My first sighting of Roxy Music was on Top Of The Pops in Autumn 1972. I recall being impressed with Paul Thompson’s beefy muscles, Bryan Ferry’s small microphone and unusually perfect teeth and Andy MacKay’s oboe. What a glorious noise they made! They didn’t look like normal human beings and they didn’t make normal human sounds. I didn’t buy the single because I bought the LP. Virginia Plain wasn’t even on it. It marked my final purchase of 1972, following on from Electric Warrior, Telegram Sam, Metal Guru, Slade Alive!!, Rock And Roll Parts 1 & 2, Sylvia’s Mother, School’s Out, Hunky Dory and All The Young Dudes, most of which were acquired second-hand from deals with friends or acquaintances. I felt I was becoming sophisticated.
Roxy Music, simply, got better. Over the years, they released sixteen singles in the UK, every one of which is pearl, all very different, yet recognisably Roxy Music. The quality never wavers below superb. Even the cover version, Jealous Guy, their only number one, exudes class, a fitting tribute to a fallen hero, with amazing whistling.
Virginia Plain
Pyjamarama
Street Life
All I Want You
Love Is The Drug
Both Ends Burning
Trash
Dance Away
Angel Eyes
Over You
Oh Yeah (On The Radio)
Same Old Scene
Jealous Guy
More Than This
Avalon
Take A Chance With Me
Their least successful single was Trash. It was a heart-stopping moment, a reunion after an impossibly long four years away. In 1979, the UK wasn’t ready for such perfect, icy, art-rock. It reached number forty. The follow up, Dance Away, fared much better and convinced Ferry to pursue a smoother sound. Nevertheless, they never lost a certain frisson, usually mediated through guitar or sax. Try Same Old Scene.
Has any other act released a comparable string of singles, all pearls?
I too saw them on TOTP. That first album was sensational. I love the later ones and don’t have the middle ones, I think because I had developed the arty contrived voice allergy by then which ruled Bowie out too, sadly. I’ve got over it to a degree, but is the reason I can’t stand either of them doing covers – great in their own stuff, hopeless on anyone else’s. See arguments passim. Contriving a fake arty voice as part of your overall persona is clever stuff. Expecting it to translate to, picking an absurd example, a Canned Heat number is too ridiculous to imagine.
Back to the OP, the singles are amazing aren’t they. “Love is the drug” especially.
As a late 70’s early 80’s boy it was “Dance Away” “Jealous Guy” and “Avalon” that brought them to my attention and swiftly passed me by. I suppose I should own a Best Of, any better than others?
The Jams run of singles are peerless, perfection and the growth from “In The City” to “Beat Surrender” in 5 years while not favoured by the hardcore fans on “The Jam Society” Facebook page is brilliant.
@Tiggerlion help please Amazon has about 10 different Greatest Hits / Best Ofs which one do you recommend?
Here’s where the value is:
Not all the singles (Trash is missing, for example) but a few cracking album tracks (including Mother Of Pearl, possibly their best song). Very cheap, too.
Thanks, I’ve got an Amazon voucher burning a hole in my pocket, this is perfect.
Are both ends burning, Dave?
I quite like the fact that, in a reversal of the normal way of things, that Roxy Best-of CD actually finishes with the song that was the opening track of their first album, “Re-Make/Re-Model”.
Me and my mates all decided to buy our first single at the same time in 1979. We were 9/10 years old and there were around a dozen of us. We decided that the best two singles to choose from were Pop Muzik by M and Dance Away by Roxy Music, so half of us bought one and the other half the other. I was in the group that bought Pop Muzik, as I preferred it at the time. Prefer the other one now though. But would a bunch of 9/10 year olds now buy something like Dance Away?
That Jam run of singles in full:
In The City
All Around The World
The Modern World
News Of The World
David Watts/”A” Bomb In Wardour Street
Down In The Tube Station At Midnight
Strange Town
When You’re Young
The Eton Rifles
Going Underground/Dreams Of Children
Start!
That’s Entertainment
Funeral Pyre
Absolute Beginners
Town Called Malice/Precious
Just Who Is The 5 O’Clock Hero? (charted at number 8 in the UK as an import only)
The Bitterest Pill (I Ever Had To Swallow)
Beat Surrender
Mightily impressive. Chartwise, they only really got going with their cover of David Watts.
Yes, and in addition to the 3 double A-sides above, at least six of the B-sides are superb as well.
