big up Virginia Plain. Literally no idea what any of these songs are about and I refuse to learn. vibes only
Roxy Music is the debut studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. It was released on 16 June 1972. It was generally well received by contemporary critics and made it to number 10 in the UK Albums Chart.
big up Virginia Plain. Literally no idea what any of these songs are about and I refuse to learn. vibes only
The first few songs have a bit of a Grateful Dead meets David Bowie feel before the prog/art rock really takes hold. Brian Eno’s contribution is immense and hints at his ambient music aspirations. Frankly this album absolutely blew me away. The suite like nature of the album plays best as a whole and the genre fluidity works very well for them. This album is way ahead of its time and parts of it sound like it could have been released by contemporary independent artists.
Solid 4 from a band I've never heard of. Feels ahead of its time in 1971
Debut album from Roxy Music and along with their next album "For Your Pleasue" are the only albums with keyboardist Brian Eno. Descriptions of this music and this album are avant-garde, innovative, experimental, glam...I would agree to all that; at this point, this music is hard to define. I hear jazz, prog rock, 50's and early 60's rock and glam rock. Their latter albums have a more distinct style, a "Roxy Music" feel. A thing you do hear throughout are major contributions from each of their members. Every member seems to standout at different times from the sax, drums, guitar, Eno's keyboards and Bryan Ferry's piano and voice. The lyrics are mostly about romance or some aspect of a relationship. This album is considered a major influence on future rock and punk. I do hear that. The album kicks off with "Re-Make/Re-Model" which has a lot going on. Fast drumming, interesting guitar and guitar solo and at times sounds like jazz. It also sounds like a song perfectly fitting on a late 70's Talking Heads' album. On the next song, "Ladytron", I hear a lot of Gary Numan. Brian Eno makes his synthesizers sound like outer space. One of the best songs on the album. "Chance Meeting" is another song dominated by Eno. The US release (not UK) had "Virginia Plain," one of my favorite Roxy Music songs, and their only single connected with the album. It's a more traditional rock song structure with the Roxy Music style you'd hear later that decade. This album is considered one of the best debut albums and I think rightfully so. It showcases an immensely talented band and their initial unique sound.
A classy album, this one. It's so classy, you can use the cover model's pubes as dental floss. But yes, this is a sophisticated album intended for we sophisticated cats. The ideal circumstance for listening to this album is whilst sitting beside a roaring fireplace, reading Nabokov's Pale Fire, lazily swirling some Rémy Martin around the glass and being fellated by the woman on the front of that month's Vogue. Indeed, that's how Bryan Ferry ends his Wednesdays. I'm quite a fan of Roxy Music. I love them in a similar way to how I love the Happy Mondays. I love their inventiveness, their oddball discernment, their magpie ransacking of any and all music trends that took their fancy, their unabashed hedonism (which led to both Roxy and the Mondays putting underdressed lovelies on their album covers; neither group could remotely be called feminist). Also like the Mondays, Roxy moderately pissed on their reputational chips with later demerits, leading T-Rex/the Stone Roses to nab more than their fair share of glam/baggy kudos. But this is their first album, so let's save that story for the last Roxy album on the list (Country Life, if you're wondering). Roxy Music gestated in that classic incubator for smart British bands, the art college. In fact, Roxy Music may well qualify as the quintessential art college band. Bryan Ferry, the son of a Geordie miner, was magnetically drawn to the Fine Art department of Newcastle University (not technically an art college, but it's not as if he studied chemical engineering). Under the tutelage of Richard Hamilton (who designed the cover of the Beatles White Album), Ferry became devoted to living a life governed by elegance, taste and flair, seeking to unite his idols Marcel Duchamp, Humphrey Bogart and Otis Redding. Brian Eno, the son of an Essex postman, immersed himself in the then-nascent postmodern attitude of questioning every assumption that British art colleges had fostered. Wielding a post-structuralist arsenal of hypotheses and approaches, Eno sought to put art theory into music practice. (One oddity about Roxy Music is that, for all their assertions that they were creating a new aristocracy, along with Bryan Ferry's latter penchants for foxhunting and Eton, the band members' backgrounds