lonepilgrim asked: since you've just been immersed in them - Roxy Music
Roxy are interesting - I asked months ago on Twitter for people’s favourite Roxy song and got an amazingly broad range of replies. That said my four are pretty Roxy-fan “mainstream” I’d guess. I was planning to do a post - and who knows, may yet - on the songs I’d not really cared about before which jumped out when I was working on the review. Anyway, in reverse order:
“Street Life”: Ferry’s vocal on this is fantastic, so bug-eyed. I prefer this to “Do The Strand” and “The Thrill Of It All”, which do similar jobs on their albums, I love the way the band keeps lunging at it.
“Just Another High”: Like I said in the review, this would have been one of the absolute great career sign-offs, if they’d never come back after 1975. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. Get the tuxedo to the dry cleaners.
“Virginia Plain”: I first heard this on the radio in University and was boggle-eyed, it was a real “where have you been all my life?” moment. I was staggered at the idea this was a debut, it seemed ridiculously well-formed. It’s about a minute long too, a real Pink Flag aesthetic! But of course they made the whole first LP before it and did “Virginia Plain” when the label said let’s have a single lads. Among the many missed opportunities of the closing ceremony last night: “we are flying down to REE-OH!”
“Mother Of Pearl”: Has the single funniest Roxy moment - I should have stressed more in the review how funny they are. It’s when the backing singers go “AGAIN?” after Ferry’s first line. Totally wonderful record - starts off snapping and messy and then out of nowhere becomes a louche insincere self-love song which somehow twists itself into a terribly lonely real love song. And it’s a prototype for The-Dream’s “Fancy” which is also one of my favourite songs ever.
Rounding out my Roxy Top 10 right now, incidentally, would be “Beauty Queen”, “The Thrill Of It All”, “In Every Dream Home…”, “The Bogus Man”, “Manifesto”, “Pyjamarama”. So there you go!