The Butterfly Collector
Smithers-Jones
Liza Radley
Tales From the Riverbank
Pity Poor Alfie
Shopping
A tremendous run.
I would agree with you on 15 out of 16. Sadly for me “Jealous Guy” is a duffer. Dreary and dull in stark contrast to the other 15.
Cover. QED.
Hmm.
Jealous Guy, with different lyrics, was rejected by The Beatles for The White Album, and when you consider some of the tracks they accepted, Lennon must have been stung. He reconstructed it for Imagine. In Lennon’s hands, it is a plea to Yoko for forgiveness, painful and personal. Beneath it is grief for the break up of the band.
In the aftermath of Lennon’s murder, I think it an excellent choice for a tribute. Roxy Music honour the song. They don’t mess about with the arrangement and the musicianship is immaculate. This time, the grief is at the forefront. Jealous Guy is no longer being sung to a particular person. It still captures the essence of Lennon’s frankness and his open personality but there is a dark, mournful hole in Roxy Music’s version that cannot be filled by any amount of whistling, no matter how good. As is often the case with Roxy Music, Andy MacKay’s sax solo is the emotional centre-piece.
The video is a bit naff, though.
I afraid I’m in the 15 out of 16 camp. Jealous Guy is the same league as Everybody Hurts and Imagine, maudlin self indulgent claptrap. But they get a pass like the others because of the strength of all the other songs.
It’s whingy and self pitying in almost any hands. Frankie Miller had a decent go at it.
Is the correct answer. Everyone else who has sung it follows Lennon’s slightly whimpy vocal. Frankie sounds like he’s raging. The arrangement is superb, with those horns, at the end, echoing Frankie’s jealous vocal.
And the reason, as you say, is he actually sounds jealous, rather than like someone making a pathetic excuse for misbehaving at a party or something.
You’re all wrong, of course. The best version, obviously, is Donny Hathaway’s from Live:
https://youtu.be/JxUSQC-KAHM
I agree, Tigs – a great run, though personally I can’t abide ‘Love Is The Drug’. Funny, I always though they had more singles before ‘Trash’ – my first Roxy album was one called ‘Greatest Hits’, in the late 70s. It was/is a fantastic compilation with several other amazing tracks on it that I always assumed had been singles, ‘Mother of Pearl’ being a classic example.
The 4CD box set is to be recommended to, collecting up the B-sides (although the best of these, ‘South Downs’, was erroneously presented backwards).
The B-side of ‘Trash’, ‘Trash 2’, is preferable to the A-side in my opinion – though I understand why the A-side version would have seemed right at the time. I seem to recall seeing them , or a video of them, on a Kenny Everett TV show at the time. Something about Bryan’s campness and totally-committed dad dancing was strangely compelling. There is something absurd about him, and their songs are structurally fairly simple, and yet they exude an aura of sophistication – definitely an act greater than the sum of its parts.
I find it a heady, musical mix. Ferry’s romantic whimsy is set to a boiling cauldron of passionate playing. While Ferry is mooning over some girl, often a chimera, the lads in the background get their rocks off and explode into outer space.
Jealous Guy is great if only for the line “I was swallowing my pen”
That first run of albums before their lates 70’s hiatus was outstanding.
Great basswork by the recently departed John Wetton on this live version of Out Of The Blue
There isn’t enough oboe in rock, is there? And Roxy really do ‘rock’ on that performance – Bryan’s like a slightly manic lounge singer maintaining an edge-of-the-cliff poise over a cauldron of crunching fury. Bryan Fury. Whoever it is on bass (is it Wetton?), the bass playing (and drumming) is fantastic.
I’m in a Ferry/Roxy Facebook group, The Main Thing, and it’s fair to say that most of the die-hard old timers are strictly ‘first five albums only’ (and even the fifth is somewhat passed over). I don’t subscribe to this point of view, I love the early stuff for its sheer excitement and innovation, but recognise that it would have been ridiculous to expect them to continue in that vein in the long term. I equally love the later work; it was created in a different context with different aims, and Avalon in particular is a masterpiece, having essentially established its own terms of reference. I disagree with the notion that Ferry can’t do covers ( I seem to recall having this debate on here more than once). His interpretations of Dylan in particular are always interesting and affecting, and the fact that Dylan’s vocals are highly ‘mannered’ themselves makes the criticism levelled at Ferry somewhat moot. Personally, I think the issue of his voice is overstated; he certainly presented that arch persona in the early years to suit the material of the time, but I’d suggest that his vocals from Flesh + Blood onward have been much more natural and genuine. Although it has lost a lot of strength, I like the ache and vulnerability in his voice over recent years. Finally, regarding the point of the OP, it is indeed a phenomenal run of singles, although for me LITD suffers from over-exposure, being the only Roxy song owned and played by any radio station anywhere, ever, and having seen and heard him perform it ad nauseam on numerous tours (see also Let’s Stick Together). I’d personally be quite happy if I never heard either of those again.
