ROXY MUSIC - FOR YOUR PLEASURE @ 50

 

Marking its golden jubilee today is the sophomore LP from glam-rock pioneers, Roxy Music, with For Your Pleasure being released on March 23, 1973. Being their last record with synth maestro Brian Eno, it marked the end of their more eccentric musical excursions while also upping their production values.

After the success of their debut, for their second outing, Roxy Music were afforded the luxury of far more studio time with which to try out new ideas and experiment. This freedom, combined with Bryan Ferry being in top form in terms of songwriting, made it possible to deliver an album of exceptional innovation and quality. When it came to studio production techniques, the song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (Ferry's sinister ode to a blow-up doll) fades out in its closing section, only to fade in again with all the instruments subjected to a pronounced phasing treatment. The title track fades out in an elaborate blend of tape loop effects. Brian Eno remarked that the eerie "The Bogus Man", with lyrics about a sexual stalker, displayed similarities with contemporary material by the krautrock group Can. As for songwriting prowess, "Do the Strand" has been called the archetypal Roxy Music anthem, whilst "Editions of You" was notable for a series of ear-catching solos by Andy Mackay (saxophone), Eno (VCS3), and Phil Manzanera (guitar). Eno is very present in the final song from the album "For Your Pleasure", making it unlike any other song on the album. The song ends with the voice of Judi Dench saying "You don't ask. You don't ask why" amid tapes of the opening vocals ('Well, how are you?') from "Chance Meeting" from the first Roxy Music album.

For the album’s cover art, the front photo, taken by Karl Stoecker, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, singer and model Amanda Lear, who was also the confidante, protégée and closest friend of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Lear was depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash. The image has been described as being "as famous as the album itself". One could hardly imagine a more iconic image to accompany such an iconic album.

Upon its release, the album went to #4 on the UK charts, but oddly, received mixed reviews in some publications. In 1973, Paul Gambaccini of Rolling Stone wrote that "the bulk of For Your Pleasure is either above us, beneath us, or on another plane altogether." I suspect such critics were simply beneath the material and frankly missed the point. Retrospective criticisms over the past five decades have consistently placed it in the higher ranks of “best of” lists for the era, with many citing it as a definitive example of British pop music of the times. The combination of lyrical deviance and adventurous musicianship make it a truly outstanding artifact that has transcended the bounds of the era in which it was created.

ROXY MUSIC - ROXY MUSIC @ 50

 

Released on June 16th, 1972, the eponymous debut LP by Roxy Music is celebrating it’s 50th anniversary today. It’s an album that managed to bring the worlds of art-rock and glam together by combining the group’s eccentric musical approach with their extravagant fashion sense. That fusion would end up providing fodder for near future movements like punk, new wave and new romantics within the following decade after the album’s release. Each scene would have reason to reference Roxy Music as source material with bands like Japan and Duran Duran taking their cues from this progenitor and pushing those genetic building blocks to new heights.

Formed in 1970, Roxy Music went through a lot of personnel shuffling before they stabilized into a cohesion which was able to record their first LP. Though they rehearsed the material for a few months beforehand, they had to power through the recording process in no more than a week with the studio time financed by the band’s management. The album was in the can and had it’s cover designed before they had even signed to a label, but Island Records stepped in to pick it up shortly after completion and it gained chart traction quickly after its release.

The band’s music incorporated a number of different styles, but tied them all together with a bravado and panache which was offset by the bizarre interjections of Eno’s synthesizer work and elements of free-jazz via Andy Mackay’s reed work and Phil Manzanera’s guitar experimentation. It was progressive in execution, but still held close to pop conventions of catchy hooks and melodies, making it weirdly accessible without sacrificing the eccentricities that made it distinctive. CREEM’s Robert Christgau said: "From the drag queen on the cover to the fop finery in the centerfold to the polished deformity of the music on the record, this celebrates the kind of artifice that could come to seem as unhealthy as the sheen on a piece of rotten meat. Right now, though, it's decorated with enough weird hooks to earn an A.”

ROXY MUSIC - AVALON @ 40

 

Released in May of 1982, the eighth and final studio album by Roxy Music, Avalon, is marking its 40th anniversary this month. As a capstone to the groups prestigious career, it would offer up perhaps the most perfect example of their sophistication and creativity, at least as far as their post Eno period is concerned. As well as being arguably the greatest artistic achievement of the latter half of their career, the album was also their most commercially successful. It perched on the number one slot in the UK for three weeks and remained in the charts for for over a year. While it only peaked at 53 on the US Billboard charts, it proved to be a “sleeper” hit and continually ramped up sales until it was eventually certified platinum, their only album to do so in the US. Its success was buoyed by the four hit singles which were released from the album.

The album continued the romantic themes common to their last few releases and Brian Ferry has said that he had wanted to interconnect the songs into a kind of narrative, though the finished product would require a bit of stretching to reach that end as Ferry admits he just didn’t have the patience to stitch it all together properly. The concept of Avalon is an Arthurian legend of the afterlife where the Queens ferry King Arthur off to an enchanted island after his death.

The title song features a guest vocal appearance from Yanick Étienne, who Ferry and Rhett Davies stumbled on while doing some last minute re-cutting on the album on a Sunday when the studio would make itself available during the quiet times to young artists to record demos. When Brian and Rhett popped out for a coffee, they heard Yanick singing in the studio next door and were immediately taken with her. She spoke no English, so her manager had to translate, but she was recruited to sing the high parts in the song, which helped to finish the song off after going through a complete rebuild when the first version proved unsatisfactory.

