Best Roxy Music Album

One of my all-time fave bands. My ranking would be:

1. Stranded
2. For Your Pleasure
3. Flesh + Blood
4. Roxy Music
5. Avalon
6. Country Life
7. Manifesto
8. Siren

...and I do love Siren, it's just that all of the other ones have more of an impact on me.
I am aware that I am in the minority with my high ranking of Flesh+Blood (I named it as well in that recent thread on 'least acclaimed albums you love', someone singled it out as a winning answer). I find the whole mood of that album amazing and could never understand the lack of acclaim for it.

I love Manifesto's hybrid of L.A. studio rock and disco

Avalon is good, don't get me wrong. But I like a couple of Ferry solo albums as much, for the same reasons. Whereas the first five Roxy albums to me are like nothing else, really, and I've loved them all more or less equally at different times for the same mix of novelty, wit and barely controlled chaos. And muscle, tbh.

I personally don't think any of Ferry's solo albums come close to having the level of production that Avalon does.

i don't understand that post given boys and girls

Yes, even compared to Boys and Girls. Avalon also has the superior material.

thought we were talking about production

We were.

The production on B+G is immaculate; the material turns diaphonous after a while. Bete Noir is baroque in its dedication to covering slightly unwashed songs in cologne.

http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-the-object-before-us-to-begin-with-material-production-karl-marx-251016.jpg

said Patrick Leonard in November '86.

The production on B+G is immaculate; the material turns diaphonous after a while.

ah so you're the person i disagree with about this. every time i listen to b+g i go through the "this is my favorite song. no wait THIS is my favorite song" process

"Stranded". Difficult to choose between that and their first, as "If There Is Something" is an all-time classic track

i finally got into non-avalon roxy last month and stranded is def my fav pre-avalon

Stranded and Country Life are usually my two faves.

"Amazona" kicks ass

I think Stranded, Country Life and Siren is an excellent run, the peak of their "art rock" years. I'd have considered that run to be their overall peak if they hadn't managed to put together Avalon.

Stranded is one of my favorite records by anyone, ever (ok, maybe not "A Song For Europe").

Never got into post-hiatus Roxy. Without Paul Thompson, it just doesn't feel like Roxy (and even then, Manifesto was pretty disappointing).

I'll be the heretic in this thread and say that I prefer "The Thrill Of It All" box set which weeds out the weak material and adds a mess of great non-lp stuff. Of the handful of worthy songs left off the box, I've got them as BBC sessions or as killer live versions from Musikladen TV.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C4qpWbLWcAA5x43.jpg

i really like manifesto (but i also really like the second side of the first one)

things i did not know abt paul thompson: he played with the angelic upstarts for a while (working with mensi must a be a nice holiday after putting up with ferry)
things i did know abt paul thompson: he is a great drummer

'If There Is Something' and 'Amazona' do indeed kick ass. As do 'Mother of Pearl', 'Street Life', 'The Thrill of it All', 'Both Ends Burning', 'Out of the Blue', loads of others...

Another thing you may not have known about Paul Thompson: he auditioned for AC/DC when Phil Rudd left or was fired in the early '80s.

xp

And he was inexplicably in Concrete Blonde for a while, c. "Joey."

Avalon and Boys and Girls are like a lost double album to me. Together they are extremely strong; stronger than either one on it's own.

This remix is perfect summer fodder

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ic4xAuIkoFE

Belatedly joining in with ranking their albums..

1. Stranded
2. Roxy Music
3. Avalon
4. For Your Pleasure
5. Siren
6. Country Life
7. Manifesto

8. Flesh & Blood

1. Stranded
2. Roxy Music
3. Country Life
4. For Your Pleasure
5. Avalon
6. Siren
7. Manifesto
8. Flesh & Blood

This will always be Avalon ...

waht Flesh & Blood is great! "Same Old Scene" is up there with their very best tracks

I agree, it's also a better album than Manifesto ...

The Glimmers did a great remix of Same Old Scene

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YdfyD8U_Fw

Avalon and Boys and Girls are like a lost double album to me. Together they are extremely strong; stronger than either one on it's own.

― akm, Monday, 8 May 2017 22:18 (two months ago) Permalink

This is very, very true.

I disagree, I think Avalon is very much the superior record and doesn't need any propping up.

This is your opinion. I'm siding with akm as I've always felt these are two very compatible albums that are almost cut from the same cloth.

I love the warmth of Manifesto's fusion of L.A. studio rock, disco, and European frostiness, especially on deep cuts like "Ain't That So" and "Still Falls the Rain." "Spin Me Round" is the great lost forlorn Ferry ballad.

Flesh + Blood is by far my least favorite Roxy, but it's so damn top heavy it's hard to notice.

Roxy Music's worst album is better than most bands best.

Obviously.

Stranded
Country Life
Avalon
Siren
For Your Pleasure
Roxy Music
Manifesto
Flesh & Blood

pretty fuckin nuts that an album as good as FYP is only 5th

This is your opinion.

Person in "expressing an opinion on music board" shocker! Of course it's my opinion!

(Of course, I won't have to look far for others that share it, but still...)

Stranded
Country Life
Siren
Roxy Music
Avalon
For Your Pleasure
Manifesto
Flesh + Blood

xxpost:

Yeah, Roxy Music up to Siren is an incredible run of music regardless of the order in which the albums are ranked... and Avalon was the best possible note to end things on. I'm glad they continued long enough to make it!

The proper order imo.

Had no idea For Your Pleasure was so highly regarded

I agree with that grouping. For me FYP is still the best one. I actually have grown to really like both Flesh and Blood and Manifesto; partly because I ignored them for so long that I never really gave them their fair due, and now I'm much less familiar with them.

I'd probably move Mamouna from "solid" to "great" and move Bete Noir down to "solid" myself.

I'm on the akm train. Bete Noir is my least favorite of his smoothie session cat records. Also, Bride Stripped Bare has some incredible stuff ("Sign of the Times," "When She Walks In the Room," "This Island Earth") and some blech stuff (mostly the soul stuff: "Hold On I'm Comin'," "Take Me to the River"). I'd swap it with In Your Mind, which has "Tokyo Joe" and "This Is Tomorrow Calling," among other things. And as noted up-thread, Let's Stick Together probably has more tracks I love on it than any other Ferry album, notwithstanding its grab bag nature.

Agree that Stranded is the best one.

i used to think stranded was my favorite, and tho the highs are probably the highest, song for europe and sunset weigh it down a bit. as amazing as they are, avalon is the only truly filler-free roxy music album imo. maybe siren.

"Song For Europe" is a slight slog, but "Sunset" is one of the most perfect album endings by anyone, ever.