Flesh + Blood the album that most Roxy fans are polar about.
I became a music fan in 1979 with my first purchase of any album by any band was Manifesto. Between then and the release of Flesh + Blood I had more or less got the entire Roxy and solo catalogue to that point in time.
Flesh + Blood was the first ever new release to me, everything I had bought of theirs at that point was back catalogue and readily available. To get another Roxy or solo album then was just a case of save up the money I earned working on an ice cream van and go into a shop and buy one, simple as that.
Flesh + Blood was something I had to search the music section in news newspapers and the news section in the music press to see the words "forthcoming Roxy Music album" or variations on that.
Once I got that news it was countdown to the day when I would go into Lawrie TV shop in Kilsyth (my nearest record shop). I remember looking through the LPs on release date and all I was looking for was the words Roxy Music and a sleeve that I had never seen before. I will never forget that moment when I flicked an LP forward to find the next one had ROXY MUSIC FLESH + BLOOD up in the top right corner. I lifted it up to see what I think is one of their best sleeves.
My entry point to that album is very special and may blur my opinion on it but what I would say is that I have never played it and not enjoyed it.
This is a quality album and certainly one of the best of its time, the chart success of the album and singles shows how a lot of people thought the same at the time.
(See the chart info here
http://vivaroxymusic.com/albums_11.php )
The song writing and performances by everyone are sublime. I don't like to pick favourite songs on an album as I never play 'songs' I play' albums' and that's 95% of the way I listen to music:- entire albums start to finish (not best ofs or various artists)
This album is of course a thousand miles from For Your Pleasure or Country Life but there isn't any room for 2 For Your Pleasures or 2 Country Lifes so Roxy had to evolve, and Roxy evolved so well over 8 albums. Roxy couldn't and shouldn't have made any of their albums 8 times over with different songs but the same approach, the same production, the same band line up etc. The early stuff is amazing but couldn't be done over and over again Siren is an example of a band, a formula dead on its feet.
When I listen to this album or any album by anyone I listen to it for what it is and not what it isn't.
J.O'B.
P.S. for the last 42 years I have been unable to join the words "Flesh" with "Blood" by using the word "and" or "&"