THE EARLY YEARS

This compilation includes 16 tracks from the first 3 albums "Roxy Music", "For your pleasure" and "Stranded" (on that LP Eddie Jobson replaced Brian Eno). In the early Seventies Roxy Music looked like ' glamrockers' and sold their records with seducing ladies on the front cover. But this was not a commercial trick to hide poor musicial ideas, in my opinion Roxy Music made in that era unique progressive rock (or call it art-rock). And they had hugh commercial success: the eponymous debut LP reached a #6 position in the UK charts and their singles "Virginia plain" and "Pyjamarama" became top 10 hits, their third album even peaked the album charts! On this compilation you can enjoy the dynamic, rock- based but inventive and often exciting sounding compositions: rock and roll in "Re-make/re- model" (great guitar-saxophone interplay and legendary short soli from all instruments), soft Mellotron waves in "Ladytron" and "If there's something" and Brian Eno's short and fat synthesizer sound at the end of the funny and catchy "Virginia plain". Let you carry away on 'classics' like "Do the strand" (great lyrics), "Editions of you", "In every dream home a heartach" (in fact a wonderful symphonic rock composition!) and "The bogus man". Roxy music their trademark in those days was the chemistry between the fiery electric guitar from Phil Manzanera, Andy MacKay's poweful saxophone, the tasteful keyboards from Eno and Jobson (and his spectacular electric violin sound) blended with the disctinctive, a bit sultry vocals from frontman Bryan Ferry. DESPITE THEIR COMMERCIAL SUCCESS THIS IS AN OVERLOOKED PROGROCK BAND, DISCOVER THEIR EARLY SEVENTIES SOUND ON THIS COMPILATION!!

"The Early Years", I have always found it a bit difficult to enjoy early Roxy Music as I do the later & Bryan Ferry. This time, after being more convinced about their importance and very high respect in art rock genre, I nearly succeeded: I thought yeah, this is clever, witty, original, quirky, parodic, etc and not so difficult to digest as I thought before. But when I re-listened this compilation I decided I'm quite happy without this music and returned it to the library. That is, I kind of appreciated and liked it but didn't personally enjoy it greatly. But to those who know only the easy-listening Avalon-kind of Roxy Music/ Ferry, I can honestly say that they were worth their status as an original art rock/avant garde band (when also "Brain One" was with them, though Ferry was always the writer).

I liked most 'Ladytron' & 'In Every Dream Home a Heartache' which I knew before, and few others, but I'm too lazy and comfortable to try hard to start enjoying music that at first sounds a bit noisy to me. Anyway, without a doubt worth checking out if you like quirky, hilarious rock. My low rate only tell how I personally enjoyed it; a couple of stars would easily be added using objectively focused criteria.

This is a wonderful work since it features songs from their first three albums. I do not own this compil as such. I just recreated it from their studio albums. What to say about the track choices ?

Six out of ten come from their first album (which was their more interesting one IMO). I think it would have been better for the casual fan to which this effort is oriented to have "Bitter's End" instead of "2 HB" but this is not a major point. The great "Pyjamarama" only released as a single is of course a fabulous track and is a plus here.

Five songs come from "For Your Pleasure" : the fabulous "Do The Strand" and "Editions Of You" : they were the strongest tracks of the original album. "Beauty Queen" was a good one.

About "Bogus Man" this is what I wrote in my review for the album : it's a quite elaborate track with some true prog and complex moments. The ambiance of the track is very special : repetitive, bizarre, decadent and hypnotic. It sounds surrealistic (maybe due to the synth work from Eno). It is way toooooooo long (over nine minutes) and a bit boring at the end.

"In Every Dream Home a Heartache" is about the same story. I wrote that this track has a rather horrific and sinister atmosphere (Peter Hammill could have written this one). It starts with Ferry reciting his text as a psalm, the second part of the song being more "human" (Are We Not Men?).

While essential numbers for die-hard fans (like myself) they are maybe not adequate on a compil effort.

Four from "Stranded" of which only "Sunset" really doesn't belong here.

For the casual fan, this is quite a good way to get the essence of the early Roxy. With this CD, a newcomer could cheaply have a pretty good idea of the output of this influent band of the early / mid seventies. It is the perfect companion of course of their other compilation called ... The Later Years. Four stars.

I had this compilation in the early 90´s, a time when it was nearly impossible to get the original Roxy Music early CDs in Brazil. And I must say I was never satisfied with it. You see, every one of RM´s LPs were a kind of work of art. Roxy was never a singles band and each album meant it was to be seen (or heard) as a whole, a complete efford, not just a mere bunch of tracks put together.. Even if The Early years is composed exclusively of songs from their first three albums (i.e. their best), something is always missing when I hear it.

It is like cutting pieces from a painting and puting together the chosen ones into a new frame, got it? It might sound ok for the casual listener and still he won´t see (or hear) the real, complete thing. Even if the new version of this compilation has some extra songs than the one I once had, the only reason to have it is that it now includes the original non LP song Pyjamarama. And I don´t think thist is reason enough to buy this CD.

Roxy Music was an extremely important band, and their first works were quite revolutionary, groundbreaking and influential. But to understand this you´ll have to listen to the full albums. Each one of their first CDs are essential to any prog music colletion. That´s why I can´t rate The Early Years higher, even if the tracklist is of great quality.

Incomplete.