Last year British art rockers and pioneers Roxy Music celebrated 50 years of making music with their first world tour in over a decade. Still united were four of the six original members—singer Bryan Ferry, guitarist Phil Manzanera, sax/oboe player Andy Mackay, and drummer Paul Thompson—and audiences were clamoring to see them. Roxy’s recorded output lasted only 10 years, but left an indelible impact. While they will always be a bit more well known in Europe, their final album Avalon went Platinum in America and many other singles are known here.
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Trying to define Roxy’s sound is a challenge, and that’s a good thing. They never succumbed to formula, and band members produced plenty of solo work during their time on and off together (and since as well). The group began life in a more raucous vein, mixing their various influences together, developing an equally diverse but more polished second act, and evolving into the elegant, dreamy sound of their last couple of albums. Within their eight studio releases, there are intriguing deep cuts that show how truly eclectic a band they are.
Let’s take a dive into 10 of their most intriguing deep cuts.
“The Bob (Medley)” (Roxy Music, 1972)
This medley is one wild ride. Brian Eno’s eerie synth conjurings preface a noisy anthem that melts into a neo-classical passage punctuated and consumed by the sounds of war. Then they lead us into a rollicking blues-rock jaunt, a delicate piano bridge, and a return to the earlier anthemic part before closing with a dissonant, percussive outro. All of this in the span of six minutes. Many young artists today blissfully ignore the trappings of genre boundaries—Roxy was doing it 50 years ago.
“Chance Meeting” (Roxy Music, 1972)
What starts off as a delicate piano and voice ballad—purportedly inspired by the 1945 David Lean film Brief Encounter—is pierced by high-pitched guitar and sax sounds. Sometimes they blend together as one. Melodic and discordant sounds clash in a harsh way, yet it’s still beguiling. The song still feels avant-garde today. Imagine what it sounded like to people back then.
“For Your Pleasure” (For Your Pleasure, 1973)
This mostly instrumental composition gradually features Thompson driving propulsive tom patterns through a psychedelic landscape of Manzanera’s increasingly echo-laden guitars and piano chords that become submerged in aqueous reverb. Bury yourself under headphones in the dark for this one. You can certainly hear a predecessor to Eno’s later ambient experiments in this trippy track.
“Psalm” (Stranded, 1973)
Welcome to the Church of Ferry. This slowly-churning song, said to be one of the first the singer ever wrote for Roxy, opens with the intimacy of a quiet hymn, then gradually builds into a passionate, spiritual number with a discordant undercurrent. As it builds emotionally, the latter half of the track invokes the vibe of a New Orleans jazz funeral party. You can practically see the singer in front of a congregation professing his faith while the the London Welsh Male Choir provides gentle vocal harmonies wafting in underneath.
“A Song For Europe” (Stranded, 1973)
This forlorn, piano-driven ballad alternates between delicate keyboard and orchestrated band moments, with Ferry lamenting a love lost. In the latter half of the song, he recites the lyrics in Latin and then sings them in French while Mackay delivers a very passionate sax solo. One can imagine the band performing this number in some smoky European club as the suave singer pours his heart out.
“Triptych” (Country Life, 1974)
Roxy goes Renaissance! Harpsichord and shawms, along with Mackay’s oboe, intertwine delectably as Ferry croons about the Crucifixion. This is certainly one of the most distinct songs in the band’s catalog and show how fearless they were in taking what for other groups might be considered bolder musical detours. By this point, no one should have been surprised that they did it, and it clicked.
“Whirlwind” (Siren, 1975)
A more straightforward entry on this list, this rollicking tune from the band’s fourth album feels like it should have been a more commercially successful number. It’s a harder rocking track that features a ripping guitar solo from Manzanera and some nice bass flourishes from John Gustfason. The big hit from Siren was “Love Is The Drug,” but this one deserves more love.
“Manifesto” (Manifesto, 1979)
After a hiatus, Roxy returned with their sixth album, which found their sound transforming into their very elegant swan song Avalon. This title track, which builds in emotion as it slowly pushes forward, invokes an Eastern vibe in its intro. Ferry doesn’t emerge into nearly halfway through the song which feels like the finale of a movie where the main character is preparing for a transformative journey. The eerie synth outro is a nice touch.
“Ain’t That So” (Manifesto, 1979)
Like the more popular “Dance Away” from the same album, one can hear the seeds of Avalon and the Bryan Ferry solo sound being planted here. This sleek, funky, mid-tempo features dulcet crooning as well as some beautifully lush vocal harmonies floating over that classic Roxy contrast of melody and dissonance.
“Over You” (Flesh & Blood, 1980)
Roxy’s penultimate album certainly felt attuned to the burgeoning New Romantic movement. That seems very apropos since Duran Duran have cited them as a major influence, and their debut emerged the following year. “Over You” even has that percussive double clap sound that we would hear throughout the ‘80s, but Mackay’s sax sound is more distinct than nearly anything in that era. This tune feels like ‘60s bubblegum pop filtered through a then-modern sensibility. Hey, we said Roxy was eclectic.
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