Roxy Music released its self-titled debut in 1972 (photo by Brian Cooke, courtesy of Reybee, Inc.).
Very few bands can boast the wide-ranging influence of Roxy Music.
Over the course of eight studio albums, delivered during an 11-year period, the U.K. act created a body of work that would touch and inspire basically every corner of the pop music universe – from punk, college rock and indie-pop to funk, new wave and hip-hop.
The band was brazenly ambitious and artsy during its studio run, using a glam/prog base to then launch out and explore countless other genres.
That’s why there is no definitive “Roxy Music sound,” but more so an attitude – and certainly a stylistic flare – that seems to unite all of the band’s work.
Fans were thrilled earlier this year when Roxy Music announced it was reuniting to mount its first tour since 2011. The trek includes a date on Sept. 26 at Chase Center in San Francisco, marking the first time the band – featuring founding members Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson – has played the Bay Area since Aug. 5, 2001 at the Concord Pavilion.
In honor of the occasion, we seized the opportunity to spend hours listening to the Roxy catalog and come up with a ranked list of the band’s best songs.
So, here are our picks for the top 25 Roxy Music songs of all time.
1 “If There Is Something”
Track three of Roxy Music’s self-titled debut from 1972 is as miraculous as any 6-minutes-and-34-second stretch in pop music history, dramatically detailing – in ever-escalating beauty and intensity – the complete storyline of a long-term romantic relationship. The song is broken up into three distinct parts, each boosting a completely different sound and feel, and yet the whole thing holds together in such compelling fashion.
2 “Avalon”
“More Than This” is the best-known cut from 1982’s “Avalon,” the band’s eighth studio effort as well as its most thoroughly transcendent album. Yet, the title track is the one that truly delivers the magic, carrying listeners off to another time and place – one that seems to exist at the intersection of timeless and fleeting – through a mix of synth, soul and Ferry’s undeniable cool factor.
3 “Mother of Pearl”
Would there be life after Brian Eno left Roxy Music? This nearly 7-minute cut greatly underscored that the group had the power to be just as imaginative, experimental and, without a doubt, impactful in the post-Eno years. And apparently Eno agreed, given that he’s been quoted as saying that the parent album — 1973’s “Stranded” – was his favorite Roxy record.
4 “Out of the Blue”
It’s a really solid song for the first three minutes and change, but then prog-rock hero Eddie Jobson steps up and takes this standout cut from 1974’s “Country Life” into the stratosphere with the soaring work on his famed see-through Plexiglas electric violin.
5 “Ladytron”
The song is intriguingly cold and distant at the start, yet then changes its stripes and reels the listener in completely. It ends as a showcase for Manzanera, who used this 1972 “Roxy Music” recording to announce to a then-unsuspecting listening world that there was a new guitar hero in London Town.
6 “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”
This would surely top many fans’ lists as the best-ever Roxy Music cut. And it’s easy to understand why, as the number from 1973’s “For Your Pleasure” touches upon so many of the band’s trademarks – it’s exotic, experimental, rich in drama, utilizes wildly ambitious musical arrangements and instrumentation, yet still manages to feel cohesive.
7 “Re-Make/Re-Model”
It’s hard to even imagine what it must have been like to originally drop the needle on track 1 of “Roxy Music” back in 1972 and hear such a whirling cacophony of defiantly avant-garde sounds. It’s also hard to imagine a more appropriate introduction to the band.
8 “Jealous Guy”
Roxy Music scored its sole No. 1 single with this emotional rendition of the John Lennon classic, recorded and released just two months after the Beatle great died.
9 “To Turn You On”
The B-side to “Jealous Guy” was just as striking, as Ferry delivered some of the most romantic crooning of his career on this track that ended up making it onto “Avalon.”
10 “Editions of You”
The band just steps on the gas and goes with this “For Your Pleasure” track, delivering a full-tilt rocker that particularly benefits from Thompson’s mighty drum work and Mackay’s honking saxophone.
11 “Love Is the Drug”
Roxy’s fifth studio album, 1975’s “Siren,” opens with the band’s best dance-music number, featuring a groovy bassline for the ages from John Gustafson.
12 “Virginia Plain”
The group’s debut single – which wasn’t included on the original “Roxy Music,” but did make later pressings of the album – is a heady art-pop number that manages to highlight everyone in the band in just under 3 minutes.
13 “The Thrill of It All”
Each of Roxy’s first five albums kicks off in incredibly strong fashion. This particular powerhouse – hailing from “Country Life” — certainly lives up it to its title, in large part due to Manzanera’s fiery fret work.
14 “A Song for Europe”
A work of great sorrow and longing from “Stranded,” where we find out that Ferry sounds just as mesmerizing singing in Latin and French as he does in English.
15 “Angel Eyes”
Roxy Music returns from a nearly 4-year recording hiatus with a sleek, sophisticated new sound – combining elements of pop, disco, soul and new wave – which was wonderfully showcased on this single from 1979’s “Manifesto.”
16 “Do the Strand”
Yet another brilliant opener, this time kick-starting “For Your Pleasure,” “Do the Strand” delivers a decidedly glam-rock twist on the dance-craze-style numbers that lit up the charts in the early ‘60s.
17 “Both Ends Burning”
One of Roxy’s best full-tilt rockers, this “Siren” cut is a 5-minute-plus adrenaline rush that climaxes with some of Manzanera’s finest work.
18 “Running Wild”
The first – and really only – “deep cut” to make the list, this overlooked gem brings 1980’s “Flesh and Blood” to a close in glorious lovesick fashion with Ferry’s aching vocals, Mackay’s hovering sax and yet more of that Manzanera mojo.
19 “Oh Yeah”
It’s a bit staggering to think that the band behind the avant-garde “Re-Make/Re-Model” would also deliver this dreamy slice of soft-rock goodness on “Flesh and Blood.”
20 “More Than This”
The well-crafted beauty from “Avalon” has become Roxy’s one undeniable pop standard over the years, having been covered by everyone from 10,000 Maniacs to Bill Murray (in the Sofia Coppola film “Lost in Translation”).
21 “Street Life”
Ferry sounds like he’s in the midst of crossing a buzzing 20-lane highway — on foot — as his words fight for space amid a wild assortment of synth, sax, recordings of real street noise and other sounds during track 1 from “Stranded.”
22 “All I Want Is You”
The “Country Life” cut is as muscular a rocker as any in the Roxy songbook, propelled throughout by Thompson’s thundering beats and highlighted by Manzanera’s blistering guitar lead in the bridge.
23 “Spin Me Round”
This “Manifesto” offering is one of Roxy’s most heartbreaking songs, painting a picture of a person standing in a now-empty ballroom, amid fallen roses and bittersweet memories, and coming to terms with the reality of the new day.
24 “While My Heart Is Still Beating”
It’s softly sweeping and cinematic, with a blurry and hushed vocal delivery from Ferry enticing us to step further into the world of “Avalon.”
25 “Dance Away”
We could’ve gone a lot of different directions with our final selection, yet none made more sense than including this wonderfully weary, yet entirely danceable disco-era nugget from “Manifesto.”
Originally published at Jim Harrington