Roxy Music, overall, has become one of an elite number of rock groups who have had an incredibly profound influence on the generations which followed them. Groups like Japan and Duran Duran built their careers on the foundations laid by Roxy Music, both musically and stylistically in terms of their looks and attitudes. Avalon offers up the quintessential expression of their oeuvre with a set of songs that each display their own self contained perfection. There’s no filler on this record and it has retained its presence and power throughout the decades it has had to establish its status as a pop music classic.

40 YEARS BEING QUIET - THE LIFE OF JAPAN

December 20th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Japan’s third LP, Quiet Life, issued on this date in 1979.

If I remember correctly, it must have been very early in 1980 when I came across it in my local record shop back in Thunder Bay, ON.  I’m not sure if I’d ever heard of the band before seeing the record.  I don’t recall them being mentioned in the music press before that album.  Maybe a stray ad for one of their first two albums might have crossed my sight line without garnering much notice.  

The cover of Quiet Life, however, made an immediate impact.  David Sylvian looked so cool.  Goddamn he was one suave fucker, to paraphrase Frank Booth!  That Andy Warhol bleach blonde hair, the “talk to the hand” gesture, the porcelain skin and those lipstick red lips, all soft-focused in overexposed white light, like he was walking past heaven, but couldn’t be bothered.  Mick Karn was on the back cover looking almost as pretty and, inside the gate-fold sleeve, the remaining three band members were similarly posed in their fashionable finery.  They still had this hint of their glam roots showing, but they’d cleaned it up with some “new wave” hipness which kept the androgyny in tact without it seeming sleazy.   

Japan were the forbears of the “New Romantic” look, which would explode soon after with bands like Duran Duran, who shamelessly pilfered Japan’s look, in my opinion.  But what would soon become apparent upon listening to the record was that these were not just a bunch of glamour boys with a fashion fetish.  These guys could actually play and compose some amazing music.  They were all self taught and, after their initial dalliances with crass exploitation, their 3rd album found a balance between image and substance and a certain legitimacy took hold in their sound and subject matter that didn’t feel forced or put on.  

Prior to this album, Japan had been heavily laden with a "New York Dolls" kind of trashiness.  It came across as slightly vulgar and excessive, though not quite as crude as Johansen & company.  David’s singing style on Japan's first two LPs was a sort of whine, like a spoiled brat and there was this swagger to their approach that came off as vaguely pretentious.  The songs, however, weren’t total trash.  In fact, they had some decent hooks, though the lyrics were occasionally naive and juvenile.  Technically, they were accomplished musicians, but it was all painted and powdered up with so much foundation, lip-gloss and neon hair that it was often laughable as a total package.

Then came the single, Life In Tokyo, and working with producer Giorgio Moroder, which set the band suddenly deflecting into another trajectory.  Though David’s voice still had its bratty snarl, the music clicked into a cool Euro-disco pulse thanks to Georgio and he handed them the keys to reshaping their identity.  Life In Tokyo was issued in April of 1979 and, by the time Quiet Life came out in December, the transformation from slutty rock prostitutes to cool handed romantics was complete.  Now, they were more late stage Roxy Music than New York Dolls, but with some Berlin Bowie iciness added to their sound to sculpt them into a sleek techno-new-wave machine.  

The title track for the album kicks it off with echoes of that Moroder-style synth pulse from Richard Barbieri.  Mick’s fretless bass slips into it’s undercurrent and gives the tight, metronome perfect disco beat from Steve Jansen something rubbery to bounce against.  Rob Dean’s guitar slices in with minimal, clean rhythmic slashes that make the whole thing glint with a sheen like a well polished luxury car. Then David debuts his new crooner baritone voice and sings a song about detachment and departing, leaving the old behind and looking forward.  It’s a perfect way to display this shiny new version of Japan as they propel into an album that cruises effortlessly from one pristine track to the next.

In spite of the impeccable perfectionism displayed in the production of this LP, it never comes across as overwrought, contrived or lacking spontaneity.  The balance within the arrangements always retains a sense of proportion and things like solos and fills are delivered with a meticulous restraint that is strictly dedicated to serving the greater good of the song as a whole.  As glamorous and glowing as it all appears, it doesn’t feel showy or ostentatious. It’s tasteful and constrained, but driven by a taut energy that keeps the momentum going forward at all times. At a mere 8 songs, the album is a concise expression of their newfound oeuvre.  All the tracks are Sylvian compositions save for a cover of Lou Reed’s Velvet Underground classic, All Tomorrow’s Parties, which is rendered like a spectral dream.  The track begins and ends with an asynchronous looping synth refrain that creates the sense of entering into another dimension.  

Japan would go on to do 2 more stunning studio albums after this, each one pushing their creative potential to new heights.  But creative differences would take their tole by the time Tin Drum made them a household name (at least in the UK) and their final tour in support of that album would become their epitaph with the release of the live LP, Oil on Canvas.  Post breakup, solo careers would deliver many more albums of exceptional music with varying degrees of success, but nothing near the popularity of the band at its peak.  A short-lived reunion as Rain Tree Crow in the early 1990s delivered one more stellar album of original material before they went back to their solo careers.  The death of Mick Karn in 2011 was a tragic blow to fans of the band as his presence was a key ingredient in giving them their distinctive sound.  Japan has since managed to establish a legacy that shows every sign of lasting along with other greats from the era.  All of it truly started to come into focus with the Quiet Life LP.