Ditto Aqualung and Locomotive Breath in the case of Jethro Tull.
Agree on Tull. Why Ian keeps knocking out the same 20 songs when he has so many other brilliant ones is beyond me. This is the root of the split with Martin Barre I think – MB wanted to, perhaps, not do Bouree or a bit of TAAB for once and do something off Benefit or whatever.
I’ve been listening to the radio for over fifty years. I struggle to think of a record with such an alerting snare sound. My ears prick up, like a dog responding to the food bowl being rattled and before long, I’m lost in its groove.
i’m a die hard old timer, it’s got to be their first 4 albums for me when they were the best band going. I don’t know if it is a coincidence but they were the only albums of theirs recorded as a band all in the studio at the same time. For the later albums advances in technology allowed the band to do their thing separately.
I’ve tried to like Roxy Music, but really only Love Is The Drug does it for me (and Kylie’s cover is better).
This fascinates me – to me, LITD is unlistenable, turgid, whiny bilge and yet almost everytghing else by them is, to my ears, terrific. Baffling!
LITD is slinky and funky. The rest is a baffling racket to me!
You don’t even like the blow-up-doll song?
….and please think of poor Gary Tibbs!
Definitely mainly a guys band.
I recall listening to the debut on headphones in a Brighton record shop, after the big Melody Maker cover story, before Virginia Plain. The speakers were broken and gave a constant drone on the one side. I thought that was how it sounded and was supposed to sound for quite a while. wacky art students, eh?
But best song? Nah, Tiggs, it is this, from that debut.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ay4v7mhEh54
From the slightly naff, cod-countryish opening until, bang, suddenly the transition and the drawn out ennui of the 2nd part. The GPT (great Paul Thompson) is on terrific form, especially from the sax motif that moulds the song into it’s magnificence.
A fantastic track, Retro! My Roxy preferences are maybe slightly odder than the usual ‘two era’ split – simply because of how I discovered them as a kid in the late 70s/early 80s, I ended up with Greatest Hits, the first album, Siren, the live album, Manifesto and Flesh & Blood – and those are, in a way, ‘the canon’ to me – later bolstered by the 4CD box set. So I don’t really know the 2nd, 3rd, 4th albums or Avalon.
You are missing a treat, Colin! Purchase them all forthwith.
No, in a way it’s ‘too late’. I heard and immersed myself in those records when I was young. It was a more intense experience, when you got a record and really listened to it and knew it back to front. I don’t have that in me any more. I’m sure I’m not alone in this.
This thread was prompted by the discovery of Apple Lossless. Twang nudged me into purchasing the Steely Dan masters from 1999. On Apple Lossless, they sound magnificent. I then moved onto other albums with high production values. The Bowie Who Can I Be Now? box finally made sense. The Talking Heads & My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts remasters are superlative as are the Little Feat ones on their box set. Next up, Roxy Music and bloody hell, I’m as immersed in their catalogue as I was as a teenager. Not listened to much new, though.
Wonder when the Steven Wilson remix of the first album will appear? Though I think it’s only in 5.1 and I don’t have a system.
That’s part of this long-in-waiting 9 disc set around the first album. I know someone ‘close to it’ and, in a nutshell, it’s dragging on forever because Ferry insisted on his own ‘people; taking control of the design. The cost for punters is, alas, likely to be serious (if it ever appears).
Isn’t this the only thing that’s ever appeared from the set – an extended version of Ladytron plus the Virginia Plain B side The Numberer, both given the Steven Wilson treatment for a Record Store Day single.
I listened to this on a poxy iPad. The detail is tremendous.
Yep, I bought a copy on the day too. Terrific. Remember, Bryan Ferry is the man who somerhow louched and lounged in a squinty-eyed, bow-tie-loosened, gently-disshevelled haze through about 10 years while making something that eventually turned out to be an album called Mamouna – and in all that time still somehow forgot to add any melodies. I’m not holding my breath over that box set. One can imagine a veranda overlooking the sea in a slowly decaying Meditteranean mansion, once owned by Charles Aznavour or Greta Garbo, with Ferry waking at noon, offering a chilled Chateau Whatever 1923 to a couple of rather overawed young men in suits from Europe’s most expensive design agency:
Men in suits: ‘Er, here’s the latest designs for the box set Mr Ferry…’
Ferry: ‘No, no, dear boy, too… um… too… er… well, it’s ‘not really Roxy’, is it? Have some more bubbly, won’t you? Try again… whole new concept… film noir… Andy Warhol… Humphrey Bogart… Rococo art… Peter Saville… Betty Boop… Peter Blake…’
Men in suits: ‘Er….’
Ferry: ‘Oh, just give it a go… no rush… come by my place in Monaco in December, eh?’ (*sings to self: ‘Now the party’s over….’*)
Just get a girl or two to flaunt their bodies outdoors. That should do it.
You do realise he’s been touring constantly for over five years and also released three new albums in that period? Hardly the louche slacker of popular imagination.
The more likely reason for the delay on the first-album project is his chronic perfectionism, which was also a big factor in the mythical Horoscope album being put on hiatus before, following the ‘palate-cleansing’ exercise of the Taxi recordings, it emerged in the radically altered guise of Mamouna.
Yes, Blackie – I know he’s been busy lately, though there was a time when he really did seem to be caught in an endless cycle of tinkering in studios. Maybe the money ran out.
I’ve been listening to this for years without noticing the debt it owes to Joe Meek.
Yebbut you really must invest in Avalon. It doesn’t matter that you’re not in the full flush of youth – it never was a young person’s album, it’s ‘adult’ in the best way
Yes. If you enjoy Flesh + Blood, you will love Avalon.
Ah, but funnily enough, Blackie, it ‘isn’t’. Let me explain… Part of the appeal of Roxy back in the day was that they *seemed* so sophisticated and luxuriant and intriguing. Years on, like seeing the wizard behind the curtain in Oz, I can ‘see the joins’ – it’s just a pop group in a white tuxedo. I have enough musical and recording nous to see that the sophistication is rather faux – that’s not to denigrate them at all (as I said, their music was greater than the sum of the parts) but rather to say that it doesn’t hold the same fascination for me – especially if I hear something from that era that I didn’t know when I was younger. I just think, ‘four chords and some crooning – they got away with a lot’! And yet, because of the power of nostalgia I can still get lost in the first album or Manifesto – magical stuff!
So, weirdly perhaps, I would much rather spend a load of cash on a box set of the first album plus outtakes etc (a 9 disc set is being prepared – though its now way overdue) than spend a fiver on a CD of ‘Country Life’.
You say “four chords” like it’s a bad thing. For me the point at which rock lost its way was when it decided that complexity was a good idea.
“Adult in the best way” – sounds good to me.
hurrrr
I can’t believe you passed on Tiggs’ “Andy McKay’s oboe” comment. Are you feeling alright?
You’re assuming I read his post.
PS. Whither Shatner’s Bassoon?
Tl;dr
Yes I agree, Avalon is a must. Must spin the vinly later. Bête Noire is good too, I recall.
Always had a soft spot for the Boys and Girls album, with Gilmour on guitar duties – and also the recent-ish one that featured the tracks that were originally intended to be on a ‘comeback’ Roxy album – was it Olympia?
DG’s on Bete too.
Yep.
I played Jealous Guy, 7″ vinly, only on Thursday. It’s great, if overlong. I like the slightly amateurish whistling.
I bought These Foolish things – great album – at a car boot sale in Dunswell in 1998. It was the absolute end of the sale and even the stall I bought it from was packing up. I can’t hear Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall – even by Dylan – without the Vic Reevesian image of me striding across an empty sports field on a white-skied English day holding a Bryan Ferry album.
I got These Foolish Things last year, also at a boot sale (shocking!). After I was over the initial shock and hilarity I came to quite like it.
I nearly saw Roxy three times. The first time I actually missed them. They were supporting Barclay James Harvest at Hobbit’s Garden in Wimbledon. Stayed in the pub for the support act and everyone was raving about them. A big Doh! from me. I did see them twice at the Croydon Greyhound. First time – they were supporting Mister Bowie. Quite a good double bill as I recall.