were almost all firmly working-class. The ony posh one in the group was public-school-educated guitar ace Phil Manzanera, the son of a man who worked for a British airline and who might have been a spy working throughout Latin America). Roxy Music was Bryan's baby, but though he was unquestionably the leader (one constant source of resentment within the group was Bryan's insistence that he be credited with "words and music" on the album, meaning he'd get the bulk of the royalties), Bryan needed the rest of the group to construct his vision. Also, Brian had gallons of ideas of his own, and though Bryan and Brian would battle in part over who had the biggest avant-garde chops (also, Bryan got miffed at the remarkable quantity of ladies who bounced upon Brian), on the first two Roxy albums one can feel how synergistic Bryan and Brian were. These ideas, which can't be attributed solely to Bryan or to Brian, include a pop-art derived rejection of high-low culture boundaries. In the first track, Re-make/Re-model, has each band member play an excerpt from another piece of music: Graham Simpson, the soon-departing bassist plays the riff from Day Tripper, Andy Mackay, the saxophonist and oboist (and son of a London gas man) plays Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries, etcetry etcetry. This was at a time when prog rock was trying to build its own high-low culture barrier, putting itself on the high side. This is surely a reason to love Roxy Music: they pointed out, musically and comically, that those prog popinjays were a phananx of wankers. If I had to single out a curious factor from this album, it would be its romanticism. Yes, it's a romanticism that's been dolled up with camp and irony, but it's still romanticism under the cosmetics. This is due to Bryan, not Brian. Whereas Brian would nick prodigiously from the past because the very idea of such theft interested him, Bryan truly venerated the matinee idols and soul singers of his youth, and he was clever enough to clock that he could be simultaneously arch and sincere. So, we get his paean to Bogart (2HB), his three-part vignette on love discovered, consummated and recalled (If There Is Something), and his doo-wop pastiche (Bitter Ends). That said, Bryan's romanticism (which occasionally veered into chauvinism) is only one facet of this great album, and I wish I'd said more about Andy and Phil (I don't know what the drummer Paul Thompson's dad did for a living). But there's so much to devour here, and I've wittered on enough already, so why not find out yourself? Play this album, it's dead classy.
Loved the experimental and eclectic sound. Also loved the way that this album felt like a story without the use of skits, very cohesive and has musical through lines.
I liked this for the most part. I had no idea what I was going into with this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.
The saying, "Don't just a book by its cover" doesn't usually apply to albums. Generally speaking, you WANT your album covers to give people an indication of what they're getting into. Before I hit play on this one, I had a definite idea of what I was about to be listening to. I was wrong. This was ... good. The Wiki article has this pegged as "glam rock" and "prog rock" but, to me, it felt like proto-punk. In a good way. I don't know. Whatever it is, I dig it. Docked a star because a lot of the second half is too damn Brian Eno for my liking. Also, WTF is up with that last track? It's a rip off of the damn Monster Mash. Why would you do that?
It's so weird, I love it!
Great drums, great guitar, unique vocals, and uniqueness everywhere... what's not to like? Solid find for me.
It’s one of the greatest debut albums of all time. It has one of the greatest opening tracks of all time, Remake/Remodel. It’s the album that introduced Brian Eno to the world. It’s experimental, ahead of its time, strange and boundary pushing. It rocks. How could I possibly rate it anything other than 5 stars?
I talked about this before when I reviewed Roxy Music’s other album this is just a really incredible experience every song hits hard as fuck 10/10
Nevrr listened to this before. I just don't know. Was it good? Was it bad? I think it kind of was good, but I'm scared. Let's say it was.
https://youtu.be/8E0qSTFIauw
Stellar
This album is really astonishing for the time when it was made. It sounds like a post-punk album but was made before anything but the earliest punk albums had been released. The music can be a bit much at times, but overall it's a really fun listen and sounds way ahead of its time 4/5
Really enjoyable
I don't really know what it is. Rock/punk? This one really can't be judged by its cover, but it is a solid 4 stars.
Loved this album! Can't believe I never got to it before. They must be an influence for Talking Heads.
