Roxy Music - Heart Still Beating

Heart Still Beating is a 1990 live album documenting Roxy Music’s 1982 Avalon tour (specifically a Fréjus, France concert), often praised for polished performances of "Both Ends Burning" and covers like "Jealous Guy". While some find the atmosphere slightly detached compared to earlier, rawer live recordings, it is generally considered a strong, professional, and essential, if not perfect, document of the band's final era. Strong renditions of "Both Ends Burning," "Do The Strand," and "Avalon" tracks. Covers of Neil Young’s "Like a Hurricane" and John Lennon’s "Jealous Guy" are highlighted as excellent additions. 

Recorded live in France in 1982 but not released on CD in the U.S. until 1990, Heart Still Beating isnt quite in a class with Roxy Musics first live album, Viva, but nonetheless gives us a lot to be excited about. Lead singer Bryan Ferry and guitarist Phil Manzanera sound quite inspired much of the time, and Manzanera delivers some excellent solos. Longtime Roxy devotees will want to savor engaging versions of "Out of the Blue" and "Both Ends Burning" (both of which were heard on Viva), as well as such favorites as "Dance Away," "Avalon" and the clever "Love Is the Drug." Roxy comes closer to a mainstream rock sound on enjoyable interpretations of Neil Youngs "Like a Hurricane" and John Lennons "Jealous Guy," but even then, the distinctive bands quirky art-rock tendencies remain.

Roxy Music - Avalon

Released in 1982, Roxy Music's Avalon is widely regarded as a timeless, sophisticated art-rock masterpiece and the pinnacle of the band’s studio work. Defined by Bryan Ferry's romantic, yearning vocals and lush, atmospheric production, the album is hailed for its exceptional sonic quality, featuring hits like "More Than This" and the title track. The album is considered a landmark in recording, boasting impeccable, spacious, and warm production by Rhett Davies and Bob Clearmountain, making it an audiophile favourite. It offers a cohesive,, moody, and seductive sound, often described as having an ethereal, almost dreamy quality that perfectly captures a 1980s romantic pop sensibility. Moving away from the earlier camp and avant-garde style, Avalon is focused on refined, mature, and smooth pop, with intricate layers of synthesizer, saxophone, and subtle guitar. It is frequently cited as one of the best albums of all time, noted for its "exquisite exhaustion" and emotional depth. While generally praised, some reviewers note its short length and, very rarely, a preference for more upbeat material. Avalon serves as a polished, essential listening experience, often viewed as the definitive, swan-song album of the band's career.

By David Chiu / 26 May 2017

In Sofia Coppola’s acclaimed 2003 movie Lost in Translation, there’s a scene in which Bill Murray’s character, Bob Harris, attempts to sing Roxy Music’s “More Than This” at a Tokyo karaoke club, surrounded by his American friend Charlotte (played by Scarlett Johansson) and other Japanese patrons. Harris’ performance of the dreamy song starts off awkwardly, but then somewhat improves a little, to the point where he’s almost crooning to Charlotte. In some ways, it recalls a little bit of Murray’s overly-confident lounge singer character Nick Winters, who famously sang “Star Wars” on Saturday Night Live.

That moment in the movie captures the sense of yearning of the lead characters, which makes the choice of the song somewhat appropriate. But on another level, the inclusion of “More Than This” introduced Roxy Music to a whole new generation, especially here in America where the influential British rock band’s stature was somewhere between cult and mainstream popularity.

“More Than This” originally appeared on Avalon, Roxy Music’s eighth and final studio record. First released in May 1982, the album’s lush and stately sound marked a gradual but significant stylistic shift from the band’s abrasive, cutting-edge rock ten years prior, when Roxy Music emerged as an arty and experimental glam rock group. Avalon — recorded by the core trio of singer Bryan Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, and saxophonist/oboist Andy Mackay — was devoid of the camp and irony that partly defined the first five Roxy albums, and instead went for something quite accessible and mature, while still serving as a vehicle for songwriter Ferry’s romantic meditations on yearning and heartbreak. It’s the sophisticated British New Wave equivalent of a classic American R&B or Quiet Storm record.

Thirty-five Forty Four years later, Avalon remains Roxy Music’s most commercially successful album and a frequent mainstay on critics’ best-of lists. In the Spin Alternative Record Guide from 1995, writer Rob Sheffield gave the record a 9 out of 10 rating: “Avalon remains one of the all-time greatest make-out infernos, a synthesized version of Al Green’s Call Me, Van Morrison’s Moondance, and Joao Gilberto’s Amoroso.” In a similar assessment, Stephen Thomas Erlewine for AllMusic wrote: “With its stylish, romantic washes of synthesizers and Bryan Ferry’s elegant, seductive croon, Avalon simultaneously functioned as sophisticated make-out music for yuppies and as the maturation of synth pop.”

