ILX 70s album poll - results

But somehow for a long time I had a problem to connect the pop singer Ferry to the more experimental and challenging band Roxy Music which was lauded in music critics circles. And I didn't understand what was so special about them. I don't remember the name of the first song by them I ever listened to and it didn't mark me at all but I know that it was in my philosophy class at school around 1979 (our teacher was young). The class was about existentialism and the teacher said that this song was new wave.

ihttp://musik.antville.org/images/roxymusic/
Let's come back to my album of 1972. The cover is the first in a series of sexily dressed women covers. Mauvais goût but in an interesting way. All the women on the first five albums of Roxy Music have in common that they have a stupid artificial expression on their face and that from my point of view their faces are ugly in their false and unapproachable coolness. I suppose that is intended. This is part of the game. It is not the cover that is supposed to turn anyone on. It is just an eye-catcher. A false package if you want. Inside there is one of the most ear-catching records of the seventies. At least it turned me on but it took a long time.

There is a party going on. People talking, tinkling glasses. A seemingly average rock song starts with a kind of bar piano line. Ferry sings forgettable lyrics about the sweetest queen he has ever seen. With his staccato intonation he sounds like the blueprint for David Byrne in the Talking Heads. Phil Manzanera tries to be Jimi Hendrix and he almost succeeds. And suddenly the song takes a turn. The saxophone becomes freestyle, there is some guitar distortion, the piano becomes atonal, the song morphs into a free jazz session. It slows down at the end like as if the record player is plugged off and the speed is slowing down. A nice drum solo and a fireworks noise finish the song.

A lyrical classical oboe theme starts Ladytron. A song for romantic candle-light dinners. But beware this one speeds up. Never trust the beginning of a Roxy Music song. Eno adds some electronic spices to this.

My favourite song is no.3 If There Is Something. The first 90 seconds constitute about the most boring country rock ballad I have ever heard. But when Andy Mackay's sax and later oboe join in and play a new theme everything changes. Suddenly we are in melodramatic land. Ferry sings vibrato as if he had swallowed one gallon of his own tears:

I would do anything for you.
I would climb mountai-ai-ai-ns.
I would swim all the oceans blue.

The theme is repeated by the piano and varied upon. It is really fascinating how the guitar also merges in. All instruments seem to fuse into one. The oboe is reaching heights where no man has ever been. Ferry almost drowns in his tears now. How can a voice sound so desperate from deep inside? The last minute is a tad boring again with the over and over repeated line When you were young but the four minutes in between 1'30'' and 5'30'' are about the most exciting four minutes in any piece of rock I know.

Marginal note: I just read here in the AMG that there is a probably even superior 12 minute (!) live version of this song performed at the John Peel radio show in January 1972. I really need this now.

The next song is Virginia Plain and I think I'll finish now as everyone will know this anyway. As sparkling as rock music can get. I have to add that there is no weak song on this album. That there are two small rock mini-operas The Bob (Medley) and Sea Breeze which piss on Supper's Ready or anything released by The Who in this field. 2 H.B. and the beginning of The Bob foreshadow ambient. And there is Would You Believe? which anticipates the dreadful Rocky Horror Picture Show without its one-dimensionality. The end is Bitters End, the party is over, the girl is gone and has found another and Bryan asks

will someone find me?

This was a party as it should be. It was fun but it was a disappointment as well. A good pretext for another party, don't you think?

P.S. This has been published before on my blog but I didn't get the feedback I wanted to get. That's why I have recycled it here.

Morrissey
1. For Your Pleasure Roxy Music*
(*Morrissey claims he can only think of one truly great British album and that this is it)

-- ha ha (a...), June 20th, 2004.

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shite
-- autovac (mrichards2...), June 20th, 2004.

I agree with those who say that Talking Book is the pinnacle. But he was pretty much untouchable for a good several album run there.
-- o. nate (syne_wav...), February 23rd, 2005.

(from the OPO thread)

talking book by a mile.