Some sort of mix between Bowie and Pink Floyd. First half was very good, second half reminded me of The Wall.
I like Roxy, but this is their early work, before they became "cool" later on in the 80s.
It's early for them, and it's not my fav. I don't think it's super interesting, maybe in that there are slower songs??
I can appreciate that this was ahead of the curve for 1972, and it deserves props for that. The issue is that I just didn't enjoy it. In fact I found it to be mildly annoying most of the time.
man I cant dig this. The lead singer sounds like someone yelled at him or punched him in the stomach before recording and he's holding back tears. Also it just sounds a little too boring for rock.
The woman in the album art looks like she gives teethy blowjobs. At first I thought it sounded like the rolling stones. Then he started singing and it was like Devo was fucking David Byrne. He sounds like he is being viciously shaken while singing. This guy definitely did acid in the sixties. The drummer on 2.H.B was fuckin jammin. Chance Meeting sounded like he was making up the lyrics on the fly. There were no lyrics on the youtube videos and I don’t think I understood one word. Most of the songs sounded like a mish mash of instruments interrupting each other while a man has a violent stroke into a microphone. 3/10
Mixing up genres and experimental, this is clearly different for it's time, but I prefer their second album, For Your Pleasure. This starts well, but gets weaker. I didn’t warm to the last two songs at all.
Dad rock. Virgin Records? More like Made by Virgins, lmao
Is it fair to dislike something for trying too hard? It’s a feeling I have towards a lot of progressive music, a sense that the music is secondary to the performance. But for a group like Roxy Music, who were only tangentially Prog? Is it reductive, missing the point to dislike Glam for being over the top? In the case of the two other great British Glammers, Bowie and Bolan, the answer is certainly a yes, but that’s because the style was mostly restricted to their image rather than the music. The music stands on it’s own without the costumes and pageantry; Bowie could have dressed in a potato sack and Starman would still have been a hit. Roxy Music are, to my knowledge, seen less as style icons, and so their music must stand on it’s own. And I don’t think it does. I read a description of Re-Make/Re-Model before I listened to the track, and it came over as so fan-wanky that I probably put myself off. It’s not a song, it’s a load of ideas smashed behind a piano beat. ‘Oh, what if the guitar just played single notes until the solo, when we just play chords?’ ‘Oh, what if the keyboard just played random notes occasionally?’ ‘Oh, what if we quoted The Beatles and Wagner right after each other? That’d show how cool and irreverent we are. Post-Modernism!’ Oh, and it distracts from the fact that we mostly just sing about girls. I’m not saying that every song has to be a State Of The Nation novel or a commentary on fame and fortune or everyday ennui: there is a place for love songs. I’m just not sure I want my love songs to quote Ride of the fucking Valkyries, or to be wrapped up in so many layers of irony and references that it becomes evident the composer is just trying to impress the listener with how clever they are. Recently, I’ve been watching Community while it’s still on Netflix, and what’s struck me is how little the various pop culture references actually affect the core of the emotional story the writers are trying to tell. Community’s reference humour is a way of presenting a love letter to culture, on top of a deeper story about a flawed man learning to accept his flaws by letting people into his heart. The irony is only skin deep, a reflection of Jeff’s character. Roxy Music’s irony is down to the bone, and as such it becomes very hard to appreciate, because there is no other substance to attach to
What, and I cannot stress this enough, THE FUCK. Everybody has those blind spot bands, right? You know the name, you hear it mentioned as an influential artist, but you can't listen to everything so somehow it bypasses you. You always meant to check it out but never got around to it. So this is my first exposure to Roxy Music. I assumed based on the name, the association with fashion, the groups they influenced, and the era, that I'd be queuing up some Bowie-esque glam rock. Hooooo buddy. How do I describe it? You know the scene in Spinal Tap where Nigel quits and they decide to do a jazz exploration at their next gig? Ever seen those videos on YouTube where someone overlays live footage of Phish with saxophone honks and random drum fills and out-of-tune guitar chord plucks? That's Roxy Music, friends. This is Grateful Dead on an off night after a bad trip. The last song sounds like a fucking jam band Monster Mash. This was so spectacularly unpleasant to listen to from start to finish that I'm kind of invested in solving the mystery of how the fuck anyone ever listened to it in the first place? Did you all just hang the cover on your wall and treat it as art? Did you accidentally put another record in the sleeve and spend the 70s confusing which band was which? Make it make sense.
