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Love sick fashion12/18/2023 One of Roxy’s best full-tilt rockers, this “Siren” cut is a 5-minute-plus adrenaline rush that climaxes with some of Manzanera’s finest work. Yet another brilliant opener, this time kick-starting “For Your Pleasure,” “Do the Strand” delivers a decidedly glam-rock twist on the dance-craze-style numbers that lit up the charts in the early ‘60s. Roxy Music returned from a nearly four-year recording hiatus with a sleek, sophisticated new sound - combining elements of pop, disco, soul and new wave - which was wonderfully showcased on this single from 1979’s “Manifesto.” 16 ‘Do the Strand’ 14 ‘A Song for Europe’Ī work of great sorrow and longing from “Stranded,” where we find out that Ferry sounds just as mesmerizing singing in Latin and French as he does in English. This particular powerhouse - hailing from “Country Life” - certainly lives up it to its title, in large part due to Manzanera’s fiery fret work. 13 ‘The Thrill of It All’Įach of Roxy’s first five albums kicks off in incredibly strong fashion. The group’s debut single - which wasn’t included on the original “Roxy Music,” but did make later pressings of the album - is a heady art-pop number that manages to highlight everyone in the band in just under 3 minutes. The Wall Street Journal called it “the swaggering love song that launched new wave” and it’s DNA can also be found in early hip-hop, having been a primary inspiration for Chic’s often-sampled “Good Times.” 12 ‘Virginia Plain’ Roxy’s fifth studio album, 1975’s “Siren,” opens with the band’s best dance-music number, featuring a groovy bassline for the ages from John Gustafson. The band just steps on the gas and goes with this “For Your Pleasure” track, delivering a full-tilt rocker that particularly benefits from Thompson’s mighty drum work and Mackay’s honking saxophone. The B-side to “Jealous Guy” was just as striking, as Ferry delivered some of the most romantic crooning of his career on this track that ended up making it onto “Avalon.” 10 ‘Editions of You’ 1 single with this emotional rendition of the John Lennon classic, recorded and released just two months after the Beatle great died. It’s also hard to imagine a more appropriate introduction to the band. It’s hard to even imagine what it must have been like to originally drop the needle on Track 1 of “Roxy Music” back in 1972 and hear such a whirling cacophony of defiantly avant-garde sounds. And it’s easy to understand why, as the number from 1973’s “For Your Pleasure” touches upon so many of the band’s trademarks – it’s exotic, experimental, rich in drama, utilizes wildly ambitious musical arrangements and instrumentation, yet still manages to feel cohesive. This would surely top many fans’ lists as the best-ever Roxy Music cut. It ends as a showcase for Manzanera, who used this 1972 “Roxy Music” recording to announce to a then-unsuspecting listening world that there was a new guitar hero in London Town. The song is intriguingly cold and distant at the start, yet then changes its stripes and reels the listener in completely. It’s a really solid song for the first three minutes and change, but then prog-rock hero Eddie Jobson steps up and takes this standout cut from 1974’s “Country Life” into the stratosphere with the soaring work on his famed see-through Plexiglas electric violin. Review: Bryan Ferry brings Roxy Music mania back to Bay Area In honor of the occasion, we seized the opportunity to spend hours listening to the Roxy catalog and come up with a ranked list of the band’s best songs. 26 at Chase Center in San Francisco, marking the first time the band - featuring founding members Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson - has played the Bay Area since Aug. That’s why there is no definitive “Roxy Music sound,” but more so an attitude - and certainly a stylistic flare - that seems to unite all of the band’s work.įans were thrilled earlier this year when Roxy Music announced it was reuniting to mount its first tour since 2011. The band was brazenly ambitious and artsy during its studio run, using a glam/prog base to branch out and explore countless other genres. act created a body of work that would touch and inspire basically every corner of the pop music universe - from punk, college rock and indie-pop to funk, new wave and hip-hop. Over the course of eight studio albums, delivered during an 11-year period, the U.K. Very few bands can boast the wide-ranging influence of Roxy Music.
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