“I’ve often thought I should do an album where the songs are all bound together in the style of West Side Story,” Ferry said in a 1982 interview published in NME, “but it’s always seemed like too much bother to work that way. So instead, I have these 10 poems, or short stories, that could, with a bit more work, be fashioned into a novel… Avalon is part of the King Arthur legend and is a very romantic thing. When King Arthur dies, the Queens ferry him off to Avalon, which is sort of an enchanted island. It’s the ultimate romantic fantasy place.”

Avalon was the last in a trilogy of albums (the others being Manifesto and Flesh + Blood) recorded by Roxy Music when it regrouped in 1979 following a four-year hiatus during which Ferry recorded three solo records. With the departure of Paul Thompson, the group’s stalwart drummer, Roxy was reduced to the core trio of Ferry, Manzanera and Mackay by the time of 1980’s Flesh + Blood. With additional session musicians, Roxy’s sound by this period became more pop-oriented and sophisticated, a far cry from the band’s 1972 adventurous self-titled debut record that featured keyboardist Brian Eno. At a time in the early ’80s when most of Roxy’s peers from were unsettled and vanquished by punk and New Wave, the band was still popular on the charts, thanks to such hits as “Dance Away”, “Angel Eyes”, and a cover of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy”. Simultaneously, a crop of British New Wave and New Romantic bands, such as Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, were copping Roxy’s influence in terms of music and style.

“The music was more clearly defined and controlled as opposed to the earlier stuff which was slightly more complex and not so easy on the ear,” Ferry said of Flesh + Blood to the NME, “And I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to make a record people can hear and like it instantly.”

Making Avalon

Work on Avalon began in Phil Manzanera’s Gallery Studios in Surrey, England, before the band moved on to Compass Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, in 1981. In addition the core members, Roxy was augmented in the studio by a large cast of studio players for the album: drummers Andy Newmark and Rick Marotta; bassists Alan Spenner and Neil Jason; percussionist Jimmy Maelen; guitarist Neil Hubbard; keyboardist Paul Carrack; cellist Kermit Moore; and background singer Fonzi Thornton. In an interview with Rolling Stone from 1989, Manzanera said: “We constructed a lot of tracks out of improvisations. In the studio, you can head off into very strange territories by artificial means. By accident, you can plug something into the wrong place on the desk and something amazing happens that you could never have dreamed of. The combination of writing in the studio while using the studio as an instrument had evolved halfway through Flesh + Blood and on into Avalon. It was this soundscape to which Bryan would then write his sort of dreamy lyrics.”

It’s a similar idea that the album’s co-producer and engineer Rhett Davies later recalled to Sound on Sound in 2003: “We started with a blank sheet; there weren’t any songs. Phil might have had some chord sequences or musical ideas, and Andy would have some tunes that he’d written, which he’d present to Bryan, and Bryan would play around with them to see if there was any work he could do. I would then spent time with Bryan alone, writing. It didn’t take that long — we’d go in in the morning and I’d get a groove going to get something happening that Bryan could walk into, and hopefully he’d be inspired by it.”

Work on the album proceeded to the Power Station in New York City with engineer Bob Clearmountain; he had previously remixed Roxy’s 1979 single “Dance Away” from the Manifesto album. Among his credits include Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, and Bryan Adams, “This record probably means more to me than anything I’ve ever done,” Clearmountain told Sound on Sound in 2003 about Avalon. “I’ve had more comments and compliments on this album by far than anything else I’ve ever done.”

In retrospect, what is remarkable about Avalon is how those disparate elements gelled into something near perfect. “We were creating tracks back then,” Davies said in Mix in 2004. “We didn’t have the songs. The songs were virtually the last things to go on there. We were very much creating a musical atmosphere that we wanted the musicians to respond to.”

The Music

Whereas the early Roxy albums had moments that bordered on controlled chaos, Avalon is one seamless mood record that flows seamlessly from beginning to end. It gets off to a breathless start with the now-classic “More Than This”, indicative of Ferry’s new and mature outlook; the song has since been covered by artists Norah Jones, 10,000 Maniacs, Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs, Robyn Hitchcock and others. According to Manzanera, an earlier version of the song was poppier than the final one that ended up on the record: “Halfway through, Bryan rebelled, and it was all scrapped and simplified incredibly,” he told Rolling Stone. “I must say, I was concerned that we weren’t going to have a hit single from that album. And obviously, wanting to make it in America, we needed to have a single to break us. But in the context of the whole album, Bryan obviously had a broader view in the back of his mind. By the time it was done, it fit in much better with everything.”

