In Ten Tracks: Roxy Music

In Ten Tracks is not a best of or greatest hits or even necessarily a list of favorites. They're songs by an artist that stuck with me for various reasons through the years. Mix tape/playlist staples

Virginia Plain “What’s her name?/Virgina Plain”, the last line of this song, is the only time it gives away its title. Otherwise it’s a wild ride through glam rock augmented by a bit of space age synth, blaring sax, and a noisy Crimson-style guitar solo, all colliding in the collage of pop imagery expounded by Bryan Ferry’s demented croonery. It’s a rant, without a chorus, and it signaled the arrival of something new. Though the group had already released their debut album, this single and an accompanying performance on Top of the Pops pushed them out in front of the British record buying public to a far greater extent. In the U.K. the single was released nearly two months after the album, while the U.S. edition of the debut album featured “Virginia Plain.” Both that album and this single were produced by ex-King Crimson lyricist Peter Sinfield, and he captured the explosive nature of the band. “Virginia Plain” begins with the sound low, at a distance. You have to strain to hear it, and then suddenly the song starts in earnest, stunningly loud and chaotic. The song’s title refers to a painting Ferry did while an art student that showed a package of Virginia tobacco cigarettes ‘plain’, or without a filter and a pinup girl on the package. This kind of wordplay as well as lines like ‘Baby Jane’s in Acapulco/We are flying down to Rio’ are reminiscent of the type of surrealist/dadaist lyrics that Brian Eno used on Here Come the Warm Jets and some of his other song-based records. And what about Eno? He plays a nice segment on a VCA3 synthesizer, a portable analog synth that allowed more control than the original Moogs. And Phil Manzanera’s improvised guitar solo burns like the best Crimson track.

For Your Pleasure I was never the biggest fan of For Your Pleasure, the second Roxy Music album. It seemed unnecessarily dark, though darkness and danger is precisely what its cover art, featuring Amanda Lear, promised. But no matter how many times I listen to ‘The Bogus Man’ I just don’t like it. The record’s first side is pleasing enough, with ‘Do the Strand,’ ‘Editions of You,’ and the trippy ‘In Every Dream Home a Heartache.’ But after the aforementioned Bogus Man nonsense eats up half the second side we get an inconsequential, but romantic Bryan Ferry song (’Grey Lagoons’--see, everything about this album is dark or grey) before finally arriving at the title track, sequenced last. Here we get a satisfying marriage between Ferry’s jaded Euro romantic and the band’s more experimental side. After the initial two and a half minutes of Ferry’s song--and by the way, I want to go on record as saying that Bryan Ferry wasn’t writing conventional songs by any means. He doesn’t get enough credit for the poetic nature of his lyrics and they are structured more as poetry. He eschewed the chorus on many of these earlier Roxy songs, which helps give them a stream of consciousness quality. So after that initial thrust of the song, it dissolves into a slowly building four minute instrumental coda that bubbles down to just some rumbling drums until it becomes a chaotic mash of tape loops. Great stuff.

Street Life You will certainly know from my choices here that I save my biggest praise for Stranded, Roxy Music’s third album. This leadoff track demonstrates once again the way Roxy Music owned the idea of opening with a banger. This opens with discordant sound effects from Eddie Jobson (who took over Eno’s spot) and Andy Mackay’s woodwinds mixed with actual traffic sound effects before exploding into a rant that absolutely screams ‘Daddy’s home!’

Amazona Stranded was the first Roxy album on which other members of the band received cowriting credits, albeit only two songs, and this was one of them, written by Ferry with guitarist Phil Manzanera, who is prominently featured. And he takes full advantage, unleashing a nice lead riff over the slinky, funky chonk beat laid down by the tight rhythm section of John Gustafson and Paul Thompson. In the middle of the track Phil plays a searing, effects-laden solo that rivals what Robert Fripp was doing at the time. They rave it up, Andy Mackay wailing away before suddenly dropping right down into the groove again for a brief visit with Ferry: ‘journey’s over/we’re almost there.’

Song For Europe It is the dramatic poetry of the balladeer, Charles Aznavour with a shot of lechery and jaded emptiness. The DNA for what would become New Romantic--Visage, Spandau Ballet, Ultravox’s ‘Vienna--’ lies deep in this song. Ridiculous on paper, the argument for its greatness is the performance itself, and the performer’s commitment to the material, This was the other track on Stranded that was cowritten by a band member, this time Andy Mackay, who would in a short time be writing pastiches of the pop music of different eras for the BBC series Rock Follies.

Mother of Pearl “Oh Mother of Pearl, I wouldn’t trade you for another girl” is the final line of this hymn to perfection in the object of desire. Beginning with a turbulent, somewhat proggy opening section that resolves into several minutes of three chord changes to a moderate tempo, hardly the stuff of the avant garde. When Bryan Ferry showed up at the recording session with a complete set of lyrics that provided the interest that the music lacked, producer Chris Thomas was suitably impressed, and you will be, too. Coming in the middle of Side Two of Stranded, ‘Song for Europe ‘ and ‘Mother of Pearl’ form the impenetrable heart of the album.

Prairie Rose Country Life is nearly as good an album as Stranded, yet only one track is included here-why? For one thing, Country Life is much more a cohesive unit, and I find it difficult to take the songs separately. But this final song is a heavy rock and roll number that honors Ferry’s latest romantic conquest, the Texas supermodel Jerry Hall. The song is full of bright-eyed optimism and wild energy; a few short years later Ferry would write about the relationship’s denouement on his solo record The Bride Stripped Bare. But for now, both Ferry’s relationship and Roxy music were flying high.

Trash After releasing the album Siren and the live Viva! Roxy Music, the group took a sabbatical to work on outside projects, regrouping in 1980 for the album Manifesto. Though it signaled a new, poppier direction (”Dance Away’ was given away as a single as part of a Burger King promotion), there were still vestiges of the instrumentally ambitious band in the grooves. “Trash” manages to combine a post punk aesthetic with some uptown flash as well.

Oh Yeah Roxy’s next album, Flesh + Blood, was indeed a new sound: much icier and glossier with a muted urban dance beat and Ferry’s close miked voice whispering yearningly into the void. This is a cool song because it is titled “Oh Yeah,” and is about driving around with your girlfriend and listening to the radio and hearing a song called “Oh Yeah” which becomes your song for the duration of what turns out to be a summer fling. Overall, critics and many fans saw Flesh + Blood as the end of the road, signaling that they had run out of ideas. But it wasn’t quite.

The Main Thing Avalon, Roxy Music’s swan song, is a perfect 10 album. There’s not a wasted track or anything that doesn’t contribute to the overall mood of the record. It was the classic album they needed to end the group on a high note. This track in particular signaled the template and sound that Ferry would use for the next decade as a solo artist--a clubby dance beat, stabbing horns and keyboards, a little guitar riff here, a synth block there. Certainly a long way from the group’s original sound, but just as influential in its own way, going forward.

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