BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

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BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby naughty boy » 30 Sep 2014, 22:06

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I always think of them as very colourful, Roxy Music. I mean, I actually see the name of the band in my head all sparkly and bright, pinks and silvers and yellows and blues. They pushed that side of things - in the way they dressed, on the album covers. They were filmic, I suppose. And more importantly, for an 'alternative' band (and at least for those first two albums that's what they were) they had a remarkably rich palette. Not for them the sparse instrumentation of the protopunks, or even the glam acts (who were essentially rock and roll outfits). They had THE weirdest synth sounds! And oboe, clarinet, sax, piano, later you got electric violin...it's all there. Kaleidoscopic.

I think I read somewhere that before they'd released a note, they plastered London with posters that just had 'ROXY MUSIC' splashed all over them repeatedly. That's smart. So when the debut was released, there was some anticipation. And that cover must have stood out a fucking MILE.

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That first album still thrills me to the gills. Its first side is some sort of mad, daring collision of ideas and it's still inspirational to listen to. There isn't a dull moment (you could say 'The Bob' at the start of side 2 is hard work, but most of the rest of that side buzzes with a similar energy to what came before).

'Virginia Plain' was the contemporaneous single, and it pushes what you can do with two chords (isn't it? mostly?) They used the same trick there as they did on 'Remake/Remodel' - stopping the track for a while to let a soloist burst in with something borderline comical. I love that. (Eno did it on the first track of his first solo album too). It's typical of what they were about at that time, and it shows a supreme confidence (I'm not sure how much they'd rehearsed together before recording, but you'd guess a lot). You got that arrogance in the vocal too. Ferry's voice initially was a wavering, odd thing (altho' the crooning style he'd become famous for later was already present on '2 HB'), but he wasn't shy about it in the least. You know 'If There Is Something', of course (I'm under no illusions that I'm trying to convert anyone here!) - it surprises me sometimes to find that for many people it's one of their favourite RM songs.

Anyway. It was quite a mix and it's strange how it all worked together so well. They were arguably the closest thing the UK ever got to the Velvet Underground, and I know they were influenced quite a lot by them. If all they took from Lou and his lot was a certain boldness of approach, then it's evident in those odd early recordings.

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People often cite their second album as their best, but I'm not convinced. The first two tracks (how many times have I typed this out on BCB over the years!) are as good as they EVER got ('Beauty Queen' really is an incredible thing, and it still casts a spell on me. Every single time. I wish I had words....), but 'Strictly Confidential' is strangely low-key and uninteresting. And I've never been too keen on 'The Bogus Man'. But it's a hell of a trick to make something as uncommercial as the title track so appealing. I don't know how they do it. What the fuck is it about? 'for your pleasure in our present state/part false, part true like anything/we pre-sent ourselves'.

I have to go and eat something. Maybe I'll write part two later. Or maybe someone else could do those years justice. Meanwhile - let's have your thoughts...
Last edited by naughty boy on 01 Oct 2014, 11:12, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Goat Boy » 30 Sep 2014, 22:25

look at them gays wrote:
People often cite their second album as their best, but I'm not convinced. The first two tracks (how many times have I typed this out on BCB over the years!) are as good as they EVER got ('Beauty Queen' really is an incredible thing, and it still casts a spell on me. Every single time. I wish I had words....), but 'Strictly Confidential' is strangely low-key and uninteresting. And I've never been too keen on 'The Bogus Man'. But it's a hell of a trick to make something as uncommercial as the title track so appealing. I don't know how they do it. What the fuck is it about? 'for your pleasure in our present state/part false, part true like anything/we pre-sent ourselves'.



I've completely come round to For Your Pleasure recently. Even the Bogus Man - it's just a great jam. As for the title track I thought it was about high class hookers. The first verse is one presenting herself to a client or an ambassador or a politician at some posh party on a country estate or something. The gravel driveway outside, rubbing shoulders with stars, etc. It's possible that the 'tara' line has a double meaning as well, one obviously being 'goodbye' but it's also a womans name

Like you said, they're very filmic
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Re: x

Postby never/ever » 01 Oct 2014, 10:44

I think that the luxuriousness of the cover perfectly reflects the contents. In Every Dream Home A Heartache is just wonderfully decadent and perverse- the live-version is just a sublime orgasm of noise. Editions Of You is like the tristesse after...it is my favourite of the lot. I don't particularly mind The Bogus Man....
Since Dream Him is an ode to a blow-up doll Isurmise that FYP is about the same detached view of sex and its aftermath.
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Re: x

Postby Goat Boy » 01 Oct 2014, 10:48

What's the point in deleting the opening post and title?
Griff wrote:The notion that Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong vocal proponent of antisemitism, would stand in front of an antisemitic mural and commend it is utterly preposterous.


Copehead wrote:a right wing cretin like Berger....bleating about racism

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Re: x

Postby Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman » 01 Oct 2014, 10:54

Goat Boy wrote:What's the point in deleting the opening post and title?


A rather aimless prank, I guess.

