Roxy Music
Roxy Music
1972
Album Summary
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.
Wikipediabig 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.
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.
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?
Solid 4 from a band I've never heard of. Feels ahead of its time in 1971
I liked this for the most part. I had no idea what I was going into with this one, but I was pleasantly surprised.
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.
Great drums, great guitar, unique vocals, and uniqueness everywhere... what's not to like? Solid find for me.
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
Some sort of mix between Bowie and Pink Floyd. First half was very good, second half reminded me of The Wall.
Loved this album! Can't believe I never got to it before. They must be an influence for Talking Heads.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
Британцы, 1972, дебютный альбом. Детище Брайана Ферри, первая группа Брайана Ино. Арт-рок, глэм-рок.
The perfect debut - The first five Roxy Musis albums are all 5 star albums - this is one is a super 5-star album.
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.
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.
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
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.
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)
Likte kje så godt Roxy når eg va sånn 12, men no e da et av mine favorittband
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'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.
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!
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.
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
An awesome debut from one of my favorite bands of all time. They sounded like no one else at the time. Still do.
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.
Pleasant, understated, playful. The band fits every instrument but the kitchen sink (I think) into a collection rock songs, without busting open the album form. The outstanding elements are noisy bits which do not grate, distinctly British vocals, and the lack of idle repetition or filler of any other kind. There is a taste of prog composition in the penultimate track, but in a quiet way. Nothing is particularly earworm on first impression.
Really something quite else. I don't think it's ever really been duplicated.
I liked this. Felt like so many of these i kinda knew, but not these versions. Maybe they are covers or covered.
Never heard this self-titled one and, can't really say much other than I love RM.
Madrugada hørte visstnok på KUN Roxy music på en hel europaturné en gang. Det er kanskje i overkant. Men mye fint her. Et band jeg definitivt bør stifte bedre bekjentskap til. Virginia plain - særs catchy og artig låt.
Un álbum con muchos moods, y en ese sentido, mucho rouuuck pero con varias cosas alrededor, una mezcolanza quizá no tan atrevida de géneros, pero que sí se distingue. Igual todo me sonó bastante bien. Disfruté mucho la batería en varias canciones y aunque pienso que no hay skips, sí tengo una canción fav: "If There Is Something", gran gran rolón. 9/10
Las primeras 3 canciones y The Bob me emocionaron un buen, quizás por eso las demás me parecieron algo anticlimáticas. De todas formas, bastaron para que disfrutara esta escucha, los vientos de fondo en varias canciones y las partes super alargadas de la guitarras me parece que son lo más valioso del album. Mood: quién es roxy?
Pretty good over all. Ladytron is a standout. Falls apart a bit at the end.
I'm pretty familiar with Eno's work but not Roxy Music, and all I knew about it was that they were supposed to be glam rock. I don't know that we get all that much glam here but we do get a near-perfect side A of explorative and wild rock that I'm shocked I've never heard before. Side B fares considerably worse, where the tracks range from "aimless but enjoyable" to "how did this get recorded?" but oh that side A
What if the Spiders from Mars actually sounded like they were from Mars? After the barrage of British new-wave the generator was spitting out, the more experimental (and at times, playful) sounds of Roxy Music were like an oasis. The opener "Re-Make/Re-Model" gives you no real idea as to what the song is about with its title, but it may as well be a mission statement for the entire album, as nearly every song reinvents itself over the course of their runtimes, with Bryan Ferry's erratic, sometimes borderline unhinged singing often the only anchor. Even the shorter songs manage to flip switches on you: Chance Meeting gives you about 30 seconds before the music gives the lyrics a completely different complexion. The second half isn't as captivating as the really strong first side, but at its dullest, it still managed to keep my interest. Key Tracks: Re-Make/Remodel, Ladytron, If There Is Something
Loved everything about the album except Ferry’s singing. The bass is ridiculous.
Slaps right from the start. Then the second song sounds like an intro and the rest of the album washes over me. I couldn’t care less for the singing, but it would probably get boring without the vocals.
