Roxy Music "For Your Pleasure"

For Your Pleasure is the second album by English rock band Roxy Music, released by Island Records in 1973. It was their last to feature synthesiser and sound specialist Brian Eno, who would later gain acclaim as a solo artist and producer.

The group was able to spend more studio time on this album than on their debut, combining strong song material by Bryan Ferry with more elaborate production treatments. For example, 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.

Of the more upbeat numbers on the album, "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You" were both based around insistent rhythms in the tradition of the band's first single "Virginia Plain". "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. A live recording of the song has been used in 1975 as a B-side to "Both Ends Burning".

The original UK LP cover credits "Produced by Chris Thomas and Roxy Music" for the entire album, but only the side one label repeats that; the side two label credits "Produced by John Anthony and Roxy Music". Various foreign editions and reissues have confused the matter with random variations.

For Your Pleasure was originally released by Island Records in the United Kingdom and Warner Bros. Records in the United States. It has been subsequently reissued by Polydor Records in the UK and Atco Records and Reprise Records in the US.

As with the debut Roxy Music album, no UK singles were lifted from For Your Pleasure upon its initial release. The non-album single "Pyjamarama", backed with "The Pride and the Pain", was issued in advance of the album in Britain, peaking at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart. "Do the Strand", backed with "Editions of You", was released as a single in the US and Europe; it was finally issued as a UK single in 1978 to promote Roxy Music's Greatest Hits album, released in December the previous year.

The cover photo, taken by Karl Stoecker, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, singer and model Amanda Lear, who later became Salvador Dalí's muse. Original pressings of the album featured a gatefold sleeve picturing all five band members posing with guitars.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Bryan Ferry.

Side one

1. "Do the Strand" 4:04
2. "Beauty Queen" 4:41
3. "Strictly Confidential" 3:48
4. "Editions of You" 3:51
5. "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (LP editions of the album incorrectly listed the song's timing as 4:25, due to its "false fade" referenced above) 5:29

Side two

1. "The Bogus Man" 9:20
2. "Grey Lagoons" 4:13
3. "For Your Pleasure" 6:51

Roxy Music "More Than This (Single & Video)"

"More Than This" is a 1982 single by English rock band Roxy Music. It was released as the first single from their final album, Avalon, and was the group's last top-ten UK hit (peaking at No. 6). Although it reached only No. 58 on the US Billboard Rock Top Tracks chart, it remains one of Roxy Music's best-known songs in America.

American alternative rock band 10,000 Maniacs released a successful cover version in 1997 which peaked at No. 25, and British singer Emmie released cover that reached No. 5 in the UK in January 1999.

The cover of the single's release is the painting Veronica Veronese, by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, which was completed in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model.

The song was written by the lead singer Bryan Ferry, who has stated in interviews that he began writing the songs for Avalon while on the western coast of Ireland, which he believes contributed to the dark melancholy of the album.

"More than This" is somewhat unusual for a pop song in that Ferry's lead vocals end at 2:45 minutes, leaving the last 1:45 minutes as a synthesizer-driven instrumental outro.

Roxy Music "Avalon (Single & Video)"

"Avalon" is a 1982 song by the English rock band Roxy Music. It was released as the second single from their album Avalon. The single, with its B-side, "Always Unknowing", charted at No. 13 in the UK.

The song's distinctive backing vocals were performed by Haitian singer Yanick Étienne, whom Bryan Ferry encountered during the recording of the album. He heard her in the adjacent studio and invited her to contribute backing vocals to the recording.

The song's music video was directed by Ridley Scott and features the English actress Sophie Ward, daughter of actor Simon Ward. It was filmed in Mentmore Towers country house.

Roxy Music "Jealous Guy (Single & Video)"

Following Lennon's death in 1980, Roxy Music added a version of the song to their set while touring in Germany, which they recorded and released in February 1981. The single was released by Polydor with "To Turn You On" as the B-side, with catalogue number "ROXY 2". The song was the only UK No. 1 hit for Roxy Music, topping the charts for two weeks in March 1981. "To Turn You On" later appeared on the 1982 album Avalon, although it was slightly remixed. Roxy Music's cover of "Jealous Guy" features on many Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music collections and 1980s music compilations, though not always in its full-length version. As of 1982, the single had sold 91,000 copies in Australia.

A music video was filmed for the song, which mainly consisted of Bryan Ferry singing to camera before whistling and playing on a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 synthesizer during the coda. Guitarist Phil Manzanera and saxophonist Andy Mackay also appear in the video during their respective solos.

Roxy Music "Flesh + Blood"

Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh + Blood) is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. Released in late May 1980, it was an immediate commercial success peaking at No. 1 in the UK for one week in June and then returned to the summit in August for another three weeks, in total spending 60 weeks on the albums chart in the United Kingdom. The album also peaked at No. 35 in the United States and No. 10 in Australia.

The album was preceded by the single "Over You", a No. 5 UK hit that also provided the band with a rare US chart entry at No. 80. Two more hit singles followed: "Oh Yeah" (UK #5) and "Same Old Scene" (UK No. 12, AUS #35). Flesh + Blood also included two cover versions: The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour". The latter was released as a single in some territories. In addition, the album's title track along with the aforementioned "Over You" and "Eight Miles High" peaked at number forty-six on the Billboard dance charts.

The album was made after their drummer Paul Thompson had left the band, essentially making Roxy Music a three-piece band consisting of Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera.