“More Than This” is followed by the dark disco funk of “The Space Between Us”, where Ferry ruminates on a relationship that’s “ain’t right”; the melancholy ballad “While My Heart Is Still Beating”, accented by Mackay’s swooning sax, conveys the narrator’s sense of heartache while questioning it all (“Where’s it all leading?” Ferry sings). Andy Newmark’s drumming and Jimmy Maelen’s percussion propel the hypnotic and tension-filled “The Main Thing”. Manzanera’s steady and intricate slow-burn guitar sound recalls Roxy-era Siren in introducing the shimmering “Take a Chance With Me”, while “To Turn You On” is Ferry at his most slyest and sexiest (“I could walk you through the park / If you’re feeling blue”).

The atmospheric “True to Life” is a beautiful and lush penultimate track, furthering Ferry’s search for either love or life’s meaning or both. Avalon is unique in that it features two instrumentals: the cinematic and exotic mood setter “India” and “Tara”, which showcases a very moving sax performance by Mackay against the sounds of the sea, bringing the album (and Roxy’s career at that point) to a fitting and majestic end.

Like “More Than This”, the album’s delicate and romantic title song, which incorporates subtle elements of reggae, has become a Roxy Music standard and promoted with a stylish video featuring actress Sophie Ward. A kind of love-at-first-sight song, the unquestionable highlight of “Avalon” is the amazing backing vocals of singer Yanick Etienne. Remarkably, she was a last-minute addition while the album was being produced at the Power Station. Davies told Sound on Sound that the album was being mixed, and that the previous version of the “Avalon” song didn’t pass muster and was later recut.

“We finished it off the last weekend we were mixing,” he said. “We put some percussion on and some drums on, and then on the Sunday, in the quiet studio time they used to let local bands come in to do demos. Bryan and I popped out for a coffee, and we heard a girl singing in the studio next door. It was a Haitian band that had come in to do some demos, and Bryan and I just looked at each other and went ‘What a fantastic voice!’ That turned out to be Yanick Etienne, who sang all the high stuff on “Avalon.” She didn’t speak a word of English. Her boyfriend, who was the band’s manager, came in and translated. And then the next day we mixed it.”

Thematically, Ferry’s lyrics on Avalon were mature and reflective, downplaying the sense of irony and sarcasm from the past albums, but still evoking the heartache of a romantic. The subdued tone of the album and perspective could possibly be attributed to Ferry dating young British socialite Lucy Helmore, whom he later married in 1982 (The couple had four children together before divorcing in 2003). Helmore was the model wearing the helmet and overlooking the gorgeous seascape on the Avalon album cover. “I think Bryan decided he wanted a more adult type of lyric,” Manzanera later told Rolling Stone. “We were making music that was a bit rockier, but then we decided — in light of the way Bryan was thinking lyrically — that we should tone it down, so it ended up having a more constant sort of mood. And although that mood wasn’t very up and rocky, it was positive.”

Aftermath and Legacy

Upon its release in May 1982, Avalon went to number one on the British album charts. While it only peaked at 53 on the Billboard charts in America, the record eventually became Roxy’s most commercially successful one in that territory, eventually going platinum as of 1992. Reviews for the album at the time were receptive. In Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder began his review with: “Roxy Music’s Avalon takes a long time to kick in, but it finally does, and it’s a good one… Ten years after its debut, Roxy Music has mellowed; the occasional stark piano chords in ‘While My Heart Is Still Beating,’ for example, recall the stately mood of ‘A Song for Europe,’ but the sound is softer, dreamier and less determinedly dramatic now.”

In his retrospective review for the Rolling Stone Album Guide edition form 1992, Mark Coleman wrote: “This austere, beautiful set of songs represents a mature peak. The controlled chaotic edge of the early albums is completely gone, and co-founders Manzanera and Mackay provide only skeletal guitar and sax lines. Ferry fills in the details, creating layered synth landscapes around his tragic scenarios and melodic ruminations. Avalon‘s pervasive influence on the British pop scene of the ’80s can’t be overstated. Roxy Music’s stature is even further enhanced by the absence of a latter-day comeback album. So far, anyway.”

