STREET LIFE: 20 GREAT HITS

Excellent collection for those who want to get to know Roxy as a superb singles band, with some of lead vocalist Bryan Ferry's greatest hits thrown in for good measure. Their early glam period is represented by "Pyjamarama", "Do the Strand" and a few other lively tracks, but most of the space is devoted to the superbly glossy, melancholy pop of "More than this", "Avalon" and other late hits. Personally, I'll always love this band for the gorgeous "Over You", since I have ecstatic memories of dancing the night away to this catchy tune in the early 1980s. (I bitterly regretted the fact that "Over You" wasn't included in the colourful two-disc account of Roxy's recent (2003) reunion tour!)

On the other hand, if you want to get to know Roxy Music as a "prog-related" phenomenon, you'd be better off with the band's first three or four studio albums, which contain only two of the tunes included here, and which reveal a completely different (i.e. far more experimental) side of the band.

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Whether this is an accurate, or indeed fair reflection of Roxy Music's music is questionable. As the title suggests, it concentrates exclusively on the band's (plus Bryan Ferry's solo) output which enjoyed commercial success in the singles market, completely ignoring any of their more complex album tracks.

Roxy Music were of course extremely successful in singles terms, enjoying far more success than the vast majority of the bands on this site. They combined the fledgling electronic sounds of the period with glam rock and strong pop melodies, to create some highly memorable songs.

This compilation was released over 20 years ago in the early days of the compact disc. At the time, it offered superb value as the 20 songs it contained would easily fill a double LP. Ferry's solo works are mixed in with the Roxy Music songs in pretty much chronological order. As Ferry was the de-facto leader of Roxy Music and the principal song writer, this is a logical approach. Songs such as Ferry's fine covers of "A hard rain's a-gonna fall", "These foolish things", and "Smoke gets in your eyes" sit well alongside home grown band successes such as "Virginia plain", Love is the drug", and "Street life". Interestingly, Ferry claims the song writing credit for "Let's stick together" despite the fact it is clearly an interpretation of the old blues standard "Let's work together", a hit single a few years earlier for Canned Heat.

The set closes with the band's tribute to the late John Lennon "Jealous guy", surely one of the finest cover versions of any song, ever.

This set delivers exactly what it says on box, Roxy Music and Bryan Ferry's "20 great hits". This does not necessarily mean that it contains their 20 best recordings, but for those wishing to obtain a concise summary of their chart successes, this fits the bill nicely.