The best compilation is the original vinyl one, as Colin recommends. It just roars.
Avalon is Robin Hitchcock’s favourite album of all time. Never quite sure why, though I like it okay.
An up for mentioning drummer Paul Thomson – the real secret weapon of Roxy Music in my opinion.
I love Paul Thompson’s drumming on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRll-jqmrrw
(2HB)
Anybody looking to explore the Roxy catalogue could do a lot worse than investing in this box set:
Beautifully packaged (each album comes in a glossy high quality gatefold replica sleeve with protective inner sleeves), you get all 8 Roxy studio albums plus a double CD of non-album singles (hello, Virginia Plain!), B-sides and alternate mixes.
Yours for around a fiver a disc – you can’t beat that with a big stick…
See, that’s the kind of scrummy thing to get my tongue lolling out and my mouse finger itchy. But then I remind myself it’s Roxy ‘Music’ and the urge disappears.
I bet your husband is disappointed.
The Urge Disappears…. an album of Low demos if ever I heard one.
I never “got” Roxy Music for a long time.
My introduction to them was probably “Jealous Guy”, but more “More Than This” and “Avalon” – it just seemed a bit lounge lizard/bland/shiny suit.
The only other song of theirs I knew was “Virginia Plain”
Oh, how little I knew … some years later, a box of records was obtained containing the first 5 albums.
Now I can see what everyone was on about
Madness must be contenders for the pearly run of singles club (1979 – 86):
“The Prince”
“One Step Beyond”
“My Girl”
“Baggy Trousers”
“Embarrassment”
“The Return of the Los Palmas 7”
“Grey Day”
“Shut Up”
“It Must Be Love”
“Cardiac Arrest”
“House of Fun”
“Driving in My Car”
“Our House”
“Tomorrow’s (Just Another Day)”
“Wings of a Dove”
“The Sun and the Rain”
“Michael Caine”
“One Better Day”
“Yesterday’s Men”
“Uncle Sam”
“Sweetest Girl”
“(Waiting For) The Ghost Train”
All collected on two perfectly formed compilations (Complete & Utter Madness)
(I’ll be honest, I can live without “The Sweetest Girl”, but I don’t consider it a blot on their copybook)
Bang on! At last, someone other than Dave Amitri has answered the question posed in the OP. Also, I’m quite fond of Sweetest Girl.
The Smiths would be a belter of a list………
Here we go……..
“Hand in Glove”
“This Charming Man”
“What Difference Does It Make?”
“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”
“William, It Was Really Nothing”
“How Soon Is Now?”
“Shakespeare’s Sister”
“Barbarism Begins at Home”
Meat is Murder
“That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore”
Meat Is Murder
“The Boy with the Thorn in His Side”
The Queen Is Dead
“Bigmouth Strikes Again”
“Panic”
“Ask”
“Shoplifters of the World Unite”
“Sheila Take a Bow”
“Girlfriend in a Coma”
“I Started Something I Couldn’t Finish”
“Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me”
“Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before”
We have a winner
Why is Meat Is Murder listed twice, without parentheses?
Neither MIM nor TQID were ever official singles as far as I remember.
That will be my copy an paste fail, sorry chaps. The list I “borrowed” included which album they came from, which I neglected to delete, twice in MIM’s case. Neither were singles. Still a great list though
I was wondering if someone would mention the Madness singles – – but as big Scritti Politti fan I must say I love their cover of Sweetest Girl – they did a fantastic arrangement especially with the extra horn parts and added a knowing lyrical adjustment “The maddest group in all the world – How could they do this to me” which to me is them pre-empting what some of their fans would be thinking on listening to the record.
How about “the” Buzzcocks run of singles from 1977 to 1980?
Orgasm Addict
What Do I Get?
I Don’t Mind
Moving Away From The Pulsebeat
Love You More
Ever Fallen In Love…
Promises
Everybody’s Happy Nowadays
Harmony In My Head
You Say You Don’t Love Me
I Believe
You can add the Spiral Scratch EP at the top as well if you like…
And at the risk of irking a certain everydecadeapartfromthe60s-dodger, how about the Clash 1977 to 1982?
White Riot
Remote Control (they didn’t want it on the la-hay-bel, you know…)
Complete Control
Clash City Rockers
(White Man) In Hammersmith Palais
Tommy Gun
English Civil War
I Fought the Law
London Calling
Train in Vain
Bankrobber
The Call Up
Hitsville U.K.
