264. Roxy Music - Roxy Music (1972)
















Track Listing

1. Re-make/Re-model
2. Ladytron
3. If There Is Something
4. Virginia Plain
5. 2 H.B.
6. The Bob (Medley)
7. Chance Meeting
8. Would You Believe?
9. Sea Breezes
10. Bitters End

Review

I must come clean right now... I am just now wearing a Brian Eno t-shirt while I am writing this. And another thing, it's the only music related t-shirt that I own. Brain Eno is probably the most represented artist on the list, if you mix albums where he plays, are his solo work, he produced or are collaborations he has in the region of 20 albums on the list. That's a good number, and there are very good reasons why.

So, Roxy Music... probably my favourite band in the world ever, and this album, together with For Your Pleasure are in my top five albums of all time. This album has an incomparable mix of strangeness, beauty, originality and experimentalism which could only arise from a merger between Brian Ferry, who was mainly interested in the beauty and Eno who was mainly interested in the other points. Of course this mix could never work forever, but it worked for two albums, which are two of the most precious diamonds in the history of music.

The version that I am reviewing here is the one with Virgina Plain, the track was actually not present in the first pressing, but is present on all other version... unless you own a first pressing of Roxy Music... and if you do contact me, this is the version you will get and the album is only better for it. Virginia Plain is another work of genius which works perfectly here. The mix between Ferry's croon, Manazanera's guitar, McKay's oboe and sax and Eno's synth brilliance make this one of the most original and unexpected debuts of any band, anywhere in the world.

The album is timeless, it doesn't sound particularly modern, or particularly ancient, because it sounds like nothing else in the universe. There is a sense of a casino in the far future, somewhere in space with loads of alien sounds supporting this slightly insane singer, while at the same time managing to be quite beautiful. It is never going to be an album that you will immediately love, but if you give it its necessary time it will never leave you. All Hail Roxy Music! All Hail Brian Eno! Get it from Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Virginia Plain
2. Re-Make/Re-Model
3. Ladytron
4. The Bob (Medley)

(and all other tracks)

Final Grade

10/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

The opening track, "Re-Make/Re-Model", has been labelled a post-modernist pastiche, featuring solos by each member of the band echoing various touchstones of Western music, including The Beatles' "Day Tripper", Duane Eddy's version of "Peter Gunn" and Wagner’s "Ride of the Valkyries"; the esoteric chorus "CPL 593H" was supposedly the license number of Bryan Ferry's car. Eno produced some self-styled 'lunacy' when Ferry asked him for a sound "like the moon" for the track "Ladytron". "If There Is Something" was later covered by David Bowie's Tin Machine.

A number of songs were thematically linked to movies. "2HB", with its punning title, was Ferry’s tribute to Humphrey Bogart and quoted the line "Here’s looking at you, kid" made famous by the film Casablanca (1942); "Chance Meeting" was inspired by David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945). "The Bob" took its title from Battle of Britain (1968) and included a passage simulating the sound of gunfire.

Discussing the music, Andy Mackay later said "we certainly didn’t invent eclecticism but we did say and prove that rock 'n' roll could accommodate - well, anything really".

You NEED to watch this:



Mesmerising performance of Re-Make/Re-Model... what the hell is Eno wearing?: