Up to Siren it is "pure Roxy" From then on in it morphs into the Bryan Ferry band?
It's so obvious really to us that was there from the start!

- Bullshit!

What do you mean le freak ? Was pre 1975 not pure Roxy and did the band not morph? What you saying ?

I`ve always meant that the biggest difference is between the music before and after RM disbanded in 1983. There`s an audible difference in the music. I would only use the phrase "Bryan Ferry band" from then on.

Then there of course also is a difference in the music between the first five albums and what came after. "Pure Roxy"? - There were certainly less guest musicians, if any at all. What is more important is that the music developed. To me, the first five albums sounded totally out of fashion ca. 1980. You could even say irrelevant. I got rid of some of them. This might sound harsh and stupid today, I know.

However, the fact is that the overall sound is a lot more sparse in both late and early Roxy, compared to Bryan solo after their split in -83.

There`s truly less Phil and Andy on Avalon. All the same I think they must have had their say in the final product. You could call it the tense absence of Phil and Andy "rocking out". The music breathes of strict supervision. What is there, are as important as what is not. Could this be Bryan`s idea? I would doubt it. We haven`t had too much of that on the BF solo albums.

Well, it is only my opinion. Guest musicians start to appear from Manifesto onward. For me this was the line in the sand and even more so with the next two albums.

Hello le freak,

To say that the first 5 Roxy albums are irrelevant in any comparative context makes me assume you may be deaf, or young.

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.

Speaking for myself, yes it does. I acknowledge that that must sound irrational to many people but I hold such a huge emotional stake in the "real" RM that it trumps logic.

For me, it is a slightly different issue than maintaining the integrity of the line up. Rather, it is about maintaining the integrity of the brand. Band members come and go in many bands but the core membership remains and the musical direction, while evolving, stays true. This was not the case with RM and I have made the point on an earlier thread that the Roxy Music name should have been frozen with the 1975 split. There was nothing wrong with most of the guys getting back together but if they were going to go down the "Housewives Choice" route then they should not have rekindled the RM banner which was a bye-word for cutting edge up until that point. It felt cool and high on street cred (or should that be "playground cred"?) to be a fan of the real RM and this new direction just blew that self image out of the water..

After the initial euphoria of the band re-forming waned and I started really hearing what was on Manifesto, serious doubts started to appear. Flesh and Blood just wiped out any lingering hope for me at that time - to the point where I avoided Avalon and took the huff with the guys for more than a decade. I know that this is not rational but I almost felt like a lover spurned and I was unable to accept the RM/BF output over that period despite its undoubted quality. So although I could recognise that there were some top drawer tracks (albeit of the "wrong" genre) on Flesh and Blood and Avalon in particular, I just couldn't shake my emotional response to the change in direction enough to enjoy them for what they were - but instead rejected them for what they weren't. I think that just releasing the albums under a different name than Roxy Music would have prevented that OTT reaction on my part (e.g. WS2's imaginative "Ritz" or maybe even "The Bryan Ferry Band" as a straightforward acknowledgement of where things had got to by that time)- but there you are! It took me a long time to reverse this approach and just enjoy the music for what it was rather than bemoaning what it wasn't but, thank heaven, I eventually got there - otherwise I would still be missing out on some fine music.

I am not really sure what my point is here, John. I think it is simply that it is possible to have so much wrapped up in a band that it knocks logic for six. For me, this was to do with Roxy - the brand. For others, it might be Roxy - the line up. There is no accounting for emotional attachment but when it kicks in then it is an overwhelming force. And I say this knowing that there are others on this forum (including yourself, obviously) who commit much more time, money and energy to RM than I do but who nonetheless were able to react in a more balanced way than I did at that time.

I largely agree with Avondale. A group of musicians can be compared to the ingredients in a meal. If you change one ingredient, or even add one herb/spice, that can be enough to ruin a good meal. I happen to love Chicken and Spinach Balti - but it can vary quite a lot from restaurant to restaurant.

I think it would be great to know who was playing what on different tracks because it might confirm what many people had already suspected. If the Brecker brothers are really on Manifesto then I would defintely like more info on this.

Thinking about the Roxy tracks on which M and M don't appear, I think that "Flesh and Blood" (the song) played live is far stronger than the studio version. Similarly, it was very interesting to hear M and M contribute to "To Turn You On" on the last Roxy tour. I appreciate that I am a saxophonist and might well be biased, but I nearly always prefer the live arrangements because Andy is featured more heavily.

Roxyrama (tribute band) have changed drummer once whilst I've been in the band. Both drummers are truly excellent but our current drummer is much more "Paul Thompson", whilst the last was more jazz/funk "Andy Newmark".

Some one commented earlier in the thread that Andy Mackay was conspicious by his absence on In Your Mind. BF might well have thought that Mel Collins et al were better saxophonists, but from my perspective Andy Mackay is such a strong ingredient in the Roxy sound that he almost single handedly makes songs sound Roxy.

I don't know how many of the posters on this forum also have all of the solo albums but in my opinion Manzanera's Diamond Head sounds much more like Roxy than any of the Ferry albums. I also think that Andy's most recent little album (and the Psalms, which are on Soundcloud) is really pure Roxy and Phil's album 6PM and the Corroncho album are outstanding. Frantic, in my opinion, has two or three really strong songs, Dylanesque is largely a waste of time and Olympia could/should have been excellent. Bizarrely I think the Jazz Age is superb...a curate's egg perhaps but song choice is strong and the musicianship sensitive and faithful.

Meandering post this I know, but I wonder if Boys and Girls reaching number one after Avalon was similar to Thunderball's record takings after Goldfinger. There's another analogy worth thinking about. The first three Bond movies are fresh, innovative and different - but every Bond movie since has followed the Goldfinger format.

JO'B

Is that right - Gilmour played the solo on Editions of You??? - really