abandonment of glam, is a seriously propulsive dance track with an undeniable syncopated rhythm and those killer “ohhhhh”s from Mr. Ferry. Manifesto’s title track, with its ever-ascending list of what Bryan Ferry, at that point the living embodiment of all things luxe, stands for is both a great song and a great idea for a song. Flesh and Blood’s “Oh Yeah” is an overwhelmingly affective evocation of whatever happened to the teenage dream, and “Over You” perfectly blends post-disco New Wave-isms with, get this, the Byrds.
And then of course there are the non-album singles “Pyjamarama” (with a Pete Townshend opening and yet another ridiculously romantic lyric) and “Jealous Guy” (a John Lennon cover released at a time when, after the legend’s death, everyone was indeed dreaming of the past).
Basically, this band was a killer. Their entire catalog never leaves my iPod.