Наконец что-то похожее на хорошую музыку. Действительно хороший альбом. Довольно странно, что до 1001 я о группе вроде даже ничего и не слышал. Звучит как нечто, что по праву должно иметь признание в культурных кругах. Судя по Вики, оно так и вышло, но до меня как-то эхо признания не добралось. Перед нами первый альбом коллектива. Звучит довольно профессионально и зрело, качество записи весьма на уровне. Альбом комплексный, много всяких жанров завезли, какие-то – по кайфу, как прог- и психоделик-, какие-то ¬– душат, как глэм-рок. Занимательно, что второй же заметкой об альбоме я написал «Virginia Plain заёбывает». Хм-м… интересно, какой же единственный трек вышел синглом альбома? Думаю, когда-нибудь смогу составить список худших треков альбомов, что становятся синглами. Также к душным трекам можно отнести 2HB, Would You Believe? звучит довольно навязчиво. Да и при многократном переслушивании даже неплохие треки душить начинают, вроде The Bob. И подобное отталкивает от глубокого знакомства с творчеством коллектива. Но есть прям неоспоримая годнота вроде Re-Make/Re-Model, If There Is Something, Sea Breezes. Такие треки прям тащат. Особенно в душу запал If There Is Something с его панковским вокалом и прогрессивным, арт- инструменталом. Но всего этого словно мало для благоговения перед альбомом. Ещё занимательно, что обложка показалась весьма проходной и какой-то пустой, мейкап у тян отвратительный, да и одежда безвкусная. А ведь чуть ли не благодаря обложке группе удалось подписать контракт на издание альбома. По итогу имеем просто хороший, крепкий альбом. Хотя бы с оценкой не приходится сомневаться, ровно 4 из 5.
Wrong album. Stranded (the third Roxy Music album) is easily the best. But this is still very good - even avant garde in its day,
Side one is approaching masterpiece status. One great song after another. Unfortunately side 2 slows down appreciably but not to the extent to give this great debut anything but a great score 4.5 stars
Art rock en la seva forma més recomenable: composicions extraordinàries però digeribles, arranjaments creatius i avantgardistes però agradables a l'oïda i cançons que per més que les escoltes sempre acabes trobant elements nous per disfrutar-les. Tot i les clares diferències, em recorda el que també aconseguiria Talking Heads als pocs anys. Unes formes d'art de molt alt nivell que no estan dirigides només a estudiants de conservatori o crítics amb ínfules
De stem van Brian Ferry, heerlijk. Niet hun beste album vind ik overigens
A brave debut. Bounces around all sorts of genres and the band don't really give a fuck what you think. And it works.
I wasn't really feeling much until the second half of the album, which was very strong IMO. It wasn't so bad that I was going to try to stop listening (I haven't gotten to that point with that many albums yet) but I felt so-so until a few songs in. Sometimes, that's all you need.
4.4 - Bryan Ferry’s vibrato, cushy bass lines, jangly extended saxophone solos, songs that descend into colorful chaos…and Brian Eno pulls it all together with his studio wizardry.
The soundtrack for an unofficial gang bang that escalated into a mass suicide.
I'm happy I'm listened twice to this one - the first time it faded into the background a bit when playing on my speaker as I worked. Really interesting sound, I especially liked the use of sax and synth (early for it's time I believe). I found it hard to pick a top choice, but I'm going with 'If There Is Something'. As an aside, I really like the album art too!
