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Roxy were not virtuosos anyone could hear that.
But they did have haut pretensions, which stood there baldly amid their almost vulgar subject-matter.
This was the high-low pastiche of capital P-A Pop Art, and Ferry was an adherent.
Who was Bryan Ferry exactly?
Its a difficult question, even so many years on.
He is one of the most elusive and difficult figures in rock.
His first name was Brian-with-an-i, and he would eventually become known by only his last name: Eno.
Virginia Plain (1972)
This is their first single.
The most important aspect of Roxy was its postmodernism, putting it a step past Velvet Underground.
(A Dracula-key in Presley, as Ian Hunter once put it.)
And again, back then, this was odd.
Virginia Plain was all of that, encapsulated in one song.
Street Life (1973)
There was a portentous element to that cover ofFor Your Pleasure.
Ferry had his manager ask Eno to leave the band, something of a dick move.
Theres only room for one nonmusician in a band, Ferry is reputed to have said.
Eddie Jobson stepped in on keyboard, and kept the bands electronics challenging and forceful.
The pretense of aesthetic mixtures all in one song are gone.
and Latin (!!)
at the end, and yet wholly convincing from start to finish.
This torch song to end all torch songs was another touchstone for his gay following.
Ten years after the release ofStranded,the song could still reduce willing listeners to tears.
The Thrill of It All rocks convincingly if, as always, archly in a maelstrom of sound.
The track and the rest of the accompanying album are Roxy at its height.
The songs here start out with a bang, a whoosh, or a sweeping fanfare.
The Germanic conceits that markedCountry Life are replaced by pastoral passages in songs like End of the Line.
And Both Ends Burning defines the mature use of synthesizers during this time.
Roxy was always his band.
But his solo work was just commercially persuasive enough for him not to abandon it.
In any case, he never became the international star he wanted to be.
Ferry was plainly watching the music scene change quickly.
The musicians in the Sex Pistols were Roxy Music fans.
New Wave bands like Devo, Talking Heads, and Blondie often sounded like Roxy.
(Members of the latter will be introducing Roxy at the Hall of Fame induction ceremony this week.)
Ferry had never sounded so aching, and his melodies had never been so broadly accessible.
And yet somehow theres something not quite human about him.
The album version, of course, stands on its own.
The sound here was as far from art rock as one could imagine.
Ferry sings at one point.
The beats, over and over again, are vaguely Latin, or simulacrums of Latin.
What this is, thats never explained of course.
Its a moment of longing or consummation too exquisite for words.
This turned out to be the end of Roxy Music.
What did that mean?
It meant that Ferry, particularly, tried to bring some of the aesthetics of Pop Art to rock.
But just as Warhol was taking banal objects and calling them art, so too was Ferry.