The Magnificent Seven
This Is Radio Clash
Know Your Rights
Rock the Casbah
Should I Stay or Should I Go/Straight to Hell
I firmly believe that “I believe” is the top pick of all the Buzzcocks singles – the Great British Rescord Buying Public obviously did not agree with this assertion as it failed to make the charts.
What happened?
(one for the Non Hit Wonders thread)
Maybe it was the ‘put your hands in the air like you just don’t care’ chorus of “There is no love in this world anymore” that stymied it…
They had lost their punk audience because they had been getting poppier and the punk crowd was younger and much more hardcore than it had been a couple of years earlier. The same thing happened to the Undertones, as they “went pop” they lost their existing audience and failed to replace it.
I can’t help staring at that Clash list and wonder how anyone could possibly denigrate them.
Yup,spot on!
Oh, i think you’ll find they’re not a patch on Freddie and the Dreamers, with all their big hits and TotP appearances.
The first 4 Roxy albums (and early singles) are tremendous; “Siren” slightly less so, “Manifesto” a return to form, but I was not am fan of “Flesh and Blood” or “Avalon”. I never managed to see them, which is a disappointment (they cancelled the Brighton concert in 1980, which was a disappointment). I loved the artiness and affectation plus Manzanera’s rock chops and inspired cover versions/ imagery. Eno’s early involvement did no harm. I still think Bryan Ferry’s tux is one of the great rock and roll looks. At the time it was positively radical and subversive.
I suppose it’s about time I weighed in here. A string of superb singles – Roxy Music??? Art College Wankery of The Highest Order.
Jam, Madness of course, impeccable and magnificent. Roxy’s list -are you just plain bonkers??? Next you will be telling me that T Rex made better records than the impossibly twee but enduringly wonderful Tyrannosaurus….
And don’t get me started on the Dylan covers, “I will just stand here in my Louche Smoking Jacket and pretend to be meaningful”. That’s my gun, here’s my head.
Great to see you, Lodestone. It’s still warm where you are, isn’t it. Are you enjoying a Tuscan red?
Bloody freezing, wet and windy: Languedoc has moved to Aberdeen. Twas a nice local red last night, always sharpens my critical faculties (I might be Wrong about that)
New Order did, 1981-87:
Ceremony
Procession
Everything’s Gone Green
Temptation
Blue Monday
Confusion
Thieves Like Us
Murder
The Perfect Kiss
Sub-culture
Shellshock
State of the Nation
Bizarre Love Triangle
True Faith
Touched by the Hand of God
I’d extend that run of singles to include:
Fine Time
Round and Round
Run 2
World in Motion
Regret
the ones that followed aren’t too shabby either with perhaps the exception of Jetstream.
I’d suggest that Shellshock and SOTN are well below the standard of the others – New Order by numbers. I thought so at the time, even though, as a devoted fan, I duly bought them.
I seem to be unusual in that lyrics can really ruin a band for me. That’s the trouble with New Order: Barney can’t even aspire to Sixth Form, and it wrecks the whole thing, even when I like the sound.
This is why Japan is the greatest source of past-pop appreciation and reissues. No I’m not kidding.
Has any other act released a comparable string of singles? Er, The Beatles?
But, absolutely a great singles band. Time does not wither them. I agree with tiggerlion though, their finest hour is Mother of Pearl which is enough to give them immortality on its own.
“Dance Away” seemed to be played incessantly at the church youth club I frequented aged 12. I hated it, the greasy and creepy looking singer and (what seemed) their only other song, Angel Eyes.
Then a compilation called ‘Formula 30’ acquainted me with Virginia Plain, which I also managed to clock on some TV retrospective.
I love most Roxy stuff, not a great fan when it gets too smooth or too jarring. I quite like Ferry’s funkier reinterpretations of earlier material like 2HB and Re-make/Re-model.
There were enough songs i didn’t like on the compilation I invested in, like Street Life, Do the Strand, Pyjamarama and Sign of the Times, to put me off buying the individual albums for quite a while. But the hit to miss rate is higher on most of the albums. I agree re Mother of Pearl – superb. As are Same Old Scene, The Main Thing and A Really Good Time.
Oh dear. I thought it was impossible to dislike Pyjamarama.
Wait. It’s possible to dislike Do the Strand?
Both I’m afraid! I didn’t get the memo on what I was supposed to like. Give me Song for Europe or Both Ends Burning any day of the week!