I never knew how Bowie-y they were towards the beginning. This was great
J'avais peur au départ. Jusqu'à maintenant, à chaque fois qu'on parlait d'un chanteur en le comparant à Brian Ferry, je n'aimais pas ça. Voici donc enfin le temps d'entendre ce qu'il fait. Et bien c'est pas si mal. Il y a son tremolo qui peut venir agaçant, mais dans l'ensemble, avec cette formation, ça passe bien. Le style théâtral n'est pas trop dérangeant avec la masse de sons qu'on retrouve dans plusieurs pièces et la façon que la voix est mixée. Ensuite, en approchant cet album en terme de face A et B comme à sa sortie, la face A est vraiment super bonne. L'intro du disque m'a fait penser à un mix de l'intro de Tales From the Punchbowl et du Brown Album de Primus. Peut-être des clins d'oeil à cet album. Après on est dans un rock vraiment pas plate. Le mix sax, guitare et synthétiseur de la première chanson est fantastique. Dans son ensemble, j'aime le côté que Brian Eno apporte au groupe. La face B s'essouffle un peu et à partir de Chance Meeting, mon intérêt s'en allait tranquillement, du moins à la première écoute. Par contre à la fin de l'album, j'avais envie de le remettre. Je ne connais pas les autres disques du groupe, mais pour un premier album, ça part vraiment fort. Un album que je vais assurément revisiter. Pièce préférée: Re-Make/Re-Model
Connaissais juste de nom. Pleins de trucs full intéressants! Du hautbois encore 😄 des sons de synth vraiment cool, des structures atypiques, mélodies de bass sur du noise full lyrique, d'autre fois presque atonal sur qqch de plus conssonnant. Souvent le pitch est rough (le piano qui embarque après le solo de sax soprano... ischhhh ça passe raide. Le son est pas malade ça sonne boxy bien souvent , un peu garage mais avec des citations de Ravel😄 Les tounes plus rock n roll sont moins l'fun. Les voix sont pas malades...surtout celui qui vibrate à la Julien Clair Ça mérite d'être sur cette liste amplement !
An interesting album that is over the place, but also offers a glimpse of the brilliance that was to come in subsequent albums.
Wow, I'm surprised how fresh this sounds despite being over 50 years old. Must have been unreal at the time. great use of non-musical sound effects without sounding too busy or gimmicky. Sea Breezes is a lovely change, showing the band's diversity. Holy shit, I can't believe this was a debut!
I liked this a lot more than the other albums I've had by them. I thought I gave both previous ones a 2, but apparently one of them got a 3. I don't remember that one at all, but I probably like this one better. 3.5/5
What amazing debut album. Perfect glam played by a band that looked the part and played the part unlike the other brickies in lipstick that doomed the genre. Four stars for this one though as it was in many ways a band still discovering their sound. The experimenting feeling disjointed stacked against Re-Make/Re-Model and Ladytron
Cosmic Rock? Yeh. Would this be worse if you listen to the version without 'Virginia's Plain'? Also yeh. Did I enjoy this? Too bloody yeh.
I love all of Roxy Music's catalog. This is definitely during their more experimental years with Brian Eno's strange compositions & Bryan Ferry's drug fueled cabaret style vocals. I deeply appreciate this band & their influence on rock n roll.
I didn't give this the attention it deserved the first time around, so I skimmed through it again before writing this. My initial impressions were correct: Roxy Music is weird and wonderful. Honestly, I was thrown from the get-go, trying to come up with some sort of context while listening to the first track, "Re-Make/Re-Model," and I finally landed on "the Stooges meets Talking Heads." Granted, the Talking Heads came came after Roxy Music, but Ferry's vocals have a David Byrne feel to them at times. Things only got weirder and harder to categorize as the album continued, but this is clearly some high-level '70s rock, heavy on the glam. There's some fantastic guitar in here--and fantastic everything else, too. Discovering the Brian Eno was a part of the band at this time certainly explained some things. There's a lot to process here, and I'm going to dive in again in the near future. I'm impressed.
-Re-Make/Re-Model" is a great tune and the trade-off solos across a bunch of instruments is fun -"Would You Believe" starts off kinda boring but then kicks in and becomes a great tune. I like the old school distorted guitar -Rest of the songs were pretty dang plain. A very weak 4
Alot going on here. But I like chaotic/weird music so this is right up my alley. Great album in terms of the music. The band sounds GREAT here. Not a perfect album by any means, but really solid stuff here. It got better on my second listen. This is an album you have to be in a specific mood in, but I can see myself revisiting this.