Exile on Main Street-stones Ziggy stardust-Bowie Pink moon-nick drake I’m still in love with you- al green Harvest- Neil young Eat a peach-allman bros Young gifted and black-Aretha All these albums came out the same year as this, why on earth is this on the list??
I’m a big fan of Roxy Music and I love these early albums.
- 1 9 7 2 -
The classic Roxy music record where everything is just perfect. Great music, good lyrics and some electronic experimentations. What else do you need?
To these ears, this album and its follow-up 'For Your Pleasure' are the greatest Roxy Music albums - before Eno got the heave-ho. Both albums are fabulous additions to the art-rock/glam genre, and were some of the strong influences on some of those post-punk bands that followed the great UK punk explosion of 76-77. The album is full of great tunes and (at times oblique) lyrics. I listened to the US release which includes the great single 'Virginia Plain'. What a stomper! This album is a clear 5/5.
Gold. True and Pure, never tire of listening to ALL THEIR ALBUMS
Never really dug in to Roxy Music despite being very in to most of Eno's career after Roxy Music. This album is excellent and a nice peak in to the earlier work of genius. Fascinating.
Pitch perfect art rock and proto punk debut.
Haha wow this absolutely rips! I had no idea! I can’t believe it’s from the early 70s, too. Sounds like 1986. This is not the sort of thing I ever would have got into when I was younger. All roads lead to Eno I guess.
As we gathered around Bitters End, there came plenty a chance meeting to take advantage of. If there is something to take note of, is that there is no shortage of love for Humphrey Bogart around these parts. Would you believe? Not long into the abundance of sounds buzzing amongst the chatter, the first chords of The Bob blared through the speakers and we were rollicking again. Our clothes, long and short and tailored and sequined and sharp and flat, underwent a re-make/re-model as though they were anticipating the Ladytron. Yet there she was, what's her name? Virginia Plain? Initially she wasn't supposed to be there but it's for the best that she was. If you come through for one of these gatherings, make sure of one thing: keep an eye out for the sea breezes.
What a vibe. Just perfect as always!
It took a while for me to understand what so many people heard in that debut (and early Roxy Music in general), something like a couple of years since I first listened to this album. I was fan of Eno's solo career, though. But Bryan Ferry's vocal performance was a bit grating for me. Yet, finally, and quite recently, something clicked. Now even Ferry's have a point: they bring some sort of Brechtian, cabaret-like dimension that fits with the artful, sophisticated-yet-lively nature of this unpredictable music going from glam-rock renditions of early rock'n'roll impulses to forward-looking experimental thrusts. *Roxy Music* is like a retro sci-fi fever dream using the rock idiom to point towards the future. Its first side is absolutely perfect, and the second, admittedly more disjointed one, harbors many gems as well. Don't have a lot of time today to go into specific tracks. But I will still use a few more words to say this: never say never about a record that eludes your comprehension at first if you *objectively* feel it brings something artful and original to the table. Chances are that you can be able to enjoy it very *subjectively* later. It's one of the greatest lessons this app taught me. 4.5/5 for the purposes of this list, rounded up to 59.5/10 for more general purposes (5+4.5) Number of albums left to review: less than 200, approximately - I've temporarily lost count here. Number of albums I'll include in my own list: half so far, approximately. Number of albums I *might* include: a quarter, approximately. Number of albums I'll never include: another quarter, or just a little more (many other albums are more important to me).
While Eno and Roxy Music both got better throughout the rest of the decade, this is still a great album. I haven't listened to it in some time and was amazed at how great it still sounds.
Bryan Ferry may be the only man so horny for a woman that he wrote a song about her license plate number. Eno-era Roxy Music... My goodness.
The Bob
Love it, albums like this get me excited about music.
