So with that I move on to Roxy Music, a group I've never heard of before but hope I wind up liking. The cover offers me no useful information. This person is either Ms. Roxy Music, in which case I'm expecting a sultry Liza Minelli inspired alto, or she's just a paid model posing for a photo that eventually wound up on an album cover. The first song of the album clearly indicates this is a power-rock somewhat similar to The Stooges, in that they play a driving blues number complete with a saxophone but thankfully a much fuller sound. The song has very little varition in it's arrangement, but at least it's not as embarassingly bad as Fun House was.
"Ladytron" is more expansive and hints at an early new wave genre. Add in a bit more distortion and reverb on the rhythm section and I'd think this weird sci-fi infused tune was straight out of the depths of the 80s. "If There Is Something" includes a long descending instrumental that features a squeaky extended one-note guitar (or possibly saxophone) solo.
Roxy Music really was ahead of its time in 1972. From my previous knowledge rock music wasn't supposed to get this weird until Talking Heads made it big. "2HB" even has a laid-back almost shoe-gaze atmosphere. "The Bob (Medley)" has a long section in the middle where the musicians have inserted (poorly) synthesized explosions over very little melody. Kind of cheap to extend a medley with long sections featuring almost no music.
Lyrically nothing really stands out on "Roxy Music". The lead singer uses a lot of tremello and off-key harmonies. Long passages of the music pass without any vocals. In many cases the vocals are low in the mix making them difficult to understand. But the rest of the album was pretty interesting, just not really entertaining. In my limited experience I can say Roxy Music may be the initial seeds of what would spawn into 80s music. That makes it a relatively important album to hear before you die, I guess. 2 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment