Now the new Box set is nearly here I thought it would be interesting to hear Fans' favourite Roxy album and why?

In the late 70s my best mate had an MG Midget and we used to spend hours going from pub to pub looking for girls with Siren always being the soundtrack. It seemed to have the perfect atmosphere for our escapades and to this day is the one I reach for first.

First one I owned was Country Life, I think (still wonder what reaction my dad got from the sales girl when he bought it as my birthday present! ), but I soon bought the back catalogue.

Stranded soon struck me as stronger than CL, but FYP just grew and grew on me and has long been my all time favourite; not a weak track on it.

Beauty Queen & Strictly Confidential are still stand-out songs for me and the artwork on both sides of the gatefold sleeve was never bettered.

By coincidence the first Roxy 45 I bought (at half price as it exited the charts; got to make the pocket money last!) was Pyjamarama, so the FYP era must really have struck a chord in my DNA as I entered my teens...

This is one of those questions that pops up on a regular basis. I've thought about it over the years and come to the conclusion that, for me, there is no perfect Roxy album. They all have a track or two that drags them down, or they don't have enough of Phil and Andy (e.g. Siren where BF keeps singing and singing on BEB and then when Phil starts his lead the track fades out...).

Stranded is good but, taken together, Psalm and Sunset are too much of a drag IMHO. Same with Grey Lagoons on FYP.

Sigh. Some people are never happy...

The first four continue to be totally satisfying for me. Some of 5, most of 6 (manifesto, if we're counting), number 7 growing on me over the years, number 8 (Avalon) waning over the years.

But top honours this summer have now switched from FYP to Roxy Music, I.e. the first album. Just love the weirdness, thinness of production. Steve Severin said a couple of years ago that he had listened to this album after a long gap, only for it to give him "ear worms" where he couldn't get the songs out of his head. Me too.

Smudge - Can't fault your taste and you owe your dad a great debt!

DCJ - I can agree with you on Psalm but come on - try again with Grey Lagoons and Sunset.

RoxySiren - First album contains my favourite song, If There Is Something and that scene on Flashbacks Of A Fool is spine tingling.

Hey, I admit to being crabby. I can't help it!

One of my problems with Grey Lagoons is that it follows The Bogus Man which is a track that just goes on longer that it should (Note: remember I'm a crabby guy...) I prefer the live version of Bogus Man on Viva! (Regarding Viva! it is a very good album but those lousy Siren backup vocals absolutely ruin BEB...)

If Sunset was the only slow track on Stranded that would be OK with me: unfortunately it's not.

Flesh and Blood is a tough one for me because I am a big fan of TGPT and the drums just don't sound like they should. But it is actually very good album (although I could do with out the cover tunes...)

I love the first 3 albums but my favourite has got to be FYP. Why, because, although it significantly polished up on the 1st album (which is not always a good thing e.g. SAHB and Ramones 1st albums have a raw quality that future albums never surpassed) it still contains the initial innovative Roxy character and experimental edge, plus it doesn't contain a weak or filler track.
I am of an age where I got into the early albums as they were released (although it took a wee bit of time to get my head around the 1st album as it was so different to anything that I had heard before - which, of course, is part of the attraction when you are 15 years old) so the albums all evoke memories of the times for me. FYP came out just before Roxy really got taken up by the mainstream rock crowd, so it really was making a statement about just how hip and cool you were to walk around school with that album sleeve tucked under your arm - and what an album sleeve ! So I have an emotional attachment to FYP as well - more so than any of the other albums, which I guess makes me less objective about it .....but so what? A year later, the majority of my peers were into Roxy (pulled in, no doubt, by Stranded's move towards a more mainstream sound) and claimed to have been Roxy fans from the start - but most of them only really caught up with FYP retrospectively. By the way, most of these guys never got into the 1st album as it was a step too far removed from their comfort zone.
Funny thing is that despite all of the above, I struggle to place any more than 2 individual tracks from this magnificent album in my elite of the elite half a dozen or so Roxy tracks, with 3 or 4 coming from the 1st album and 2 from Stranded.

On this subject I am always torn between 2, FYP and Country Life. The soft spot for Country Life is probably because it was during that tour that I had my first live experience of Roxy at the wonderfully atmospheric Glasgow Apollo. Stranded tour sold out too quickly. I think if you had side 1 of FYP coupled with side 1 of CL and add Prairie Rose you have the perfect Roxy album.

Can I open up the least favourite debate? Sorry to the fans who joined late but Avalon by a country mile.

Can I open up the least favourite debate? Sorry to the fans who joined late but Avalon by a country mile.

With you all the way on that one, Jerry; too smooth by half to be a Roxy album...

I agree that Avalon (and also Flesh & Blood) are too smooth to be Roxy albums, but if we are able to put that not insignificant barrier aside, I think that they are both good in their own way. F&B is top quality 80s' MOR (that is not a put down) and I would rate Avalon pretty highly if it had been released as a BF solo album (which is really what it is IMHO). The title track is straight out of the top drawer, that's for sure.

Manifesto, on the other hand, is an uncohesive offering with one song (the title track) worthy of the Roxy tag, maybe 3 other really good tracks (but not Roxy songs) that sound like they were originally destined to be BF solo offerings, another handful that the guys would have been better taking their respective song-writing royalties on but leaving for others to cover, and the rest a cringe-worthy pile of dross that should never have seen the light of day. It is this last grouping that make Manifesto, for me, the worst Roxy album. Avalon and F&B may not have been true to my view of what Roxy's music should be, but at least they exude quality throughout.