Or some odd quiz: try to reconstruct the opening post from the replies.
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Re: For Your Pleasure

Postby never/ever » 01 Oct 2014, 10:59

Shame. Definitely a good topic.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Your Friendly Neighbourhood Postman » 01 Oct 2014, 11:25

It's back, by popular demand.

(*sigh*) those homos...
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Goat Boy » 01 Oct 2014, 11:27

Yay!
Griff wrote:The notion that Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong vocal proponent of antisemitism, would stand in front of an antisemitic mural and commend it is utterly preposterous.


Copehead wrote:a right wing cretin like Berger....bleating about racism

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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Bent Fabric » 01 Oct 2014, 14:28

look at them gays wrote:People often cite their second album as their best, but I'm not convinced. The first two tracks (how many times have I typed this out on BCB over the years!) are as good as they EVER got ('Beauty Queen' really is an incredible thing, and it still casts a spell on me. Every single time. I wish I had words....), but 'Strictly Confidential' is strangely low-key and uninteresting. And I've never been too keen on 'The Bogus Man'. But it's a hell of a trick to make something as uncommercial as the title track so appealing. I don't know how they do it. What the fuck is it about? 'for your pleasure in our present state/part false, part true like anything/we pre-sent ourselves'.


I wouldn't call myself some enormous Roxy Music fan, but FYP is an absolute masterpiece in my eyes. There isn't a single moment on there that I would alter or sacrifice - the more low key stuff is like molasses to me (I'd compare it to the sort of sludgy guitar business on Bowie's Diamond Dogs ballads). Damn!

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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby fange » 01 Oct 2014, 14:36

I'm glad this is back.

I love the first 5 albums pretty much wholesale, and bits of the next couple as well. Arty, poppy, sleazy, dancey - they had SO much thrown into the pot but it all worked. It sounded exciting and interesting to me when i first heard em, and mostly still sound that way to me now.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Guy E » 01 Oct 2014, 22:46

Roxy Music was not an officially sanctioned rock band during my college years in Central Illinois... that was Earth Shoe Lumberjack Shirt Grateful Dead Hot Tuna Allman Brothers Lynyrd Skynyrd territory.

But people were open-minded and I used to play Roxy Music a bit. My favorite memory is of playing For Your Pleasure one late night when a bunch of my friends were sitting around stoned. A couple of guys were clearly paying attention to the story-line of In Every Dream Home A Heartache and when Ferry got to the punch-line - I blew up your body... but you blew my mind - the room erupted in admiring cosmic laughter.

A few people were converted that night. My favorite personal Roxy moment.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby toomanyhatz » 01 Oct 2014, 23:31

I love the first five, though I think they're a bit graspy on the first two. Sometimes to great effect, but they flounder less on the next two if I'm honest. (Supposedly those two are Eno's favorites too rather than the ones he's on, can anyone confirm?)

It really feels like the core three are Ferry, Manzanera and McKay, Eno brings a nice playfulness to the proceedings, but he's not really essential to the overall sound. I think the combination of Ferry's vibrato, Manzanera's squonk (when he goes that route - he's a pretty nondescript player too when that's all that's required of him) and the reeds are what people think of when they think of Roxy.

Also, I really at least like everything they did up through Avalon. They're never going to sound too conventional with Ferry's voice, and even when they sound pretty commercial they have enough there to interest me. In fact I generally agree with the way Ferry approaches stuff - like it's all part of the same continuum. If (as I've said before) pop and art cultures cross over constantly, they're one of the best examples of it.

Best song - "Street Life" might be the best distillation of everything that's good about them.

Best album - I lean toward Stranded these days, mostly, with Country Life as a runner-up. They just edge the first two for me.

Most underrated album - Avalon is one of the great romantic albums ever. I think it's right up there with Let's Get it On and Barry White, etc. as make-out music. (My wife, unfortunately, does not care for it - so there goes its use for that for the rest of my life. :cry: )
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Quaco » 01 Oct 2014, 23:49

Fantastic band. When good, they have everything so utterly in the right place. And it wasn't really something that had been tried before -- such a weird amalgam, with Ferry's frankly bizarre vocals over the top. And yet, because of the words, his vocals made perfect sense.

I agree with Mr. Fabric: the second album is absolute perfection. I would not change a second. "Grey Lagoons" is slightly second-tier, but it has some great lyrics (as always) and some extremely manic harmonica (that the first time I heard it, circa 1977, I felt I'd heard it somewhere before -- but what would the chances have been?), but basically ramps up to the incomparable title track.

I've never thought "Street Life" was up to much. I don't know why so many people rate it so highly -- or why I don't.

I do not know the later albums well at all. Thus, I would rate them as follows:

For Your Pleasure (perfect)
Roxy Music (perfect, just doesn't sound as good)
Country Life (solid solid album but maybe lacking the strangeness and desperation of the first two)
Stranded / Siren (both have immense high points, but some filler as well)
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Quaco » 01 Oct 2014, 23:51

Guy E wrote:Roxy Music was not an officially sanctioned rock band during my college years in Central Illinois... that was Earth Shoe Lumberjack Shirt Grateful Dead Hot Tuna Allman Brothers Lynyrd Skynyrd territory.