Perfect album. Roxy music is the shit.
I should have known this earlier! Rock oboe on this is some of the best. So great. Eno's synth work. Just divine. Virginia Plain is great, but it's all worht a deep dive. Ladytron! Sax on if there is something!
This is a no-rules recording, and the band throws everything into it, and somehow it all works. Listeners who only know the later version of the band and Bryan Ferry's torch-singer persona will be absolutely shocked by what a rollicking ride this album provides.
Love Roxy Music
idk yet
Roxy Music is another one of those bands that I've heard a lot of good things about and have been meaning to check out more from them. This did not disappoint.
I really liked it!!
Different and I love it
I remember seeing Roxy Music live in 2022. The standout performance was “Ladytron” and “Virginia Plain”. This album is just too good.
Incredible album. Very interesting sound and high production value. Wouldn’t have guessed it’s from the 70s
The first of 4 straight practically flawless albums from Roxy. Never stops surprising and delighting.
Жесть. Альбом начинается слишком обыкновенно - позитивный прог-рок 70х годов. Но потом что-то случается и на гитарном проигрыше я слышу деппреснявую флейту (словил ассоциацию с ДДТ - Храм). А потом начинается почти синтовый трек с медленным вокалом. Это что трип-хоп!? Главный эмбиент-петербуржец Брайан Ино свое влияние, конечно, намутил. Очень подкупает такое развитие по ходу. Крутой альбом. Добавил 1 трек.
Idiosyncratic is good. Distinct musically. Clear talent on display. The artists' viewpoint is communicated. Simply a fun album to listen to. Love it. Adding to my library.
Roxy Music's first album is pure delight. They are eclectic but not proggish but created what others would call Art Rock later. Love it!
Still sounds very fresh. That Eno touch👌
It has been a while since I was blown away by an album so immediately on first listen. The melodic sensibilities in tension with some more experimental impulses hit that perfect sweet spot for me. Makes me want to dive into the rest of their discography. Great debut album.
I love this album! This band was amazing, nearly no misses for me. Iconic cover, great songs I can listen over and over! A fantastic album that shows what they’re about, what they have in store and what’s to come! 9 out of 10
This album might be 5* I listened to it about 2 months ago, which gives it an advantage against alot of the albums on this list. It sounded familiar and all the vibes I liked then shone through. Sea Breezes is outstanding. There is a sense of fear and dread that comes from this song, yet a loose feel that's hard to explain. The guitar work is very simple but seems complicated melodically. If There is Something is another song that stands out for its janky piano line, but still manages to have an eerie vibe. Overall I'm between a 4 and a 5
This felt like glam rock at its best. I really enoyed it.
I had previously dismissed Roxy music as not for me based on one of their other records. But this was such a continuous surprise of jazzy, unhinged rock music. Loved it! The biggest positive surprise of my 1001 project yet.
This is a criminally underrated album. I had this on my very first MP3 player. I think I saw a Behind the Music of it on VH1 when I was like 13. You've got SO MUCH happening across the runtime; the growing, thumping synths on Virginia Plain, the David Byrne-esque vocals (before Talking Heads formed), or how about the Sabbath-like grooves on The Bob right before it dissolves into war sounds followed by a jangly glam jam? This album is the definition of eclectic, and for some that's not exactly a good thing. Personally, I love being strapped in and along for this ride.
Spirits of art-, glam-, and avant-rock meld marvelously to craft a stunningly singular cocktail of particular intoxication.
Great
Really cool album. I dig the proto new wave. Not afraid to get weird but still being very listenable. Always nice to be exposed to an album you probably would have never found otherwise
brian eno’s debut album, and a surprise for me. it feels experimental but more listenable than i’d expect — you can feel the bones of ambient here, but with sparkly glam flesh. this metaphor may have gotten away from me. anyway, this album was great.
Way ahead of its time for 1972. Accessible and fun art rock. Probably my favorite Roxy album due to the presence of Eno. He provides a touch of chaos that makes everything so much more intriguing.
