Roxy Music

Ferry's favorite Roxy album and the last with Eno is a stunner, especially side 1 (the opening 5 tracks). The lyric to "Beauty Queen" ("what we share is an ideal of beauty") sums up the Roxy Music manifesto perfectly, while the elegantly creepy "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" takes the obsession with surfaces to it's ultimate ---- and ultimately grim -- conclusion.

Stop doing the stroll, mouse, limbo, eighty-one and peppermint twist. Give the Strand four
minutes of your time and you won't think of doing another dance for at least two weeks. In
an album that is remarkably inaccessible, "Do The Strand" strikes with immediate impact.
This lead-off number, written by lead singer Bryan Ferry, is the cleverest use of language
and rhyme since "I Am the Walrus." "Tired of the tango? Fed up with fandango? ..... More >

These guys make no secret of having a strange idea of a good time, but this isn't decadent, it's ridiculous. Side one surrounds two pained, strained torch jobs with two classic neo-rockers and finishes with a song about an inflatable sex doll that's almost not stupid (title: "In Every Dream Home a Heartache"). Side two surrounds a fast fast one with two long mostly instrumental slow ones that are almost not boring. Verdict: almost not not bad. (Grade - B)