But people were open-minded and I used to play Roxy Music a bit. My favorite memory is of playing For Your Pleasure one late night when a bunch of my friends were sitting around stoned. A couple of guys were clearly paying attention to the story-line of In Every Dream Home A Heartache and when Ferry got to the punch-line - I blew up your body... but you blew my mind - the room erupted in admiring cosmic laughter.

A few people were converted that night. My favorite personal Roxy moment.

So great! The same thing happened to me, more or less, just internally. That was my first RM song and I was an instant convert.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby naughty boy » 02 Oct 2014, 00:09

Quacoan wrote:I agree with Mr. Fabric: the second album is absolute perfection. I would not change a second. "Grey Lagoons" is slightly second-tier, but it has some great lyrics (as always) and some extremely manic harmonica


I prefer 'Would You Believe' on the debut - in a similar style. That's SO much fun!


Quacoan wrote:I've never thought "Street Life" was up to much. I don't know why so many people rate it so highly -- or why I don't.


Oh, man! I LOVE that one! Just little things - the weirdy four-chord intro (repeated later in the breaks); the way he sings 'Continental style/Strasse girls might', and the 'wooo!' later; the fade with the whirring synth and the handclaps. Best single of '73. And then on the album, like that one's not left you flattened, you're straight into 'buttercup daisies....'.
Matt 'interesting' Wilson wrote:So I went from looking at the "I'm a Man" riff, to showing how the rave up was popular for awhile.

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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Phenomenal Cat » 02 Oct 2014, 00:29

toomanyhatz wrote:I love the first five, though I think they're a bit graspy on the first two. Sometimes to great effect, but they flounder less on the next two if I'm honest. (Supposedly those two are Eno's favorites too rather than the ones he's on, can anyone confirm?)


I know that at least Eno liked Stranded the best, which is pretty big of him. I think it is a masterpiece, which means I'd have to rate it higher than the first two as well. But then I think Side One of Sirens is pretty much untouchable. Their thing has been so thoroughly integrated into popular music it's difficult to grasp how unusual it must have sounded. They even beat Bowie to a lot of his later tricks.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby toomanyhatz » 02 Oct 2014, 00:40

look at them gays wrote:Oh, man! I LOVE that one! Just little things - the weirdy four-chord intro (repeated later in the breaks); the way he sings 'Continental style/Strasse girls might', and the 'wooo!' later; the fade with the whirring synth and the handclaps. Best single of '73. And then on the album, like that one's not left you flattened, you're straight into 'buttercup daisies....'.


Yeah, I love it too, for many of the same reasons. I think it's Ferry's best singing ever. Love how sharply he attacks 'take you higher than the milky...' then the lush vibrato is back for 'waaaay." it's one of the most glorious vocal moments I can think of, in fact. He's not trying to play a role like Lou Reed would do, or even being a detached observer like Ray Davies. He's kind of in it and not in it at the same time, if that makes any sense.

Then "Just Like You." Wow! So 'after hours' and lush. Love that the title is the payoff. You could spend the whole song wondering why it's called what it's called. Or not caring. Love Manzera's solo, too.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Goat Boy » 02 Oct 2014, 10:45

For a long time I completely rejected Roxy mark 2. Mark 1 was just such a life changing band for me: a perfect alchemy of 70s weirdness and rock n roll brilliance that mark 2 seemed utterly ordinary and mundane in comparison. Something like Avalon with its cheesy silk sheets romance and pillowy synth pads was like the very antithesis of everything I actually looked for in music. It turned me off for a long time I have to say but thankfully as time went on its charms wore me down and I’ve really come round to it in a big, big way these past few years. There’s some fucking great songs on there: More Than This, obviously, is a highlight of their entire career (love that synth part at the end), Take A Chance With Me, To Turn You On, fucking True To Life. It’s so predictable to criticise 80s production techniques but Avalon is a perfect example of just how gorgeous those sounds could be and its gossamer beauty is expertly realised. I mean, I adore the skronkyness of Mackays playing on those early Roxy records but his solo on Tara is exquisite you know.
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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby The Modernist » 02 Oct 2014, 11:44

I love 'Same Old Scene', but generally Roxy mk2 is way too airbrushed for me.

If I had to take just one Roxy album it would be For Your Pleasure. The essence of them is all there.
Controversial opinion - the debut is actually the weakest of the classic first five.

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Re: BCB 130 - Roxy Music!

Postby Goat Boy » 02 Oct 2014, 12:05

The G Experience! wrote:I love 'Same Old Scene', but generally Roxy mk2 is way too airbrushed for me.

If I had to take just one Roxy album it would be For Your Pleasure. The essence of them is all there.
Controversial opinion - the debut is actually the weakest of the classic first five.


I'm surprised you're not more open to mark 2.

Siren is the weakest of the first five but puzzlingly it appears to be the most acclaimed in America.
Griff wrote:The notion that Jeremy Corbyn, a lifelong vocal proponent of antisemitism, would stand in front of an antisemitic mural and commend it is utterly preposterous.


Copehead wrote:a right wing cretin like Berger....bleating about racism


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