The album cover was conceived by Peter Saville and photographed by Neil Kirk. It features three young women holding javelins (two are on the front cover, one is on the back). Saville worked with no input from Ferry or the rest of the band, but continued the tradition for Roxy Music albums to feature images of women on the cover artwork. The front cover models are Aimee Stephenson (at the front) and Shelley Mann; the model on the back cover is Roslyn Bolton (her modelling name was Ashley). Stephenson can also be seen in a Levi's Route 66 commercial of 1976.

Just over half of this album has been played live over the course of the band's career, most of the performances coming from the then "Roxy Music Flesh + Blood" tour in 1980-81 supporting the album. The tour had to have some dates cancelled due to Bryan Ferry having a kidney infection. The band performed "Jealous Guy" after John Lennon was murdered. This tribute performance was the inspiration for the band to record the song and release it as a single.

Track listing

All songs written by Bryan Ferry except as noted.

1. "In the Midnight Hour" (Wilson Pickett, Steve Cropper) 3:09
2. "Oh Yeah" 4:51
3. "Same Old Scene" 3:57
4. "Flesh and Blood" 3:08
5. "My Only Love" 5:18
6. Side two
7. "Over You" (Ferry, Phil Manzanera) 3:27
8. "Eight Miles High" (Gene Clark, David Crosby, Roger McGuinn) 4:55
9. "Rain Rain Rain" 3:20
10. "No Strange Delight" (Ferry, Manzanera) 4:44
11. "Running Wild" (Ferry, Manzanera) 5:03

Roxy Music "Roxy Music"

Roxy Music is the debut studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. It was released on 16 June 1972.

It was generally well received by contemporary critics and made it to number 10 in the UK Albums Chart.

The opening track, "Re-Make/Re-Model", has been labelled a postmodernist pastiche, featuring solos by each member of the band echoing various touchstones of Western music, including The Beatles' "Day Tripper", Duane Eddy's version of "Peter Gunn", and Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"; the esoteric "CPL 593H" was supposedly the license number of a car spotted by Bryan Ferry that was driven by a beautiful woman. Brian Eno produced some self-styled "lunacy" when Ferry asked him for a sound "like the moon" for the track "Ladytron". "If There Is Something" was covered by David Bowie's Tin Machine, and was later featured quite extensively, almost as a central figure, in the British film Flashbacks of a Fool.

Several of the album's songs were thematically linked to movies. "2HB", with its punning title, was Ferry's tribute to Humphrey Bogart and quoted the line "Here's looking at you, kid" made famous by the 1942 film Casablanca; "Chance Meeting" was inspired by David Lean's Brief Encounter (1945). "The Bob" took its title from Battle of Britain (1968) and included a passage simulating the sound of gunfire.

Discussing the music, Andy Mackay later said "we certainly didn't invent eclecticism but we did say and prove that rock 'n' roll could accommodate – well, anything really".

The band had been rehearsing and re-working the songs for a couple of months before they finally found a recording place, after which the entire album was recorded in the space of a single week. This was necessary because there was no record deal as yet, and their managers at EG were financing the sessions themselves, paying £5,000 in recording fees. The album was produced by King Crimson's lyricist Peter Sinfield, who had recently left that band. In May 1972, a few weeks after the recording sessions, a contract was signed with Island Records and in June the album was released.

The band's penchant for glamour was showcased both in the lyrics and in the 1950s-style album cover. The photographer Karl Stoecker shot the cover, featuring model Kari-Ann Muller, who later married Chris Jagger, brother of Mick Jagger (a stylised portrait of Kari-Ann Muller also graces the cover of Mott the Hoople's 1974 album The Hoople). The album was dedicated to Susie, a drummer who auditioned for Roxy Music in the early days.

Roxy Music, particularly the album's LP incarnation, has been released in different packages over the years. The album's original cover, as issued in 1972 by Island Records, featured a gatefold sleeve picturing the band (including original bass guitarist Graham Simpson) in stage attire designed by Antony Price,[4] and did not include the track "Virginia Plain". The album's original US release, in late 1972 on Warner Bros. Records' Reprise subsidiary, included "Virginia Plain", which had since been issued as a single in the UK. The original US release also featured a gatefold sleeve, but replaced Simpson's photo with that of Rik Kenton, who played bass on "Virginia Plain" following Simpson's departure from the group.

US distribution of Roxy Music was transferred from Reprise to their affiliated company Atco Records in 1976, and back to Reprise in the mid-1980s. LP editions of the album pressed in these timeframes were without the gatefold sleeve and band photographs, instead providing liner notes on the rear album cover.

The original LP release did not contain any singles. In July 1972, a few weeks after the contract was signed, Roxy Music recorded two more songs, "Virginia Plain" and "The Numberer", that were released as a single. It peaked at No. 4 in the UK Singles Chart and helped push sales of the album, which itself went to No. 10. In most later repressings of the album, including CD versions, the song "Virginia Plain" has been included.

Versions of all nine tracks of the UK album were recorded by the BBC for the John Peel show on 4 January and 23 May 1972, with the earlier session featuring David O'List on guitar.

Track listing

Original UK release

All tracks are written by Bryan Ferry.

Side one

1. "Re-Make/Re-Model" 5:10
2. "Ladytron" 4:21
3. "If There Is Something" 6:33
4. "2HB" 4:34

Side two

1. "The Bob (Medley)" 5:48
2. "Chance Meeting" 3:00
3. "Would You Believe?" 3:47
4. "Sea Breezes" 7:00
5. "Bitters End" 2:02