RSSBryan Ferry/Roxy Music [extended]
- Roxy Music [Reprise, 1972] B+
- For Your Pleasure [Reprise, 1973] B
- "These Foolish Things" [Atlantic, 1974] A-
- Another Time, Another Place [Atlantic, 1974] B+
- Stranded [Atco, 1974] B+
- Country Life [Atco, 1974] B+
- Siren [Atco, 1975] A-
- Let's Stick Together [Atlantic, 1976] B
- Viva! Roxy Music [Atco, 1976] B
- In Your Mind [Atlantic, 1977] B+
- Greatest Hits [Atco, 1977] A
- The Bride Stripped Bare [Atlantic, 1978] B+
- Manifesto [Atco, 1979] A-
- Flesh and Blood [Atco, 1980] B
- Avalon [Warner Bros., 1982] A-
- The High Road [Warner Bros. EP, 1983] B+
- The Atlantic Years 1973-1980 [Atco, 1983] B+
- Boys and Girls [Warner Bros., 1985] B-
- Bête Noire [Reprise/EG, 1987] C+
- Street Life: 20 Greatest Hits [Reprise, 1989] B+
- Taxi [Reprise, 1993]
- The Platinum Collection [Virgin, 2004] ***
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Consumer Guide Reviews:
Roxy Music: Roxy Music [Reprise, 1972]
From the drag queen on the cover to the fop finery in the centerfold to the polished deformity of the music on the record, this celebrates the kind of artifice that could come to seem as unhealthy as the sheen on a piece of rotten meat. Right now, though, it's decorated with enough weird hooks to earn an A for side one. Side two leans a little too heavily on the synthesizer (played by a balding, long-haired eunuch lookalike named Eno) without the saving grace of drums and bassline. B+
Roxy Music: For Your Pleasure [Reprise, 1973]
These guys make no secret of having a strange idea of a good time, but this isn't decadent, it's ridiculous. Side one surrounds two pained, strained torch jobs with two classic neo-rockers and finishes with a song about an inflatable sex doll that's almost not stupid (title: "In Every Dream Home a Heartache"). Side two surrounds a fast fast one with two long mostly instrumental slow ones that are almost not boring. Verdict: almost not not bad. B
Bryan Ferry: "These Foolish Things" [Atlantic, 1974]
"A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" defines this collection of rock classics--ranging from "It's My Party" to "Sympathy for the Devil"--as a pop statement. By transforming Dylan at his most messianic into gripping high camp complete with sound effects (when the poet dies in the gutter the chorus gives forth with a cute groan), Ferry both undercuts the inflated idealism of the original and reaffirms its essential power. Along the way, he also establishes "It's My Party" as a protest song. And just in case we're getting any highfalutin ideas, the title track reminds us that pop is only, well, foolish things, many of which predate not only Andy Warhol but rock and roll itself. A-
Bryan Ferry: Another Time, Another Place [Atlantic, 1974]
Comedy routines are rarely as funny the second time around, especially when you've used up your best lines--"The `In' Crowd" is the only zinger Ferry comes up with here. Elsewhere he who plays at corruption is afflicted with disease--lead poisoning, it sounds like, affecting not only his brain but also his lungs and his pants. "You Are My Sunshine" makes "sense" slow, but too often Ferry simply indulges his taste for the lachrymose on songs that deserve better. B+
Roxy Music: Stranded [Atco, 1974]
Any artist as oblique and ambitious as Bryan Ferry deserves an oblique, ambitious review, here provided (unintentionally) by Sidney Tillem in his "Figurative Art 1969: Aspects and Prospects": "By moral in the context of art I mean a style which executes the deeper social and psychological function of form, as opposed to a particular aspect of vanity called taste. Pop sensibility, pop consciousness, pop sentimentality have been invaluable in clarifying the provincialism and nostalgia that actually permeate a culture that has come to pride itself on sophistication. But they have not resulted in a new art simply because the requisite idealism has been lacking." B+
Roxy Music: Country Life [Atco, 1974]
The Teutoni-textures of this music are proof negative of Bryan Ferry's deep-seated romanticism. But what happens when romanticism goes sour? And what is Phil Manzanera doing on that Nico record that closes with her version of "Deutschland Uber Alles"? Oh well, I've always said good rock has to be dangerous. But when did I say it could be slow? B+
Roxy Music: Siren [Atco, 1975]
Good album--a lot of fast ones and a great hook. Of course, Roxy Music albums have always had hooks, but "Street Life" and "Virginia Plain" never told us as much about Roxy's less accessible music as "Love Is the Drug," an equation which represents not liberation from artificial stimulants but the breakdown of both sexual and emotional abandon into "just another high." Very appropriate to situate the song in a singles bar, for that '70s reality is the exemplary environment for Bryan Ferry's romantic pessimism. Much of what his music has to say about such environments is fascinating, even perversely attractive--but ultimately a little off-putting, which I guess is the point. A-
Bryan Ferry: Let's Stick Together [Atlantic, 1976]
A lot of people are crazy about this record, but I find its bifurcation alienating. On the one hand, we have the usual unlikely borrowings, the most effective from Wilbert Harrison and the Everlys. And as usual, these are powerful, strange, and interesting--and often quite compelling. On the other hand, we have unlikely remakes of old Roxy Music material, much of it from the group's very first album. Although Ferry proves that he knows more about making records (and music) than he used to, the songs remain powerful, strange, and interesting--but not quite compelling. Add it all together and you get . . . two separate parts. B