Following a tour to support the album, Roxy Music broke up again. Manzanera hinted of the tensions during the Avalonsessions when he told Rolling Stone: “Roxy Music was a series of complex personalities, and inevitably there would be ups and downs. Any sort of creative force that’s worth its while has to exist in a sort of state of conflict. So it’s absolutely amazing that we managed to do seven or eight albums.”

One could make the argument that Avalon was a Bryan Ferry solo album in all but name; its influence continued on throughout Ferry’s solo records — Boys and Girls, Bete Noire, Taxi, and Mamouna — all of which bear the hallmarks of Avalon‘s soulful sound and emphasis on atmosphere and mood along with the top-notch session musicianship and rhythmic grooves. Some of Avalon‘s songs — including the title song and “While My Heart Is Still Beating” have been part of Roxy’s set list during the group’s reunion period from 2001 to 2011, as well as Ferry’s solo shows.

Some fans may lament the band’s direction from groundbreaking art rock band to pop group, as well as the reduced roles of Manzanera and Mackay, who were so crucial to the early Roxy sound on the latter albums. In his review of 2012 The Complete Roxy Music boxed set for the Guardian, Simon Reynolds opined: “By Avalon and its big single ‘More Than This,’ the sound is all patina, glistening with professionalism and perfectionism. The words sketch the barest suggestion of mood; the voice, once so blood-curdling and startling, has become a debonair croon, evoking just a faded and jaded gentility…Avalon could be seen as Ferry’s own version of ambient music: an ‘I can do that too’ riposte to Eno’s reputation as doyen of the cutting edge. A triumph, in its way, but also a tragic inversion of everything that made Roxy so arresting.”

“I think that certainly those last three albums [Manifesto, Flesh + Blood, and Avalon] were different,” says Andy Mackay in Michael Bracewell’s book When Surface Was Depth: Death By Cappuccino and Other Reflections on Music and Culture in the 1990s . “It was also the point when Paul Thompson left, and Bryan, by then, had a very fixed idea of how he wanted things to sound — some of which was brilliant, and some of which wasn’t. There was heavy pressure on us to break America, and somewhere along the way the more experimental material got squeezed out. If young people were to listen to the Roxy canon now, I suspect that they’d be more likely to listen to the early records, because the Seventies are rather fashionable at the moment.”

It’s not often that great bands have the opportunity to end a career on a high note with their swansong song albums (i.e., the Byrds, the Velvet Underground, and the Clash are some notable examples). But Roxy Music brilliantly did so with Avalon. True it’s a great romantic record and a perfect soundtrack for lovers, but its introspective bittersweet tone simultaneously resonates with those who feel jaded about love and relationships — altogether woven into a wonderfully produced and mature-sounding album. “Avalon was an appropriate way for Roxy to blow a kiss and wave goodbye in the night,” wrote Rob Sheffield in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (2004). The irony is that while Roxy delivered a majestic and subdued final studio album, the music of the British New Wave bands of the early ’80s echoed Ferry and company’s campier and flashier side from the ’70s, albeit with more pop polish.

Avalon‘s importance hasn’t been lost on Ferry. While he revealed his love for Roxy Music’s second album For Your Pleasure in a 2012 interview in New York City with Spinner, he also said: “I like Avalon too. I always think of New York when I think of Avalon because we mixed it just down the road here at the Power Station. I had lots of memories of making that, and some great players. [It’s] more sophisticated musically.”

Roxy Music - Flesh & Blood

Released in 1980, Roxy Music's Flesh and Blood is a polished, highly commercial pivot toward sophisti-pop, balancing sleek, synth-driven pop-rock with Bryan Ferry’s emotive vocals. While criticized by some for lacking the art-rock spark of earlier work and appearing "bored" or "tired", the platinum-selling #1 UK album is lauded for hits like "Oh Yeah" and "Same Old Scene". The album marks a shift from art-rock to a more refined pop sound, influencing the New Romantic movement. It features polished guitar work from Phil Manzanera and sax from Andy Mackay, though some tracks were recorded without them. Positioned between Manifesto and the masterpiece Avalon, it is regarded as a vital, though transitional, part of the Roxy Music discography that perfected their later, smoother sound. Flesh and Blood is often seen as a "dividing line" that dropped the band's earlier, more subversive edge in favor of a slicker, "submissive" sound. 

