I'm not sure if anybody saw the Guardian piece on the new Roxy Box set last Sunday?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/se ... c-40-years

It seems to me that the writer, Simon Reynolds, was totally unsuitable to do a piece on the complete recordings, as he clearly only likes the first two albums!

I'd also be interested to know what the forum think of how Phil comes across in the interview?

A bit sour?

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Because music publishing operates according to an antiquated, pre-rock conception of composition that rewards those who write the top-line melody and lyrics, most Roxy tunes are credited solely to Ferry. "It goes back to Tin Pan Alley and the 1930s," says Manzanera. "Eno's synth part on Ladytron, Andy's oboe parts – that came from them. Each member was contributing to the music and to all the arrangements. I like to think that we produced the musical context for Bryan to put his vision into. But that's not reflected in the publishing."

It's all the more unfair because, according to Manzanera, from about halfway through For Your Pleasure and onwards, the band would write "the music first – all the music, including the solos. Then Bryan would listen to it and try to write a top-line tune and words.

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I thought it was gospel that in almost every case Ferry started the song on piano - structured the chords - directed the arrangement of solos etc, and only then would record a vocal?

It seems strange that the journalist not once praises Ferry's songwriting talents

Having read the article twice now, it seems to me that the guardian have done a stitch-up on Ferry...with him getting little credit for any of Roxy's creativity and lots of bashing.....?!

"as Ferry gradually asserts total control over the band, the music becomes less characterful."

"The same syndrome affects the lyrics: the verbosity and over-ripeness of the early albums goes, but so too does the imagistic vividness, the unclassifiably mixed emotions."

"In purely musical terms, Ferry's greatest invention is his voice on the first two albums"

"Rather than the players "backing" their singer/leader, then, it would be more accurate to say that Ferry fronted them: many of Roxy's greatest songs would never have been written in the absence of what had been generated first by the musicians."

IMO the piece seems rather one-sided, and very badly written...

The pitchfork review, however ticks all the boxes:

http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/168 ... 1972-1982/

Ferry Fan

There is already a thread about the article here

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1094

I think Manzanera has a point about "publishing" and the way that song writing credit accrued solely to BF. The example of Ladytron is a good one with AM's oboe part being such a huge part of the song.

Of course BF was fully cognizant of the monetary significance of song writing credits - don't think it is by coincidence that almost every song ever recorded by Roxy features BF as at least a co-writer. That's where the money is> And Phil understands that BF gets a much bigger revenue stream from the Roxy catalog because of how the song writing credits were determined.

Some bands - like Black Sabbath - simply shared song writing credit among all members of the band. It was certainly possible for Roxy to have done things differently. But they didn't.

I actually like this review the author has a decent understanding of Roxy history and has written a review that is intelligent with out being fawning. And this section, where he observes:

"The same syndrome affects the lyrics: the verbosity and over-ripeness of the early albums goes, but so too does the imagistic vividness, the unclassifiably mixed emotions. "Songs like Mother of Pearl had masses of words," recalls Manzanera. "In Roxy's first five years there's a lot more witty metaphors and wordplay. But it got more serious gradually, and by the end you had a bunch of haikus, virtually."

is pretty much on the mark. And the author's commentary on Avalon is also quite reasonable.

Clearly Phil is a bit grouchy about BF, but his points are not unreasonable when it comes to the issue of song writing credits. I think Andy would almost certainly agree with him.

I would think the same has happened since then and probably happening as we speak.
I doubt Bryan has ever "written" "the others" parts for them ever? In the true sense Phil is right, they composed their parts as Paul has done on every track probably. But they all did it under direction from Bryan, along with the "top line" and words seems to make the song his.
I remember Guy Pratt having a bit of a go about this. I think he said that the bass riff on Kiss & Tell and more was his but never got a co writing credit on the album. It was around 2006 ish when I read it and Guy's not been seen since in the BF camp.

Hey ho, such is life.

Blur divided it 10% for the drummer, 20% for the bass player, 30% for the guitarist and 40% for the composer/singer. That strikes me as incredibly fair and almost certainly explains why they always give the appearance of really being friends.

I read an interview with Brian Eno a few years back talking about the Roxy financials. Apparantly, in the Eno days, Bryan got all the song writing royalties plus a fifth of everything else,which left the remaining 4 members with not too much to be divided amongst themselves. He didn't expect Bryan to give it all away,but felt that he could have been more generous,or words to that effect.

The money thing is interesting. I always wonder how wealthy PM and AM would have been without BF and vice versa. You do suspect that BF would have pulled together another crew and been a huge success come what may, but I think they touched lucky in bumping into BF. Eno is a more complex conundrum. He's probably the richest of the lot, but I still can't help wondering where he'd be without the BF launch pad.

I sometimes wonder how Paul is? With the others (to a degree) sharing some song writing royalties. I think Paul will have been the one who lost out the most.

I'm beginning to think that the issue of song-writing credits is something that figured into BF's reluctance to finish the Roxy recordings of "05-'06 and allow the release a new Roxy album.

Eno was involved in the January '06 recording session and he has made a practice in recent years of getting song-writing credits for various tracks and albums he has worked on. (recall that he is credited as co-writer for Wildcat Days on Mamouna and for I Thought on Frantic)