Roxy Music Live - S/D

I never thought much of "Oh Yeah," but if I think about it as a throwaway, it's a very pleasant throwaway, the kind of thing that would've been nice as a soundtrack contribution.

And I f-ing LOVE "Editions of You," that was a highlight of the show.

I also with regards the show visuals, I kinda loved that final image of a drive-in full of cars, and they're all watching the road passing by, on the big-screen, in grain black & white like a European arthouse movie in the '50s (whereas the cars and drive-in are all in color and evoking American '50s culture).

*in grainy black & white

"Oh Yeah" was my least-favourite song they performed at their 2001 concert, but I remember thinking that they made it fit in with songs I preferred. They made a case for it belonging in the set.

I saw St. Vincent in 2014 and was impressed; I wonder if opening for another, older act at this point is humbling (if probably pretty lucrative). The stage business that people are describing sounds like "acting out".

it is curious that Country Life was their US breakthrough

It's a pretty deadpan joke - "country life, get it, here's a forest".

Pardon the chart talk, but it is curious that Country Life was their US breakthrough (#37) despite having no charting single, whereas Siren did have a big hit on it but the album charted lower than Country Life.

― Josefa, Thursday, September 15, 2022 4:57 PM (thirty-six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Chart Geek Me noticed it too when I discovered Roxy. The latter even sports their only top 40 hit in America.

It's payola.

1. In the first couple of rows, like 20 or so guys (probly all guys) were visible throwing fists and shouting the lyrics back at the band during the post-"then you blew my mind" crescendo of "Dream Home Heartache," like it was, I dunno, Slayer or Rush or some much nerdier or aggro rock band than this one…

I was in the 10th row, and at least where I was, it was definitely not all guys throwing fists at the end section of “Heartache.” The audience-unison “but you blew my mind” is Roxy’s equivalent to “it’s only teenage wasteland!”

And I f-ing LOVE "Editions of You," that was a highlight of the show.

Seconded. The studio version is easily one of my favorites of theirs, and one of the keyboardists really had fun with the synth solo.

Those albums broke Roxy in America; they should honor them.

I think the setlist was designed around what Ferry is currently most comfortable and capable of singing more than anything else. The Avalon songs aren’t nearly as demanding on his voice — especially in terms of exertion and projection — as pretty much anything from Stranded (except maybe “Sunset,” which would’ve been wonderful to hear).

he probably could've pulled off "amazona"

I've seen him three times and the moment when he runs/walks/hobbles to his Farfisa for his solo remains a thrill.

I have to say I love Oh Yeah. Just owning the schmaltz of it. Heard it in a supermarket once and was surprised. I didn’t realize it was that popular, never hear anything other than Love is the Drug in any kind of mainstream context, and it just sounded really good in that supermarket.

just listened to "oh yeah" for the first time in a while and i liked it more than i remembered, like if the pina colada song were good or something

i was happy to hear "same old scene" though, that song kicks ass

“Same Old Scene” my absolute favorite, transcendent even with Ferry singing some of it lower.

I listened to The Complete Studio Recordings yesterday and Flesh + Blood was surprisingly better than I remembered - lightweight but very pleasant stuff. ("Over You" is pretty amazing, it sounds like it was made for teen movies that would soon flood the '80s.)

Manifesto was pretty disappointing though. I enjoyed listening to the singles in isolation on the bonus discs, especially "Angel Eyes" which was completely re-done.

The remaining six are all great.

I like the best songs on Manifesto a lot especially the title track. Trash and the rock version of Angel Eyes which I only heard years after knowing the single version. But the rest is their most spotty for sure.

STILL FALLS THE RAIN

Manifesto is the only post-hiatus album I’ve heard, and yeah, it’s pretty disappointing, especially given Thompson’s involvement. The lack of Paul on the remaining two records is why I’ve never given them a fair shot, though I do like the Avalon hits. But the general agitated quality of the first six records (I’m counting Viva!) is missing completely from the later ones. It feels like a different band; not an awful band or anything, just one too far removed from what I loved about them.