I love Roxy but let’s hear it for (as Radio 1 DJs called them) Depeshay Mode
Here’s the first 25 singles :
Dreaming of Me
New Life
Just Can’t Get Enough
See You
The Meaning of Love
Leave in Silence
Get the Balance Right
Everything Counts
Love in Itself
People are People
Master and Servant
Blasphemous Rumours
Shake the Disease
It’s Called a Heart
Stripped
A Question of Lust
A Question of Time
Strangelove
Never Let Me Down
Behind the Wheel
Personal Jesus
Enjoy the Silence
Policy of Truth
World in My Eyes
I Feel You
Well you’ll get no argument from me. Even the lesser songs have their place and this run spanned about 13 years, steadily building up the quality.
This is one of my favourite moments. Between 1:00 and 1:30 we see them starting by far the biggest show of their career up to 1988. As they perform the first lines behind a curtain, the shared looks of excitement between Dave Gahan and Martin Gore are, basically, what it’s all about.
I’ve suddenly realised. I know virtually nothing about Depeche Mode.
A relatively unbiased Afterworder writes: I think you’d be surprised how good they are.
A best of Depeche Mode should in everyones record box. The best, if a little expensive comes broken down into 1981-85 and the 86 – 98. Now that’s a band that’s really been on a journey…….
Wot no mention of this imperial phase?
Cherry Ring
The Baby, She’s on the Street
God Bless Whoever Made You
You’ll Always Find Me in the Kitchen at Parties
Big Shot
Stop the Cavalry
Louise (We Get It Right)
Shaggy Raggy
Re-arranging the Deckchairs on the Titanic
I Think I’ll Get my Hair Cut
Love Detonator
For shame.
Hmm, I gave this some thought and came up with Squeeze. However, due diligence (not wanting to look like a civilian) sent me to Wikipedia where I saw quite a few misses in between the hits. I’m talking about the Imperial Phase from “Take Me, I’m Yours” to “Black Coffee In Bed” here.
I’m stunned – stunned I tells you – to find out that “Goodbye Girl” only made it to 66, and I’d never heard of “Farfisa Beat” or “If I Didn’t Love You” either, so that ruins their run.
So I give you…. Wham!
“Young Guns (Go for It!)”
“Wham Rap! (Enjoy What You Do)” (reissue)
“Bad Boys”
“Club Tropicana”
“Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go”
“Careless Whisper”
“Freedom”
“Everything She Wants”
“Last Christmas”
“I’m Your Man”
“The Edge of Heaven”
“Where Did Your Heart Go?”
Absolute pop gems, the lot of them, and most of them #1.
Now you’re talking!
A very good run, but adding “Where Did Your Heart Go” is a bit of a cheat.
It was released 3 times on singles, all during the course of 1986. First as the B-side of “The Edge Of Heaven” in June, then in October as an A-side which either did not chart in the UK or else was not released here and stalled at #50 in the US. It was then released again on the B-side of a second re-release of “Last Christmas” in December ’86.
Plus, of course, it was a pretty faithful cover of a Was (Not Was) album track.
Farfisa Beat and If I Didn’t Love You are both tippety toppety tunes.
Farfisa Beat and If I Didn’t Love You were only singles in the USA IIRC. Only Pulling Mussels and Another Nail were UK singles from Argy Bargy.
Has no-one considered the fabulous run of PreFab Sprout singles and albums? Not like the Massive.
The name of this band is….
Love → Building on Fire
Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town
Psycho Killer
Pulled Up
Take Me to the River
Life During Wartime
I Zimbra
Cities
Crosseyed and Painless
Once in a Lifetime
Houses in Motion
Burning Down the House
This Must Be the Place
The Lady Don’t Mind
Road to Nowhere
And She Was
Stay Up Late
Wild Wild Life
Love for Sale
Hey Now
Puzzlin’ Evidence
Radio Head
Blind
(Nothing But) Flowers
You missed out Slippery People and Girlfriend Is Better, both live from the Stop Making Sense soundtrack, released in 1984 before The Lady Don’t Mind. Both are really good and qualify as pearls.
Much as I love ver Heads that list does tail off slightly toward the end.
@tiggerlion Yes, I left out all the ‘live’ singles for reasons of personal prejudice.
Bloody hell, the correct answer is Talking Heads…!
