Erland, I'm a bit like you. I love all the albums, no matter what period, and although I don't like every song the same way, there is not one song I put the forward button for. As I sead before, it depends on my mood which album I put on. Bryan/roxy is the only who never let me down through all those years, and that's just what makes them unique to me.

There is a lot of stuff I am not so fond of and that is natural for any artist who has a large body of work. My least favourites are Another Time Another Place, Siren & In Your Mind and could expand why if anyone was interested.

I have noticed no one has really answered the main point of this thread. We know what differences and why there are differences between the first few albums and the last few. The main point I was trying to get answered was 'what should these guys have done and still be succesful and interesting if not the last 3 albums without repeating themselves or making the same album over an over again?' Would the Eno era been of any value going on and on. Would the Jobson/Gustafson era have had any value or interest 6/7 albums later, I don't think so so what should Roxy have done instead?

I think one of Roxy/Ferry's success and lack of success is the same thing, their diversity. I always find it difficult to make a compilation to entice someone into Roxy/Ferry. First I have to know what other stuff they listen to then judge from that. There are lots of bands and artists I know some people will either love all their stuff or hate all their stuff. I think one of the main things I admire about Roxy/Ferry is that so much of their stuff (successfull stuff) is so diverse and that some poeple will love a lot of it and dislike a load of it too.

There are some artists, huge artists selling huge venues and CDs by the millions making more or less the same music they have done for years. Ferry/Roxy don't sell as well anymore as he/they is/are a victim of their own diversity and to me that is more credible.

Here is a quote from an interview I did for this site with Jonathan Rigby who wrote the Roxy biography 'Both Ends Burning'
<snip>
VRM. Out of all the Roxy Music songs why did you choose Both Ends Burning for the title of the book.

JR. Apart form being a great title in itself, and on top of that one of my favourite Roxy tracks, I felt that 'Both Ends Burning' was a useful way of indicating where I stood on the early Roxy/late Roxy debate. Though each end of Roxy's career was very different, each was very strong in its own way and I thought that 'Both Ends Burning' was a good way to describe that."
<snip>

Just a short story...

I was 14, Summer of 74, and went to London with my parents for a week holiday. Anyone remember 1974? Long hair, peace and victory badgets, very tight trousers dangling leggs, India-cotton flowery shirts..short jackets with fake-fur around the shoulders and on..
There, think it was Oxford Street, a red 2 floor-London-bus with a huge poster-ad from "Another Time, Another Place" record, with the probably most cultural incorrect person at the time, in a white tuxedo, and a sigarette, in front of a pool and an apparent American lookalike estate.. my mother thougt it to be a Dean Martin ad or something.. then two years later, I knew who he was, when I was introduced to the first song of Roxy Music "Both ends Burning" from "VIVA, Roxy Music".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtLfh7Ett5c

"Long hair, peace and victory badgets"

-At least, that was no longer sensational. The album by Bryan (Another time, another..) might be incorrect, but there was an edge lacking....

Oh deffinatly, or should I say "maybe"..

The three album; "Another Time.., Let's stick... and In Your Mind" had a HUGE influence on my generation as presentable concepts of artistry, sound, and not least STYLE.

The oriental-american soundscape on In your Mind, listen to Japan which was triggered in 77/78 (post-punk era) and compare the soundscape. Very Californian too, and a slice of Curtis Mayfield orchestrastions like in Love me Madly and Tokyo Joe..

I still listen to pearls like the titled song from 1974, I also find The "in" Crowd nice.. but as Ann says over here, it's a sort of a personal moody memory-bank o good and great tunes.

Sometimes Sushi overrules Chateau Briand... and sometimes...well u know..

It would be quite unfair if Ferry or RM should be measured by Music Historians only, who seems to measure "popular-music" in it's limited sense. I'm not participating on this forum because of their sales-figures. More because the cultural myth and wind o change they made. And their tunes of course. The whole package, so to speak.


I think the question on influence, should be raised to those who were influenced by them. Both Ferry and Bowie were profoundly popular around the end of the seventies among pop-people at the time. Both built stage-characters and mystique surrounding their private lives. Still I think Bowies openness may have served him well. And some scandals of course, which might have been some of the spicey ingredients that caught the attention on him.

Perhaps Ferry is a more natural with-holder or shy, which makes him more mysteroius, but that neccessarily lift the sales-rates.

If one ask the fashion and design industry, they will probably point him out as more influencive than Bowie... I always wondered why he never had his own collection...it would have levitated..

H&M by Bryan Ferry, or blow some life into resting fashion-houses like Paco Rabanne, Pierre Cardin or Fiorucci.