STILL FALLS THE RAIN

Welp Siren, Manifesto, and Avalon all worked for me as their idea of the new mainstream, para-everything else that was going on there, and with a mid70s-as-hell toward and into early 80s, w/o seeming too trendy, just increasingly smoov,catchy, romantically pessimistic to new-married hopeful, reasonably committed to being good in the late night hotel bar-to-supermarket-to-drugstore. Not the creative peaks, but ageing or aging gracefully

Manifesto's the only Roxy album that exists in its own space. It has nothing much to do with its successors: it's Roxy's attempt at an L.A. studio rock album with disco overtones -- say, Ned Doheny or Nicolette Larson.

Part of what makes "Dance Away" work like hell is how it sounds like Player or Doobie Brothers but those dissonances -- the bass part, Manzanera's guitar parts -- keep interfering.

I could say a lot in defence of Manifesto, but one thing that pleases me is that Ferry is writing break-up songs with a sense of humour rather than the usual brooding. It's like the dark clouds of The Bride Stripped Bare have receded for awhile.

Dow OTM re: Manifesto as their idea of the new mainstream. The title track is one of their best lp openers, and all of side one is great.

Did Pell Mell cop Rhyming Guitars from the chorus?

i've always thought Manifesto was stronger than Flesh & Blood - which is pretty strong for a band's weakest LP - just lose the covers etc

maybe they couldn't get the F&B track listing to work but spare a thought for 'Lover' - surely one of the best songs ever squandered on a b-side (and the Miami Vice soundtrack LP) - really nails the perfectly languid drift of their late sound (which feels like it has roots in the middle section of If There Is Something?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQA-oIbjbr4

F&B, their weakest album, is interesting: I can hear on tracks like "Rain Rain Rain" Ferry figuring out how to use synths (its loping quasi-reggae rhythm anticipates where Brit electrofunk would go by at least four years). Maybe their greatest run of singles ("Over You," "Same Old Scene," "Oh Yeah" [ugh]) but weakest album tracks.

I've always thought of "Flesh + Blood" as essentially a transitional Ferry solo album. His previous solo albums more or less reflected the sound and weirdness of Roxy (whose members always featured), and then along comes "The Bride Stripped Bare," which is the first solo Ferry with all session dudes, setting the stage for slickness to come. You get to "Manifesto," then particularly "Flesh + Blood," and that plus "Avalon" is basically the template for the all session dude era Ferry to come. Which is cool, because after a decade of doing new wave before there was a new wave ("Over You" is basically Roxy hearing the Cars doing Roxy and saying hold my martini), Ferry skips ahead once again to the '80s and makes everyone else play catch-up.

(I mean, "Flesh + Blood" *is* 1980, but unlike a lot of records from the time it actually sounds like that decade and not a remnant of the '70s.)

#1 twice in the UK at the dawn of the Blitz era

Yeah the high points on F+B are amazing but otherwise it's their only half-assed album (TWO covers!).

xxp I was actually thinking about this the other day, culturally and politically too, not just musically, but the '80s really began in 1981. Like imagining what it was like in 1980 from the political climate to the clothes to music to just home living, it doesn't feel like the '80s yet. Same with movies, the New Hollywood had its last hurrah in 1980 (Raging Bull in particular). The "creative executives" didn't take over until a year or two later.

Disagree! In America it took a while.

I'd say it took (a) MTV's penetration in 1983 (b) Reagan's climbing poll numbers. 1983 was the start.

England had New Pop. Their 1980s began chronologically.

1981-1982 in America were awful, still the '70s imo

Yeah, I remember (from my childhood) that the things people think of as being "totally '80s" didn't really kick in for a couple of years. Like,"Let's Dance," that wasn't until 1983. "Scary Monsters" was 1980, but that was very much in line with "Lodger." Or Talking Heads, I think people now have a conception of them as an '80s band, but "Speaking in Tongues" was also not until 1983, and while "Remain in Light" was 1980, it was very much in phase with its '70s Eno predecessors. A band like Devo, on the other hand, like Roxy had a sort of post modern view of everything; "Whip It" now sounds ahead of its time by a few years rather than being representative of 1980, the year it was released.

I dunno, probably bears more thinking.

(lol, total coincidence that every band I just cited has, like Roxy, an Eno connection.)