-- fact checking cuz (factcheckingcu...), November 11th, 2003.

Talking Book > Innervisions

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It's great to listen to at night while trying to fall asleep. Very unsettling.
-- latebloomer (posercore24...), June 21st, 2004.

I didn't get this album until after I had gotten into Can and a lot of electronic dance music - it really seems to be along those lines rather than 'jazz', or even the other Miles fusion records. In a way, it's coming out of Silent Way a lot more than Bitches Brew or Jack Johnson, in the way it was constructed, and the way it gradually unfolds. Right now, I think it's one of the best albums he ever made.
-- dleone (d_leon...), June 9th, 2004.

It's fantastic, by far my favourite of his. It set the benchmark for music for the next 30 years (and beyond), most of the possiblities contained in these grooves haven't even been explored yet.
-- Billy Dods (butterbubble...), June 9th, 2004.
I was expecting something that would need repeat listening before it sounded like music, and instead got a dense but immediately enjoyable slab of energetic funk that doesn't seem any more difficult than, say, James Brown's more abstract live stuff. I'm still baffled by its reputation as Miles's least accessible album.

-- frankiemachine (franki...), June 10th, 2004.

the thing noone has mentioned is how environmental the record is. it's very 'electronic forest,' particularly the last track. i get lost in it.
-- milesrules (mile...), June 16th, 2004.

On the Corner was my first Miles Davis album. My initial reaction was to take it back to the shop, but I like it now. Sort of.
-- PJ Miller (pjmiller6...), June 10th, 2004.

Curtis Mayfield, Superfly: "Little Child Runnin' Wild", "Pusherman", "Freddie's Dead". Opening a soundtrack with three of the ten best R&B songs ever (in any definition of the genre) in a row is one hell of a feat.
-- Nate Patrin (natepatrin550...), April 12th, 2003.

better than Maggot Brain if not Riot--nothing on earth is better than Riot--and does just about the same things as both)
-- M Matos (michaelangelomato...), February 27th, 2003.

Go for the Superfly soundtrack, an awesome piece of blaxploitation-funk

-- Patrick (calimer...), May 11th, 2001.

I once walked into a local bar exactly on the opening note of Curtis Mayfield's "Superfly"!!! I felt like they were finally making the movie of my life. I know - I'm a DORK but it was very cool.

5 yrs ago) I borrowed 18 musicians from the library and my first thought was 'There's so much music out there'. Well, it made an impression as I was on a diet of guitar and more guitar and... more guitar based music. But I've heard really brilliant and mind-blowing composition since and SR's been left behind.

-- Julio Desouza (juli...), January 1st, 2002.

as for steve reich,i saw music for eighteen musicians performed live recently and it was great
two things sprung to mind-first of all,how much it sounded like susumu yokota
secondly,you could tell that he had "influenced" (it's seven in the morning and i'm not arsed trying to find a way of phrasing that in such a way as to avoid people complaining about the use of that term,just pretend i did)techno,or more specifically surgeon...

-- robin (robin_lace...), April 24th, 2003.

Ah, what the Hell, I'll just say it's a more rockin' Tonight's The Night, for argument's sake.

-- Vic Funk (doctor_funk_ph...), May 14th, 2003.

Homegrown and Bite the Bullet are two of my favorite songs on the record! Nothing like a bunch of stoned, mean hippies playing thud-rock. I don't get the bad rep for ASB either, I definitely prefer it Zuma and Comes a Time... the country songs are nice and sweet, the rockers are smokin', and it's got one of his bonafide signature tunes, what more could you ask for?
-- Shakey Mo Collier (audiobo...), May 14th, 2003.

Chairs Missing = "HOLY SHIT!" (realized about the time "Mercy" finishes)

The ballads, like on any other Stevie Wonder album, are the best tracks on "Songs In The Key Of Life". Those beautiful melodic ballads are the main reason why I love Stevie Wonder. R&B crap such as "Superstition" you may just throw in the dustbin.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), November 11th, 2003.