Album Review: Roxy Music - Manifesto (1979)

Having a great (although somewhat acquired) admiration for Bryan Ferry alma mater Roxy Music's swansong Avalon, I have come listening with a high expectation of greatness listening to 1979's Manifesto.  And I am not disappointed at all.  I first heard this album years and years ago and was initially unimpressed, but like Avalon (and indeed, many albums) I've quickly grown to love this record.  Sure, "Angel Eyes" sounds a million times better on his Ultimate Collection compilation album, but the more noteworthy songs on this album aren't the ones everybody knows about anyway, as is the case with many great albums.  "Dance Away" is a quintessential song about heartbreak that every Ferry fan...hell, every classic hits radio fan should surely know about.  But enough about those two songs, great as they are.  There's even greater numbers to be savored here, notably the opening title track "Manifesto."  "Ain't That So" is enough to make me move - not frantically, however, but "Trash" certainly floats my boat.  "Spin Me Round" is certainly a good enough way to end the album.  All up, I can say with certainty that I'll be firing this album up on the odd occasion.  An unsurprisingly good album in which such certainty is perhaps only surpassed by the odds that somewhere, someone in the world is, or has, more than likely jacked off to the Country Life album cover.  Shudder at that thought.  Smile at the former.  A-

Album Review: Roxy Music - Avalon (1982)

Most music I listen to varies in appeal along a spectrum ranging anywhere between good and bad, but I've often found my view of Roxy Music's work, as well as that of Bryan Ferry's solo recordings, to be rather bipolar, in that one song may be as fun as sucking on an aspirin tablet coated with nail polish, and another will liberate your inhibitions and subsequently have you booked for disorderly conduct of some sort. It's very much a case of black and white, one and zero, yes or no. But the former is easily resolved with a press of the forward button on your music player, whereas the latter will have you wearing the reverse button out. For instance, "More than This" will bring a tear to your eye, with it's melodic, poetic beauty, whereas the silly-sounding, "These Foolish Things" will bring you down faster than elephant tranquilizer. It's either a work of genius or just a filler, and rarely will you say, 'yeah, I guess it's ok.'

Now, along with 10 million Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry greatest hits albums, I've owned a copy of 1982's Avalon since the industrial revolution and only recently have I been able to understand what makes this album so special, and why critics generally held this album in high esteem. When I first bought it all those moons ago I only liked three tracks, "More than This", "Avalon" and "True to Life" - the rest simply sucked, I thought. But going over them again, I can now see why it's on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of all Time. The title, the album cover, and the songs all come together to produce a record with a part-nostalgic, part-artistic and part-genius aura to it. You might be thinking I was on drugs when I wrote this, but nothing could be further from the truth - it really has a certain quality to it that I can't put my finger on, and that's why I think it's simply a great album. A-