By Chris Ingalls / 28 May 2025

Roxy Music are, perhaps by design, a nearly impossible group to categorize. Bursting onto the scene in 1972 with their self-titled debut album, they blended progressive rock, glam, elements of soul, experimental tone poems, and romantic pop, creating a fascinating hybrid that drew influences from David Bowie, King Crimson, and the Velvet Underground. “Psychedelic Sinatra”, according to Simon Le Bon, who inducted them into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, alongside Duran Duran bandmate John Taylor.

Led by the impeccably suave singer-songwriter Bryan Ferry, they churned out eight studio albums in ten years, influencing countless artists and gradually progressing from glam oddballs, in part due to the presence of keyboard wizard Brian Eno on their first two albums, to sophisticated, often radio-friendly pop/rock darlings. As a result of this arc, their later work is intermittently dismissed as less important, but the seventh of their eight studio albums, Flesh + Blood, is more deeply textured and influential than the then-tepid reviews may lead you to believe.

In reassessing Flesh + Blood, which turned 45 this May, it’s essential to place it in the context of Roxy Music as well as the state of pop and rock music at the time of its release. The bloating of progressive rock necessitated the birth of punk, leading to new wave and eventually, the 1981 launch of MTV, which—like it or not—placed a fashion-forward emphasis on popular music like never before. Roxy Music never seemed to shy away from fashion cues, and their music eventually embraced more overt dance-pop gestures with their 1979 album, Manifesto (released after a three-and-a-half-year hiatus, during which Ferry continued his successful solo career). 

Building on that momentum, Flesh + Blood can be seen as a refinement—and arguably a progression—of that aesthetic. Experimental concepts established on earlier albums, such as For Your Pleasure and Stranded, were largely abandoned in favor of singles that were more accessible but possessed too much elegance to be dismissed as disposable pop.

This gradual transition likely stemmed from the success of Ferry’s impressive solo output. By the time Flesh + Blood was released, Ferry was already five albums deep into his solo career, with albums ranging from an unusual and highly entertaining covers collection (These Foolish Things) to a record that combined covers with curious reworkings of Roxy Music songs (Let’s Stick Together) to a more stripped-down rock approach of new, all-original material (In Your Mind). Roxy Music’s later studio period seemed to reflect what Ferry was doing on his own. 

However, more importantly, Flesh + Blood can be seen as a blueprint for a genre that was to follow in the ensuing decade: the lush sounds of sophisti-pop, a stylish hybrid that incorporated polished arrangements, tasteful synths, undertones of soul and jazz, and lyrics that veer between mystery and romanticism. Artists as varied as Japan, the Style Council, Simple Minds, China Crisis, the Blue Nile, and, yes, Duran Duran, all seemed to draw inspiration from Roxy Music, going back to their earlier Eno era, but more specifically to the stylistic juncture of the late 1970s and early 1980s. 

Anyone expecting the vibes of “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”, Roxy Music’s creepy, spoken-word ode to a blow-up doll from 1973’s For Your Pleasure, will be initially disappointed, although their more mainstream approach bears a great deal of creative fruit. The band, now reduced to the core trio of Ferry on vocals and keyboards, oboist/saxophonist Andy Mackay, and guitarist Phil Manzanera (with the aid of a slew of additional side musicians), eke out a great deal of mystery and edge within those dance/pop grooves. 

Upon its release, Flesh + Blood was greeted with mixed reviews. While Greil Marcus praised the record – “All graceful lust and wistful regret… like a perfect July day, it makes no demands on a listener, yet it can give a listener everything”, Ken Tucker slammed it in Rolling Stone, writing that “Flesh + Blood is such a shockingly bad Roxy Music record that it provokes a certain fascination.” However, it’s essential to view Flesh + Blood as more of an influencer of what was to come, rather than its role in the overall mood of 1980 or its place within Roxy Music’s discography.

Roxy Music released one more studio album in 1982, the epochal Avalon, which fared far better commercially and critically than its predecessor, due in part to the previous year’s launch of MTV. The videos for the singles “More Than This” and “Avalon” received heavy airplay on the channel, likely introducing a younger generation to their music. It’s also arguably a better album, a dreamy sonic landscape benefiting from strong songwriting and unique arrangements.

To this day, they still tour occasionally. Ferry continues to release often brilliant solo albums; 1985’s Boys & Girls and 1987’s Bete Noire are among his finest works. However, Flesh + Blood, while lacking the alien synth moves and epic-length experimental exercises of their first few albums, is still a strong, vastly underrated record whose nearly subliminal influence has been felt for decades. 