This was much better than I expected. I'm not a fan of glam rock in general, but the sheer quality of the rock music made up for that on the first half of the album. Things get a little more unusual on the second half where Brian Eno's experimentation gets added to the mix. I'm not a fan of Eno's solo work either. But combined with quality glam rock it somehow works. More of a 4.5 rounded up than a solid 5, but still I enjoyed this album a lot.
Þessi er svokallað gateway drug, keypti hana í Hljómalind 1997 út af Brian Eno kom heim og hlustaði og varð fyrir vonbrigðum. Hlustaði aftur, og aftur, og aftur og alltaf sömu vonbrigðin. Svo gerðist eitthvað í fimmtu hlustun og ég hef ekki litið til baka síðan. Söngur Ferrys er ótaminn, hljóðheimurinn mjög töff og If there is something er á topp 100 bestu laga listanum.
I've always wanted an opportunity to get into early Roxy and here it is. Already love Mr. Eno and like later more pop-orientated hits but this is another world. A post-Modern eclectic world. This is seriously good. Dense, innovative with early 70's glam rock vibes but something else, something proto- Hit and miss, dead ends and quirky avenues. The sounds here are new and feel fresh even today. This is why this chart is such a good idea. Finding a gem amongst chaff.
BRILLIANT ALBUM!!!
An awesome debut from one of my favorite bands of all time. They sounded like no one else at the time. Still do.
Squonky, freewheeling, innovative, exuberantly weird. I love it. Top-notch debut album that still sounds surprisingly fresh today. One thing I really love about Roxy Music is how every member plays full tilt on these songs. It's like each one is playing lead in his own head and don't tell him otherwise. The result is this really full and vibrant sound that keeps delivering, no matter how many times you hear it. I was going to go 4 stars, but boosting to a 5 for sheer creativity. Fave Songs (All songs, from most to least favorite): Virginia Plain, Re-Make/Re-Model, Ladytron, If There Is Something, Sea Breezes, Would You Believe?, 2HB, Bitters End, The Bob (Medley), Chance Meeting
What must have this sounded like in 1972? Google the Virginia Plain performance from Top of the Pops to see how they looked like they'd descended from another planet. The instruments were plastic, the outfits sequinny and the haircuts held up with clouds of spray. It's the sound of the future, a soundworld completely artificial and ironic, but completely convincing. One of the best debut albums ever.
I hadn’t really listened to Roxy Music much prior to this project, but now I’m on album #2 and it seems that I am quite taken by this eccentric band. The instrumentation is wonderfully wild (Castanets! Oboe solos! Wackadoo synths!). The odd, quavering vocals deliver some pretty interesting lyrics. At times I’m not sure what abuse the guitar is being subjected to to make those noises. Every time I listen I hear more and more. I love it! I’m a fan!
I'd never really given Roxy Music a chance and knew little about them. This album, with that in mind, comes as quite a pleasant surprise. While the songs often jump off the rails and lose cohesion, they are a continual feed of ear candy and dynamic shift. The second half of this album is definitely less cohesive and satifsying, but overall, what a debut album. I'll be listening to a lot more Roxy Music, that's for sure.
It's Roxy Music's debut. Banging. This is the album I've actually listened to properly. Reading these reviews I hadn't realised how little cut through Roxy had to the (presumably) American market. Side A is absolutely impeccable. Every song, 6/5. Genuinely one of the best records ever.
I do love Roxy Music, this is a belter!
Likte kje så godt Roxy når eg va sånn 12, men no e da et av mine favorittband
Prefs: Re-Make/Re-Model, Ladytron, If There Is Something, Virginia Plain, 2 H.B., The Bob (Medley), Would You Believe?, Sea Breezes, Bitters End Moins pref: Chance Meeting (still good)
What a strange, curious and immensely enjoyable experience this turned out to be. Roxy Music treads a line between wry and weird that very few manage successfully - Sparks, perhaps? But more than that, Roxy Music is the questing sound of a bunch of outsiders pulling apart and examining tropes of rock and roll in real time. And, of course, the hand of Bryan Ferry means that there are moments of warped romanticism to be found, too. Heady stuff.
