Track Listing

1. Bitters End
2. Bob
3. Chance Meeting
4. If There Is Something
5. Ladytron
6. Remake/Remodel
7. 2HB
8. Would You Believe
9. Sea Breezes
10. Virginia Plain

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5238 in Music
• Released on: 1999-09-13
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
The self-titled first Roxy Music album opens with what seems to be a ambient recording from a cafe--glasses clinking, low talking, and so on. It sets up a mood of casual elegance that the band explored throughout their career, from sophisticated glamour all the way through decadence. The first song, "Re-Make/Re-Model" becomes, after the cafe introduction, apunchy rock track that mixes an insistent rhythm section, Andrew Mackay's saxophone playing, and Bryan Ferry's unmistakable voice into a cultured warble (the song's "chorus", by the way, is "CPL 593H", the licence plate number of a car).
Roxy Music's early work is a strange hybrid of glam rock, cocktail jazz, and English music hall. The band has a joke at the expense of each, and is clearly enjoying themselves. Other standouts include the classics "Virginia Plain" and "2HB". The first was the band's first single and arguably the most successful song from their early period, with catchy lyrics, a fabulous bridge section, and a beat you can dance to.The second is a ballad inspired by the film CASABLANCA featuring a bubbling synthesizer and saxophone under Ferry's "Here's looking at you, kid" chorus. This is a must-own.

Customer Reviews

The start of it all...
When this album was originally released in the March of 1972 there wasn’t anything else like it around with its use 50’s do-wop and sci-fi themes, it had created a whole new genre on it’s own, “glam rock” with content.
Unlike the others bands at the time that claimed to be glam these guys were, 2 of the members of the band looked like an “Elvis” that fell to earth, “Andy Mackay” and “Bryan Ferry” who at the time were both sporting quiffs with mullets, “Eno” wore make-up and wore strange attire and the guitar hero of the band “Phil Manzanera” looked it a giant insect from an old 50’s b-movie on the artwork that was the centre of fold-out cover of the original vinyl release, this cover was recreated faithfully on the mini-Lp version of this album that came out (August 1999) a few weeks before this jewel case version. The mini Lp version also used the same track listing that did not have the first single on it. When this album came out originally it didn’t have “Virginia Plain” on it, the only way to get that track on this album originally was to buy the “American” version of the vinyl record.

As the album starts you hear what is best described as a cocktail bar as the music thunders into life “Re-make/Remodel” still sounds like one of the best introduction to any debut album of the time.
I think the thing that made this album was the influence of the non-musician in the band “Eno” who approached things from a non-musical direction made all the difference to the overall sound of the whole album with his use of keyboards and the electronic treatments that where available at the time.

Now in this incarnation of the album not only has the sound been up-graded to HDCD standard (as had the mini-Lp version), the track “Virginia Plain” has now been included that now brings together all the tracks from 1972, except the b-side of the single which was called “The Numberer” which at the moment is only available on the box set “The Thrill of it all”.

If you haven’t entered the world of 70’s glam before this or the music of “David Bowie” and “Marc Bolan” of the same time period is the place to start to get a feel of the time, this album is history in a can…

One of the greatest debut albums, here in remastered
form. 1999 having seen a major set of remodelled (but not remade) reissues of the band called Roxy Music. As the recent Early Years set suggests, early RM were the definitive art-rock band, a blend of the alien, with perhaps a dash of Soft Machine or the Velvets; but there was nothing like Roxy Music (c'mon, Bolan & Bowie were mods, then hippes)- looking at the inner sleeve pics, Ferry is a Sci-Fi Elvis, Phil Manzanera is a leather fly armed with an axe, while Eno is beyond cool: a venus in fur?

This eponymous debut comes not only with an improved sound quality, but the addition of debut single Virginia Plain (though sadly other non-LP track Pyjamarama failed to come on this edition, or the reissue of follow-up For Your Pleasure)- rumoured to be a mistake (as the greatest songs sometimes are- see Blue Monday)- the droning synths overwhelm the song as it overloads toward the end. Still sounds like the future to me, Ferry rattling through rococo, if beguiling lines: what's her name?