Roxy Music - Manifesto

Released in 1979 after a four-year hiatus, Roxy Music's Manifesto is generally viewed as a slick, transitional, and somewhat uneven comeback album that bridged their art-rock roots with a more danceable, disco-influenced sound. While featuring highlights like "Dance Away" and "Angel Eyes," critical reception is mixed, often praising the polished production and "dry" sound while noting a decline in songwriting consistency compared to earlier, more experimental works. Manifesto successfully pivoted the band towards a refined, disco-influenced sound, influencing new wave. It is considered the first step in the trio of albums ending with Avalon, moving away from earlier "left-field" material. Manifesto is generally regarded as a solid, if not top-tier, entry in the Roxy Music catalog, often deemed a necessary evolution leading toward their masterpiece, Avalon. 

Now, for the inevitable grumbling. This isn’t exactly the way I remembered it. I mean, yes, it was all headed down a very-very-oh-so-slightly disco path with Siren, and alles vas unter grupenfuhrer Ferry since the Ides of No When, but Dance Away?

The new Roxy Music sounded something like the old Roxy Music split in half: strange on the East Side, seductive on the West Side. (The album is broken into an East and West side, which suggests the band was broken into two camps, and maybe they were.) The opening Manifesto starts out as a weird instrumental and then gets an intentionally flat and sour reading from Bryan Ferry. As it turns out, the title track is more of a red herring than a red revolution. The egalitarian opener, in fact, shows that musical communism doesn’t work.

Under a charismatic leader from the West like Ferry, well, Manifesto is a different story. Tracks like Spin Me Round, Ain’t That So and “Dance Away” are a sigh of the things to come on Avalon; romantic confections wrapped in gossamer dreams. More problematic are the Eastern blocks, which haunt the record like bogus meniatures. Of these, Trash is by far the tastiest, the kin of such kinetic keepers as “Pyjamarama” and “Street Life.”

The dark musings were missing on their next album, Flesh + Blood, so Manifesto shouldn’t be seen as a complete sell-out. Rather, it’s a partially successful attempt to finally fuse the two sides of Bryan Ferry (art rocker/romantic) on a single spin. What you end up with is basically In Your Mind in the mode of Roxy Music, but it still managed to be one of the year’s better albums.

Roxy Music - Viva! Roxy Music

Viva! (1976) is a critically acclaimed live album capturing Roxy Music at their peak (1973-1975) with high-energy, art-rock performances featuring Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, and Eddie Jobson. It is praised for its "raw energy" and superior sound quality compared to other era recordings, showcasing rearranged, "proggier" versions of classics like "If There Is Something". Released shortly before the band announced a hiatus, it acts as a retrospective of their early, more experimental phase. While widely loved, some reviewers noted that the 50-minute runtime felt short, and the "Sirens" backing vocals on "Both Ends Burning" were a detractor. 

The Live Roxy Music Album, as "Viva!" is subtitled, presents us with a collection of eight compositions selected to represent the bizarre diversity of the Roxy repertoire, recorded at concerts in Glasgow (November, 1973), Newcastle (November, 1974) and London (October, 1975).

It's a genuinely exciting, often thrilling record, which captures precisely the flash and bravado of an impressive and intelligent band. And, as it is possibly the last album Roxy are likely to release for a year, its appearance is most welcome.

To the record. Side one consists of brash, authoritative readings of "Out Of The Blue," "Pyjamarama," "The Bogus Man" and, a brief "Chance Meeting" (a beautiful and elegant version with an intriguing oboe/violin duet between Andy MacKay and Eddie Jobson), which segues brilliantly into a ferocious "Both Ends Burning" (marred only by the unpleasant wailing of the Sirens, those two dopey chicks who decorated the stage on Roxy's last British tour). So far, so very good. But it's on side two that the action really gets under way, with an extended version of the classic "If There Is Something," which used to provide the scenario for some spectacular duets between Mackay and Manzanera at one point in the band's history, I seem to remember. The version included here is more stately, with Manzanera's swirling, mysterious solo and Mackay's ethereal oboe work preceding a sudden, dramatic explosion as the band shatter the calm and blast back into the main theme with relentless vigour.

"In Every Dreamhome A Heartache," one of Ferry's finest achievements, follows: a sinister, neurotic performance, suggestive of ominous drama, which reaches a staggering climax with overtones of "A Song For Europe." The album closes, inevitably, with "Do The Strand," a reckless and fierce interpretation graced by another brilliant solo by Manzanera (whose work throughout has a rare intelligence and discretion).

I'm told that "Viva! Roxy Music" was originally intended to have been a double album which, presumably, would have included versions of discarded epics like "Mother Of Pearl", "The Thrill Of It All", "A Song For Europe" and "Virginia Plain", and I can only regret their absence.

Roxy Music - Siren

Released in October 1975, Roxy Music's Siren is widely considered a polished, commercial masterpiece that expertly blends art-rock roots with sophisticated pop and early disco influences. Featuring the iconic hit "Love Is the Drug," this fifth studio album is praised for its high energy, cohesive thematic structure, and Brian Ferry’s refined vocal performance. Siren moves away from the more avant-garde tendencies of earlier albums, offering a more direct, melodic, and accessible sound while maintaining the band’s signature, stylish edge. Beyond "Love Is the Drug," standout tracks often cited include "Both Ends Burning," "Sentimental Fool," and "Just Another High". While some fans of earlier, more experimental, or progressive material might find it less challenging than For Your Pleasure, Siren is almost universally lauded as a high point in 1970s rock. 

Rolling Stone called it the band’s “masterpiece.” Vibe named it among the 100 Essential Albums of the Twentieth Century. All of which begs the question: Do these guys even own a copy of Country Life?

Siren, like all Roxy Music albums, is brilliant, but it never got under my skin the way the first four albums did. Maybe it’s the banality of Love Is The Drug or the rushed arrangements, perhaps the knowledge of what would come makes me twinge at the traces of disco. Mind you, I like almost every song on here, and that’s by design. The hooks are punched up, the pathos played up. I’m sure most new romantics would have given their milk teeth to write these songs.

But it’s when Siren sounds most like Country Life and Stranded that I’m happiest. Whirlwind is kin to “Prairie Rose,” End of the Line to “If It Takes All Night,” Nightingale to “Street Life,” Sentimental Fool to “Mother of Pearl.” This isn’t, after all, a reinvention of Roxy Music. There is the sense, though, that Bryan Ferry had become less diligent about changing costumes between solo and group albums. The works that followed, Let’s Stick Together and In Your Mind, are only a step removed from Siren, not miles apart.

A higher percentage of group compositions lends credence to the idea that Ferry may have loosened his tight reins on the band in the wake of maintaining two careers and the lavish lifestyle of an international playboy. Andrew Mackay and Phil Manzanera both grab a couple of cowriting credits this time, and even Eddie Jobson gets into the act on the strangely stilted but still catchy She Sells. On his lonesome, Ferry feeds the faithful with torch songs rendered as only he can: Both Ends Burning, Could It Happen To Me? and the beautiful, parting Just Another High.

Worth noting here are excellent performances from Paul Thompson (a generally underrated drummer) and Phil Manzanera, whose guitar solo on “Could It Happen To Me?” is one for the ages. As we all know, the Roxy story abruptly ended soon after, only to resume at the end of the decade with what I can only presume Rolling Stone and Vibe regarded as the greatest album of all time, Manifesto. Honestly, not even Siren would make my list of top five Roxy Music albums, but that speaks more to the remarkable quality of their work than the album’s deficiency.

Roxy Music - Country Life

Released in 1974, Roxy Music's Country Life is widely considered a cornerstone of 1970s art rock and the band's most accomplished, intense, and mature work of their early period. Defined by the angular guitar work of Phil Manzanera and the addition of virtuoso violinist Eddie Jobson, it features urgent, complex tracks like "The Thrill of It All" and "Out of the Blue". The album is a "progressive-glam" blend, moving beyond their earlier, more chaotic style into a more structured, yet still experimental and visceral rock sound. "The Thrill of It All" is lauded for its energy, while "Out of the Blue" is noted for its dramatic, driving sound and Jobson's electric violin solos. Other standout tracks include "Casanova" and the nostalgic closer "Prairie Rose". While some critics found it slightly less cohesive than Stranded, Country Life is generally regarded as an essential, high-energy album that perfectly captured the band's artistic ambition. 

Country Life is an impressive follow-up from the same line-up that made Roxy Music’s previous album, the masterful Stranded (1973). Stylistically, Country Life continues along the lines of its predecessor, but is more uneven in quality and more musically straightforward.

The album opens with the furiously intense, roaring epic rock track ”The Thrill Of It All”. Packed full of small details in the arrangement, the song thunders onwards, propelled by Johnny Gustafson’s magnificent bassline, like a truck without brakes. ”The Thrill Of It All” is, as its name suggests, a thrilling and exciting listen.

