Over forty years on it’s impossible to understand just how futuristic and fantastical Roxy Music looked and sounded in 1973. Greasy rock was a drab, denim clad business, but even when compared to Bolan’s boogie, Roxy were clearly very different. The hanging chord intro to ‘Pyjamarama’ and a Top of the Pop’s appearance was all it took to get me hooked before For Your Pleasure became my first ‘proper’ album, a landmark moment I literally couldn't afford to get wrong. There was no need to worry. As soon as ‘Do The Strand’ exploded out of the speakers, like Bolan and Bowie before them, Roxy Music instantly became another significant marker.
Part of the reason why such an obviously flash, insincere, elitist group found such a willing audience amongst provincial glam kids like me was because they looked and sounded like a 1950’s sci-fi version of the future. Without any false pretence of authenticity, they had no false promises to sell out, no lies to live up to. From the start Roxy Music were an art student’s theory about rock and pop and unashamedly post-modern: ‘A danceable solution to teenage revolution’.
With or without Eno’s highly praised, experimental flourishes, it was obvious Roxy were Bryan Ferry's baby. It was Ferry who had formed them and it was Ferry who had formulated the concept they would never stray from. And yet ironically, it was Eno’s departure after For Your Pleasure that forced Ferry to become even more focused and energised. While Eno had helped mutate his songs into the eerie collages and synthscapes that had given the group their early identity, it was the albums they recorded without Eno that demonstrated how muscular, vicious and giddy they could be.
It was on Stranded, Country Life and Siren that Ferry really found his voice. Just as importantly, it was on those records that Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson found their own freedom to roam. When they hit full throttle on remarkable constructs like ‘Street Life’, ‘Mother of Pearl’, ‘All I Want Is You’ and ‘Both Ends Burning’, it was not only some of the most thrilling music they ever created, it was some of the most thrilling music of the decade.
The feeling that pervaded almost everything Roxy did, and what I found so fascinating about them even if I didn’t fully understand it, was one of romantic gloom and the exhaustion of hedonism, familiar themes that will remain pop relevant for as long as self-conscious twenty somethings want to be famous. Whenever Ferry glided through his songs as if they were parties he'd forgotten to go to, those themes haunted his every word. When he departed for a solo career after Siren, I thought they were lost forever. Then he almost went and ruined it.
In 1978 Bryan Ferry reformed Roxy for a trio of albums to explore his weary restlessness in ever prettier, more laconic ways. There had already been a noticeable albeit natural smoothing out on Country Life and Siren, but by the time of Manifesto and Flesh + Blood that subtle change was in full swing, Ferry cleverly playing the game of pop according to the new rules of the post punk era. I was far too absorbed with doing my own thing to care, yet no matter how much I resisted, my old loyalty kept dragging me back and I’m glad it did. Like everyone else, I found it impossible to deny the grace and beauty of ‘Oh Yeah’ and ‘Over You’, or the shimmer and shine of ‘Same Old Scene’.
Of course, there were moments when this new Roxy stopped sounding tired and began to sound bored. But there were also moments like Avalon's ‘More Than This’ and ‘To Turn You On’, where the smooth studio sheen cracked just enough to let the heartbreaking loneliness seep through. Then they were gone again and this time it was for good, ‘Avalon’ itself delivering the final message: ‘Now the party's over, I'm so tired’.
When I was thirteen I knew Bryan Ferry was trying to tell me something vitally important yet forbidden about the adult world. It was no different in my early twenties during Roxy’s second coming. Not knowing what it was merely increased the mystery. So I continued to play their records over and over, safe in the knowledge that I had already found a lifelong pop love unlike any other. In the 21st century that mystery is still there, still undiscovered. That’s what keeps me playing their songs!
01. Re-Make Re-Model (Roxy Music LP June 1972)
02. Ladytron (Roxy Music LP June 1972)
03. If There Is Something (Roxy Music LP June 1972)
04. 2hb (Roxy Music LP June 1972)
05. Virginia Plain (A Side August 1972)
06. Pyjamarama (A Side March 1973)
07. Do The Strand (For Your Pleasure LP March 1973)
08. Beauty Queen (For Your Pleasure LP March 1973)
09. Editions Of You (For Your Pleasure LP March 1973)
10. In Every Dream Home A Heartache (For Your Pleasure LP March 1973)
11. Street Life (A Side November 1973)
12. Just Like You (Stranded LP November 1973)
13. Psalm (Stranded LP November 1973)
14. A Song For Europe (Stranded LP November 1973)
15. Mother Of Pearl (Stranded LP November 1973)
16. All I Want Is You (Single A Side October 1974)
17.The Thrill Of It All (Country Life LP November 1974)
18. Out Of The Blue (Country Life LP November 1974)
19. Casanova (Country Life LP November 1974)
20. Love Is The Drug (A Side September 1975)
21. Could It Happen To Me? (Siren LP October 1975)
22. Both Ends Burning (Siren LP October 1975)
23. Dance Away (Manifesto LP March 1979)
24. Angel Eyes (Single A Side August 1979)
25. Over You (Single A Side May 1980)
26. Same Old Scene (Flesh + Blood LP May 1980)
27. Oh Yeah (Flesh + Blood LP May 1980)
28. Jealous Guy (A Side February 1981)
29. More Than This (A Side April 1982)
30. Avalon (Avalon LP May 1982)