The remainder is the original debut, from sax-inflected Re-make/Re-model- whose repetition of a number plate finds an influence on later post-punk songs like Joy Division's Warsaw & Wire's 12XU. One of Andy Mackay's key performances (alongside Both Ends Burning) it takes us to one of the great Roxy songs, Ladytron. The first time I heard this was on a Whistle Test repeat (perhaps one of those rock around the clock things from the 80s- I recall Ladytron, Virgina Plain & a wild take of Do The Strand where the band all ended up choreographed in a pose John Travolta would become famous for later in the decade...)- the blend of the alien and melancholy is overwhelming in the opening lines "you've got me girl on the runaround-runaround/you've got me all about town/and it's getting me down-getting me down"- a major influence on Japan (along with...Both Ends Burning), it would even give moniker to an odd band of the moment. As with Virginia Plain, Ladytron seems to pass from Ferry's sublime popsong (after the atmospheric opening later borrowed for Japan's Oil On Canvas take of Ghosts) to Eno's soundscape- which to this day still sounds amazing (& was followed up on the next Roxy album, as well as the solo releases Here Come the Warm Jets & Another Green World).

If There is Something starts off a little country, which is odd, before charting off into alternate directions- as with The Bob (Medley) and closer Bitter's End, there seems to be so many possibilities, so many directions- which is why I'd place this album and it's next two follow-ups alongside albums by Can & Neu! than I would Bowie or T-Rex. The final parts of If There is Something("when we were young") are impossibly moving- in that vague artrock way! 2HB is a wild ode to Bogart, the music a definite influence on Radiohead's Morning Bell (the Kid A version); an argument that the music is a formative example of drum'n'bass is not discounted. It is notable that members of Radiohead and Suede would re-record some of these tracks for the Velvet Goldmine soundtrack (while Bowie covered If There Is Something on the second and worser Tin Machine album, while Siouxie&the Banshees did Sea Breezes on their 1987 covers album Through the Looking Glass).

Chance Meeting's opening precedes many a Kate Bush song, with its stripped piano and oh so individual voice- really, if people think Radiohead are weird doing similar material in 2000, perhaps music tastes can be defined as "retarded". Would You Believe? (nice to see the question mark) sounds like a tryout for Beauty Queen- the boogie-woogie piano the most traditional thing here: the most ostensibly glam track, that could be located to the universe of The Sweet et al. Sea Breezes is another early RM classic, Ferry a maudlin type- alone, alone, alone- the way the song builds and builds- the seven minutes fly by and never seem enough (something that can be said of many a Brit bands prog-tendancies in the early to mid 70s- Kevin Ayers & Robert Wyatt excepted). Bitter's End is an unusual conclusion, ending before it seems to have begun: Roxy Music remains one of the greatest debut albums- ranking easily alongside such releases as The Velvet Underground&Nico, Marquee Moon, Horses, Crocodiles & The Modern Dance. Along with For Your Pleasure, Stranded and Country Life it showcases the brilliance of Roxy, prior to the second wave which was notably more stylized and sadly the favourite of many a permed footy player in the late70s, early80s. Nice to see them recovering their early mindblowing material alongside playing songs like Dance Away, Avalon & Jealous Guy. A key 70s album and one that no home should be without!

Thought provoking and innovative 70's art-rock.
Roxy Music's debut was a fresh breath of bizzare air when released in 1972. Opening with the stunning Re-Make/Re-Model, it doesn't disappoint. The combination of Bryan Ferry's ice-cool vocals and Brian Eno's synths enthralled the record buying public, and the inclusion of Virginia Plain on the current re-issue justifies its importance. Sea Breezes combines power and heart felt emotion before striking into a world of avant-garde sound. Weird and wonderful, the musical content is never po-faced. Key tracks are "If there is something" and "2HB". Utterly indispensible !