I went to see Stop Making Sense at the cinema and was completely awestruck. The soundtrack, however, was a let down. It didn’t reflect the movie I’d seen. The individual tracks on the singles were superb. I loved the gospel singers on Slippery People and the rhythm section on Girlfriend Is Better (the squelchy synth noises are fun too). It was only when The New Edition was issued in 1999, did I start to fully appreciate the LP. It was expanded from 9 to 16 tracks, sequenced to match the film and with longer versions. For 15 years, I only had those singles. Today, thanks to your reminder, @Leicester-Bangs, I’ve just had a fine time enjoying one of the best live albums created.
https://youtu.be/HFS2oz-i3Ik
Amen brother Lion!
I had the same experience with the film and the album. I went into the cinema (actually the Whitgift Film Theatre) possessing only two Talking Heads records – 7″ singles of Once in a Lifetime and Houses In Motion, along with a few tracks on various compos (eg Cities on the NME’s Dancing Master, which appeared in a VHS version of SMS once and has I think since disappeared)
I came out of that cinema solemnly vowing to buy every Talking Heads album in existence. It took over two years, we’re talking my very early teens here, a poor lad’s pocket money! But thank god the last one I bought was the SMS LP, it’s as flat as a witch’s tits… those dreadful drum overdubs, what were you thinking? The only good thing about it is DB’s aphorisms on the sleeve. “People in ecstasy look ridiculous” etc.
The current SMS CD is simply the film without the pictures, which now seems pointless but was exactly what we wanted back then.
Thanks guys, you just made me slightly more skint – but probably slightly happier?
Oh come on, not even a mention of the group who effectively invented the term “imperial phase”…?
West End Girls
Love Comes Quickly
Opportunities (Let’s Make Lots Of Money)
Suburbia
It’s A Sin
What Have I Done To Deserve This
Rent
Always On My Mind
Heart
Domino Dancing
Left To My Own Devices
It’s Alright
So Hard
Being Boring
Where The Streets Have No Name / Can’t Take My Eyes Of You
Jealousy
DJ Culture
Was It Worth It
Can You Forgive Her
Go West
I Wouldn’t Normally Do This Kind Of Thing
[… and obviously more after this, including some belters, but I’d say this is the definitive PSB “IP”…]
Superb!
Even better – the one that whiffs a bit of U2 was a double A with “How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously?”.
And I’d certainly have continued Liberation/ Before/Se A Vida E (was there a ropey single between the albums? Me memory’s not great)
Good point about How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously…
Next in line on the list were Liberation, Yesterday When I Was Mad and Paninaro ’95, certainly their weakest threesome up to that point for my money, so I figured I’d bow out gracefully with I Wouldn’t Normally, though Liberation was a close thing…
Between 1964 and 1973, the Kinks released all these singles.
Number of stinkers: very few
Number of pearls: LOTS!
“You Really Got Me”
“All Day and All of the Night”
“Tired of Waiting for You”
“Ev’rybody’s Gonna Be Happy”
“Set Me Free”
“See My Friends”
“Who’ll Be the Next in Line”
“A Well Respected Man”
“Till the End of the Day”
“Dedicated Follower of Fashion”
“Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight”
“Sunny Afternoon”
“Dandy”
“Dead End Street”
“Mister Pleasant”
“Waterloo Sunset”
“Death of a Clown”
“Autumn Almanac”
“Susannah’s Still Alive”
“Wonderboy”
“Days”
“Lincoln County”
“Starstruck”
“Picture Book”
“Hold My Hand”
“Plastic Man”
“Drivin'”
“The Village Green Preservation Society”
“Shangri-La”
“Australia”
“Victoria”
“Lola”
“Apeman”
“God’s Children”
You are right. I am fond of Kinks singles but not of their albums.
Public Enemy, 1987-1991
Public Enemy Number 1 / Timebomb
You’re Gonna Get Yours
Rebel without A Pause
Bring The Noise
Don’t Believe the Hype
Night of the Living Baseheads/Terminator X To The Edge of Panic
Black Steel In The Hour Of Chaos
Fight The Power
Welcome To the Terrordome
911 Is a Joke / Revolutionary Generation
Brothers Gonna Work It out
I Can’t Do Nuttin For You Man
Can’t Truss It
Shut Em Down
Nighttrain
Diminishing returns set in before the end there, but still…. wow.
…. I’ve just discovered that in this period (and beyond), PE had more hits in the UK than anywhere else. Go us!