Roxy Music: Viva! Roxy Music [Atco, 1976]
This isn't bad, not for a live album issued in lieu of current studio product. Concentrating on relatively obscure material from the first two LPs, which always sounded a bit thin, it adds humor and some untrammeled Phil Manzanera to "In Every Dream Home a Heartache." But I prefer the studio "Bogus Man" and "Chance Meeting," thin and all. And that is bad. B
Bryan Ferry: In Your Mind [Atlantic, 1977]
Ferry has custom-designed a new line of songs for his solo concept, rather than borrowing from early Roxy or his humble forebears, and especially on side one the stuff is appealingly down-to-earth. But it doesn't go far enough. I used to think Ferry's big problem was the fruity baritone that epitomized his deliberate unnaturalness, but now I think it's the hopeless romanticism of his half-realized dreams. If he ever did convince large numbers of people to care about his obsessions, the result would be nothing more than a rather scary collective escapism. B+
Roxy Music: Greatest Hits [Atco, 1977]
I've never thought average guys were compelled to ape the ruling class, I don't believe romance is inevitably corrupted, and the collapse of European culture is long overdue. In short, what Bryan Ferry has to say has never spoken very loud to this listener no matter how you break it down. So while others may mourn the nuance and conceptual integrity of Stranded and Country Life and Siren, I get off on this compilation, which puts his dialectic on display in its most entertaining guises. What with all the popcraft and robot energy and campy asides--and genuine emotion and ideas--I was even inspired to listen to "A Song for Europe" from beginning to end. Found I could translate the French part. A
Bryan Ferry: The Bride Stripped Bare [Atlantic, 1978]
Maybe the smoke in Bryan's eyes has finally reached his heart; the apparent sincerity of some of the singing here makes those five-minute moments when he lingers ponderously over a key lyric easier to take. The Los Angeles musicians don't hurt either--the conjunction of his style of stylization (feigned detachment) makes for interesting expressive tension. And Waddy Wachtel is as apt a sound-effects man as Phil Manzanera ever was. B+
Roxy Music: Manifesto [Atco, 1979]
This isn't Roxy at its most innovative, just its most listenable--the entire "West Side" sustains the relaxed, pleasantly funky groove it intends, and the difficulties of the "East Side" are hardly prohibitive. At last Ferry's vision seems firsthand even in its distancing--he's paid enough dues to deserve to keep his distance. And the title track is well-named, apparent contradictions and all. A-
Roxy Music: Flesh and Blood [Atco, 1980]
Except maybe on "My Only Love"--imagine a song of that title written for (no, rejected by) Perry Como--this never sinks to their Liebschmerz-drenched nadir. But the secondhand funk is getting too easy to take. Much as I enjoy the languorous "Midnight Hour" and above-it-all "Eight Miles High," I always get suspicious when covers overwhelm originals. B
Roxy Music: Avalon [Warner Bros., 1982]
At its juiciest Bryan Ferry's romanticism has always seemed too arch and too sour, not to mention too juicy, which is why this minor triumph sounds mild or even dull at first: after all these years its sweet simplicity is unexpected. We've always known he recorded "These Foolish Things" in the fond hope that someday he'd believe it, and while I never will, I can enjoy his pleasure in the accomplishment. A-
Roxy Music: The High Road [Warner Bros. EP, 1983]
At 26:28, a generous live mini. Limber amplifications of the putatively impassioned "Can't Let Go" and the formerly unbearable "My Only Love" grace the A. "Like a Hurricane" and "Jealous Guy" redefine the parameters of rocksy retro on the B. Next time you want to hear Bryan croon or Phil wail, take a flier. B+
Roxy Music: The Atlantic Years 1973-1980 [Atco, 1983]
Borrows "Do the Strand" from For Your Pleasure (originally on Reprise, fellas) and "Love Is the Drug" from Siren and Greatest Hits, the better to showcase Roxy Music the creamy dance band. I wouldn't swear it's a better album than Manifesto, from which it appropriates four cuts. But I would swear it's a better album than Flesh + Blood, from which it also appropriates four cuts. B+
Bryan Ferry: Boys and Girls [Warner Bros., 1985]
Sure "Make believing is the real thing." When Ferry is grooving, though, the emphasis is on the make-believe, not the real. Here there's heavy slippage, especially on side one. His voice thicker and more mucous, his tempos dragging despite all the fancy beats he's bought, he runs an ever steeper risk of turning into the romantic obsessive he's always played so zealously. B-
Bryan Ferry: Bête Noire [Reprise/EG, 1987]
As with Mick Jagger, of all people, the signal that self-imitation has sunk into self-parody is enunciatory ennui--vocal mannerisms that were once ur-posh are now just complacent. Except for the Parisian title tune the second side is unlistenable. The first side is faster. C+
Street Life: 20 Greatest Hits [Reprise, 1989]
Their third compilation in twelve years is the third to include "Love Is the Drug," but I won't quibble. "These Foolish Things" was always better as a title than as rendition, but I won't quibble. The number in the subtitle follows the formula twenty = CD, and I'm quibbling. A great gift idea--for yourself you can buy less or more. B+
Bryan Ferry: Taxi [Reprise, 1993]
The Platinum Collection [Virgin, 2004]
The third disc will half convince you he didn't follow one decade of visionary shtick with two of waiting to meet Bill Murray ("Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "Kiss and Tell"). ***