What a start to Eno's storied career. Roxy Music is brash , unforgiving, creative, and yet relatable. It doesn't take a music genius to hear what makes this album such a delight. Every bit of flavor on top of the beautiful vocals and driving guitars pulls this album up from being a 'pretty good' 70s bop to a greatest album of all time. rarely does it drag and in the times it does I can find solace in knowing it will be payed off. beautiful project. for starting Brian Enos career and still being a banger of an album. 9.9/10
Great starter album - always thought this was Ian drury!
Impossible to really rate an album on first listen alone so I am rating based on how interesting I find it and how likely I am to relisten to it and the band/artist's other work. Overall this album was very enjoyable. The mix of simple song structure with some more experimental sounds reminded me of David Bowie. Also got some King Crimson vibes from the woodwinds. 2HB, The Bob and Chance Meeting was the highlight for me. The drums in 2HB sound so good. Definitely giving this album another listen and checking out the band's other albums.
Ferry goated
The perfect debut - The first five Roxy Musis albums are all 5 star albums - this is one is a super 5-star album.
Did not expect this to be as good as it was. That's on me.
Британцы, 1972, дебютный альбом. Детище Брайана Ферри, первая группа Брайана Ино. Арт-рок, глэм-рок.
Es un disco chistoso. Suena sexy. Suena misterioso. Suena pasado de lanza, exagerado, campy se podría decir. Es inteligente, es tonto. Es profundo y superficialmente brillante. Phil Manzanera elevó la guitarra en este disco a otro nivel, wow. Brian Ferry canta como un viejo cochino, me encanta. 5 de 5 y así.
This album deserves more attention than it gets. A masterpiece.
british twinks having fun
Hey I just heard Here Come the Warm Jets for the first time recently and I loved it. This really feels like the predecessor to it. Fun and experimental while also being listenable music
I’m not a big glam fan but the instrumentals on this one were really good and despite the vocals I enjoyed it
Roxy Music's debut confounds me because it seems glam almost by accident -- there's almost none of the bluesy 50's worship or psychedelic strums of their contemporaries. rather, it feels someone accidentally beamed it in from a dimension where glam rock was a natural extension of prog rock, and Pink Floyd ditched the acid for cocaine and sequins. the woman on the cover is near incongruous to the music -- she could be an elf or a terrible Hipgnosis collage instead and i doubt it would fit the music any less. however, as interesting as the self-titled is, it does spin its wheels a bit more than go anywhere. songs like "2 H.B." and "Chance Meeting" are underdeveloped, not lacking in sound but rather lacking in stand-out ideas. there are moments of glammy greatness and weirdness on this album, but they don't often mix. i'm mostly wondering if Eno wishes he'd been in an actual prog band like Phil Manzanera was. also, i hate saying it, but the American version with the bonus track is essential; "Virginia Plain" is what i thought this band was gonna sound like before i hit the second track. i feel like not hearing on here is a big mistake, like leaving "Peace Love and Understanding" off of Armed Forces. a rare opinion from me, i assure you.
Roxy Music’s debut album is definitely the one to start with when exploring this band. You’ll definitely notice an evolution in their sound as you move through their catalog over the years. My favorite song from the album is “If There Is Something”—it’s such an amazing track with great musicianship that really draws you in and takes you on a journey. Another standout aspect of this album is the electronic and synthesizer work, all done by Brian Eno. He played a big role in shaping Roxy Music’s early sound. Eno was with them for the first couple of albums before leaving due to creative differences with Bryan Ferry, but he went on to do some amazing work in experimental and electronic music, as well as producing some incredible albums over the years. Another interesting fact about this album is that it was produced by Peter Sinfield, who was a key member of King Crimson. Sinfield contributed a lot to King Crimson’s early success, and it’s really interesting to see his involvement with Roxy Music, showing just how interconnected the music scene was at the time, even among bands with different sounds.
Super weird and experimental, for the time at least. I love the early stages of glam you can hear in this. This one is definitely not for everyone but I loved it. I'm not sure any specific song individually would be one that I would play just to hear it, but the album as a whole is great and I will definitely keep an eye out for it in the record store. 4/5