Description
Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music's eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock's boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures. Although no musician demonstrates much technical skill at this point, they are driven by boundless imagination -- Brian Eno's synthesized "treatments" exploit electronic instruments as electronics, instead of trying to shoehorn them into conventional acoustic patterns. Similarly, Bryan Ferry finds that his vampiric croon is at its most effective when it twists conventional melodies, Phil Manzanera's guitar is terse and unpredictable, while Andy Mackay's saxophone subverts rock & roll clichés by alternating R&B honking with atonal flourishes. But what makes Roxy Music such a confident, astonishing debut is how these primitive avant-garde tendencies are married to full-fledged songs, whether it's the free-form, structure-bending "Remake/Remodel" or the sleek glam of "Virginia Plain," the debut single added to later editions of the album. That was the trick that elevated Roxy Music from an art school project to the most adventurous rock band of the early '70s. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, AMG
Product Details
- Artist
- Roxy Music
- Year of release
- 1999
- Label / Studio
- EMD / VIRGIN
- Media Content Format
- Album
- WOW HD Sales Rank
- #857
- Media Format
- Audio CD
- Recording Environment
- Studio
- Number of Discs
- 1
- Run Time (minutes)
- 45
- Original year of release
- 1972
- CD 30days Sales Rank
- #732
- Cast & Crew
- Roxy Music (Music Performer)
- Peter Sinfield (Producer)
- Andy Hendriksen (Sound Engineer)
Press Reviews
5 stars (out of 5) - "...difficult, innovative, unlikely, provocative, daring and successful....Roxy Music turned heads with 1972's eponymous debut....this is rock'n'roll before and after science, it's licks laced with futurism....a masterpiece unwithered by age... Q (9/99, pp.122-3)
Tracklisting
Disc 1:
-
Re-Make/Re-Model
-
Ladytron
-
If There Is Something
-
Virginia Plain
-
2 H.B.
-
Bob (Medley), The
-
Chance Meeting
-
Would You Believe?
-
Sea Breezes
-
Bitters End