Dylan Jones' book on New Romanticism posits that by 1985 Bryan Ferry had weathered the 1980s better than Bowie. Given the success of Boys & Girls and how every smoothie with bad breath apes his tailor, I'd say he's right.

LOL. What a strange time.

Is it just me or did the '80s and the '90s (the alternative era) make the '00s look a lot less remarkable from a cultural standpoint? I'm not knocking the quality of what was being created, but it feels like the '80s and the '90s at least had lots of things that visibly and immediately date it to that era, whereas I'm struggling to remember anything as distinctive about the '00s. There were definitely fashion trends, and we had the Iraq War going on, but even then the era doesn't really pop out in the same way. Maybe I just need it to recede further in the past? I keep thinking of something Richard Linklater said about Boyhood - when they made it, they were curious how things would change over 12 years, but they were kind of surprised how stable the culture seemed to be compared to other stretches of time.

Disagree! In America it took a while.

I'd say it took (a) MTV's penetration in 1983 (b) Reagan's climbing poll numbers. 1983 was the start.

England had New Pop. Their 1980s began chronologically.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 16, 2022 12:24 PM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is otm. I was going to argue for 1982 being the start, in that "Don't You Want Me" was big, but that was an outlier among the Cougar-Mellencamps, J. Geilses, and non-playing motherfuckers like Steve Miller. And while "Hungry Like The Wolf" was a big radio hit in the US in 1982, it didn't hit its chart peak until early '83, and only because it was re-released the previous December. The original June '82 release did nothing here.

I want to say 1982 just because of 1999 and Thriller - that's like a blueprint for where R&B and pop was going to go in the '80s. Paul McCartney's Tug of War screams '80s to me, especially compared to his '70s work, and that's 1982 as well. Springsteen's Nebraska is all about what Reaganism was doing to America. Lou Reed's The Blue Mask feels very NY 1980s to me. It's at least where the transition was becoming much more clearer.

wrt Thriller, it wasn’t released until the end of November, 1982. As with 1999 (released only a month earlier), I feel like its impact wasn’t widely felt until 1983.

You can still see things that led up to them, even in the previous year (1981) in either Prince's own work, Rick James or even stuff like Hall & Oates's own music ("I Can't Go for That" feels like the rhythmic precursor of "Billie Jean"). Again, I'm saying it's at least where the transition is pretty visible.

Hmm, I don't associate The Blue Mask or Nebraska with the '80s at all, at least not sonically. Thematically, sure. But even then, nowhere near as much as (later) BitUSA and New York

Eliminator (the ultimate 'Boomer Goes New Wave' record) was March '83.

But yeah, the transition was already in place, probably as far back as "Cars" (late '79, iirc), or at the success of eventual tourmates the Police and especially the Go-Gos (who could have only broken through when they did).

I wouldn't even tie Nebraska to any decade sound-wise - but I strongly associate it with the '80s because of what it has to say about that decade, and for me that's more than enough. It probably does a better job of it than any other album I know, even more than Born in the USA.

I remember seeing massive displays in mall record stores — in Omaha, no less — for Nebraska, and even though I didn’t hear the record until two years later, for that memory alone I can only associate it with the ‘80s.

The irony is that much of Born In The U.S.A. — including the title track — was recorded before Nebraska. Imagine sitting on that song for two years, not realizing how insanely perfect the timing of its eventual release would be.

(To clarify: much of BITUSA was recorded before Nebraska was released.)

MJ is 1983 very much.

I love every mincing millisecond of this thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg-Yte9X1go

Eliminator (the ultimate 'Boomer Goes New Wave' record) was March '83.

There were some lead-ups to Eliminator. Both the J Geils Band and REO Speedwagon had massive albums in 1981/1982 by turning down the 70s boomer rock/guitar solos and turning up the new wave pop. A lot of 70s bands back then (if they were still around) were all-hands-on-deck to boost sales and if it meant new wave-ish pop then so be it.

I think of the early 80s as when you start seeing new bands who were obviously listening to Roxy Music and then running past what Roxy was doing concurrently (it's interesting reading this thread as the New Gold Dream thread was revived for its 40th anniversary)