VivaRoxyMusic.com wrote:
I say this often that being such a fan of any band can be a handicap to enjoying an album.
Most music fans (not band fans) stick a CD on and 45 minutes later they like it or are indifferent or hate it or will want to give it a few more plays before it grown on them. The point I am making is that it is judged on what they hear and not what they read on the sleeve/credits and absorb some self inflicted preduces for the music. I once read on a now defunct forum some fan asking if anyone knew what songs Speddng played on In Your Mind so that he knew which songs to like........ honest that was a post.
I have heard BF/Roxy's music being critisised for being:
Covers
Not the original drummer etc
Old demos that began 10 years ago and now finished of for an album
X amount of guitarists on the one track
etc etc etc
Does it really matter what is 'pure roxy' or not? How many albums by other artists do we listen to that we don't know the hsitory behind and just enjoy the album. Do we listen to Grace Jones last album and say ' some of these songs were demoed 10 years ago' I use that as an example because her 'Hurricane' album was amazing and it was about a year after I bought it that I read some of the songs were from an unreleased album recorded 14 years earlier, did it all of a sudden sound like a bad album?
Another artist I love is Lloyd Cole and have most of his solo albums. I know not nor care not if the original 'Commotion's Drummer plays on them, I don't know how many guitarists played on track 4 of his second solo album and if I studdied the writing credits I may find there is the odd song he didn't write on them but none of this matters to me and I don't let it get in the way of my enjoyment.
How many Roxy fans enjoyed manifesto more than they do now since they found out years later that Paul Thompson didn't play on all the tracks.
How may Ferry fans don't like songs like You Can Dance, Alphaville, Cruel, Fool For Love The Only Face etc because they were demoed for unreleased albums in the mid 90's, it's not Ferry's fault we sneaked a look under the magician's cape.
The first song Ferry wrote was Psalm but it took 3 albums before he finished it. Grey Lagoons was demoed on the original June 1971 demo tape, Dance Away and This Island Earth were first recorded/demoed in November 1976 for In Your Mind but ended up on other albums years later. BF had said at the time of Bete Noire that New Town began during Manifesto. Does this make all these songs bad now that we know this. Does dsicovering that Dave Gilmour played the guitar solo on Editions Of You make it a bad song, should it make any difference.
That's the handicap of being a die hard, we know too much.
J.O'B.
I agree with most of this John - particularly that fans are pretty nerdy and want to know everything there is to know.
There are two things at work here IMHO - back in the day we generally were oblivious to 'ghost musicians'. We thought that the band played all the instruments and that album credits told the truth.
We now know that is not the case - didn't Jimmy Page and Clem Cattini play on The Kinks' You Really Got Me? There are many more examples of this where individual band members were thought not to be up to scratch in the studio. Coldplay is another example but hats of to the band they refused to go along with the label - for them the band was the band.
Recording and live playing are two completely different things. The microscope is intense.
In America it is usually about pure musicianship - I know there are exceptions but generally bands are formed with musical excellence in mind whereas in the UK the "band" is the thing. Its about mates and musical compatibility.
TBSB had a major major impact on Ferry. It was the first time he had played with American session players and yes he felt the difference. (He would have got the same if he had recorded with London session players).
Those sessions undoubtedly led to Ferry using sessioners on Roxy albums and TGPT's eventual departure. He got sucked into the world of the grid merchants at the end of the 70s and hasn't left since.
I think a lot of his solo work is great but it is what it is - solo work played by some of the best musicians you can buy.
What the solo stuff lacks is the edginess of a band playing together - none of them were master technicians but boy what a great band.
As someone who plays the drums, I appreciate how good some of these pro session players are. They are simply amazing but they are not TGPT, PM or AM who have their own distinct style and technique.
Simply they are uncomparable and I know what side of the fence I come down on.
Great thread by the way
