I think you're making too much of Andy's quote referencing Olympia and the supposed offer by BF to make it a Roxy Album.

Olympia is largely made up of old BF tracks that he resuscitated and added new backing stuff to (lots of Ollie T and various session players)

The REAL Roxy album was/is the one recorded in 2005 and 2006 sessions that included BF, PM, AM. and TGPT (and Eno in 2006). A lot of work was done on this album and early in the summer of 2006 PM stated how (after the Roxy Summer Tour) they were going to finish it up in the Fall. And then in August 2006 BF announced his plans to (quickly) record a bunch of Dylan covers that turned into Dylanesque that was released in early 2007. And after Dylanesque ran its course, BF decided to focus on Olympia and the Roxy recordings from 2005/06 were left in the same limbo they still languish in.

The stuff about Olympia being a possible Roxy album was simply a bunch of "official statement" blather that shouldn't be given a whole lot of credence IMHO.

I wrote this post in a previous thread a while back showing that Olympia is not and never was the Roxy album:

Olympia - A BF album

I have often heard the Olympia album being accused of being the Roxy album that was hijacked to become a Ferry solo album, I wrote the following on a similar thread on another forum.:

I think you may find that very little of Olympia began as a potential Roxy song.

Roxy were in the studio around 2006-2007

1 You Can Dance (began in the mid 90s completed for Olympia)
2 Alphaville (began in the mid 90s completed for Olympia)
3 Heartache By Numbers (co-written with Scissor Sisters)
4 Me Oh My (No Roxy member plays on this)
5 Shameless (Co-write with Groove Armada)
6 Song To The Siren (Cover, began before the Roxy project)
7 No Face, No Name, No Number (Cover)
8 BF Bass (Manznaera co-write and also Eno on this track)
9 Reason Or Rhyme (Has Manzanera on guitar)
10 Tender Is The Night (Working title was 'Frantic' began pre 2002 and unfinished at the time of the 'Frantic' album
11 Whatever Gets You Through The Night (cover that began in mid 90's
12 One Night (leftover demo from Taxi that was then completed for Olympia)

The question is: What constitutes what would have been a 9th Roxy Music album song? For me it would be material that began for this album as a fresh idea and not something half written/sketched taken off Bryan, Phil or Andy's shelf dusted down and worked into a Roxy song. I would also say that covers are out even though RM did record 3 in their career.

From what I observed track by track above, the closest we can derive from the limited information we have is that 'BF Bass' and 'Reason Or Rhyme' may have began during the Roxy sessions. Having said this please note that Paul Thompson was on the Roxy sessions and is completely absent on this album so the Olympia is 'Roxy Music IX' argument is wearing thinner.

In my opinion, I think that if you were played Olympia for the first time with no sleeve notes or other information and were told one of the 8 original songs is a Ferry/Manzanera co-write I think BF Bass doesn't jump out as that very song.

To quote Andy Mackay from the Metaphors website in referance to some of the material being used on the Roxy album: <<"However I could not feel the commitment and passion that would get me through what would undoubtedly be be a long and difficult road to a finished album on tracks that I had not been involved with from the start>>"

I would deduce from this that there may be some of Olympia (and also any potential new Manzanera solo material) that was worked on during the Roxy IX sessions but was eventually returned to where it was originally intended, solo work.

J.O'B.

According to the interview in Cutting Edge on 14 September 2006 Scissor Sisters clearly thought that they were working on the Roxy reunion album rather than what turned out to be "Olympia".

http://www.vivaroxymusic.com/articles_360.php

"We wrote some great songs with them", they say, songs being in the plural rather than just "Heartache By Numbers".

They were working with BF then and only BF. They may have made the same mistake that many a DJ/ journalist etc have made over the years by referring to BF as RM and vice versa.

I heard the other SS co-write in a 75% finished state and I liked it much better than Heatache By Numbers

J.O'B.

That was four years ago. What constitutes "a long time" I wonder?

What would be the point of a Roxy album ? They would risk ruining their legacy and anyway it would be years before they got back into the studio again for a follow-up. They've had their time. Time to move on.

Up to the release of Dylanesque everyone, including Ferry was making positive noises about the Roxy album then everything just seemed to fall apart, unfortunately from the top as no one will give a definitive reason for the shelving of the album, I still maintain that a lot of expense must have gone into what was recorded for it to just go to waste.

I guess that RM;s recording project never went beyond some vagues ideas. A new BF album in. let s say two years time, is what I hope for.
No, "BF-Bass" doesn t sound like a Ferry/Manzanera song at all.
One month to go till the concert! Please play "Reason or Rhyme"!