After a couple of slightly more mediocre tracks, Country Life serves up one of Roxy Music’s finer songs, vocalist Bryan Ferry and guitarist Phil Manzanera’s ”Out Of The Blue”, with Andy Mackay’s ominous three-note oboe riff playing a central role. Manzanera’s guitar playing is also superb, but is inevitably overshadowed when the virtuoso Eddie Jobson is let loose with his violin at the end of the song. Jobson’s wild fiddle playing is very catchy and ends the song with a great electronic effect that sort of blasts the song into the ether. Live, ”Out Of The Blue” was even more effective than the studio version. Especially the following year when John Wetton of the recently disbanded King Crimson joined the band and got to abuse his bass on the song. I have to say, though, there’s nothing wrong with Johnny Gustafson’s original funky bass line. On the contrary! The live versions of ”Out Of The Blue” were as close as Roxy Music ever got to the heart of progressive rock.

The third highlight of the album is the fateful ballad ”Bitter-Sweet”, co-written by Mackay and Ferry, which is Ferry at his core. ”Bitter-Sweet” is exactly the kind of song Ferry is made to sing. The mood of these songs is usually bittersweet, and this time that mood was spelled out right down to the song title. In the highlight of the previous album, ”Song For Europe”, of which ”Bitter-Sweet” is a sort of sister song, Ferry sang in French at the end, with a pathetic flourish. In ”Bitter-Sweet”, towards the end, he lets loose with a booming German articulation. A good trick is worth doing twice, especially if you can add another twist. Roxy Music did and it works beautifully.

The German translation of Ferry’s ”Bitter-Sweet” lyrics was done by the women on the rather cheesy cover of the album, Constanze Karoli, sister of Can guitarist Michael Karol, and Eveline Grunwald, girlfriend of the same krautrock guru. On the cover, the women appear looking terrified, almost naked, in transparent underwear and with very heavy make-up. One explanation on the cover has been: ’They are meant to be fashion models that have run away from an estate, and caught in the headlights of a car.’ Ok…. In Puritan America, of course, this didn’t go down well and Country Life was published there with a rather strange cover version. The American version has only a bush on the cover. I mean a real bush, not anything to do with transparent panties. And the bush on the cover is actually the one that Karoli and Grunwald are naked in front of on the original cover.

Although Country Life is Rocy Music’s most conventional album to date, there is one real oddity. Reminiscent of medieval church music, Ferry’s ’Triptych’ sounds almost Gentle Giant with its flutes and harpsichord. It’s an unusual piece that doesn’t quite work seamlessly, but it’s definitely an interesting and bold experiment from a rock band like Roxy Music. Being Roxy Music, it’s hard to say how seriously the song was made, but never mind as long as it sounds good.

A good example of Country Life’s contrasts is how smoothly the album moves from the devotional moods of ”Triptych” to the very raucously rocking ”Casanova”. This juxtaposition in some strange way makes both extremes seem the more delicious.

Roxy Music - Stranded

Without Brian Eno, Roxy Music immediately became less experimental, yet they remained adventurous, as Stranded illustrates. Under the direction of Bryan Ferry, Roxy moved toward relatively straightforward territory, adding greater layers of piano and heavy guitars. Even without the washes of Eno's synthesizers, Roxy's music remains unsettling on occasion, yet in this new incarnation, they favour more measured material, whether it's the reflective "A Song for Europe" or the shifting textures of "Psalm." Even the rockers, such as the surging "Street Life" and the segmented "Mother of Pearl," are distinguished by subtle song writing that emphasizes both Ferry's tortured glamour and Roxy's increasingly impressive grasp of sonic detail.

Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure

On Roxy Music's debut, the tensions between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry propelled their music to great, unexpected heights, and for most of the group's second album, For Your Pleasure, the band equals, if not surpasses, those expectations. However, there are a handful of moments where those tensions become unbearable, as when Eno wants to move toward texture and Ferry wants to stay in more conventional rock territory; the nine-minute "The Bogus Man" captures such creative tensions perfectly, and it's easy to see why Eno left the group after the album was completed. Still, those differences result in yet another extraordinary record from Roxy Music, one that demonstrates even more clearly than the debut how avant-garde ideas can flourish in a pop setting. This is especially evident in the driving singles "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You," which pulsate with raw energy and jarring melodic structures. Roxy also illuminate the slower numbers, such as the eerie "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," with atonal, shimmering synthesizers, textures that were unexpected and innovative at the time of its release. Similarly, all of For Your Pleasure walks the tightrope between the experimental and the accessible, creating a new vocabulary for rock bands, and one that was exploited heavily in the ensuing decade.

Roxy Music - Roxy Music

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 "Re-Make/Re-Model" 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.