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Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure CD (album) cover

FOR YOUR PLEASURE

Roxy Music

 

Crossover Prog

4.17 | 374 ratings

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ZowieZiggy
Prog Reviewer
4 stars "THERE'S A NEW SENSATION, A FABULOUS CREATION, A DANCEABLE SOLUTION, TO TEENAGE REVOLUTION"

With those lyrics as opening the album, one will ask : Can Roxy produce another fabulous album a year after their first one ? Could it be as creative and original ? Let's see ...

"Do the Strand" opens the fire quite brilliantly. Their hit single (in the US, continental Europe and Japan, since it was not released as such in the UK) a la "Virginia Plain" is a great rock song : very good piano and sax, vigourous drumming. The Strand is whatever turns you on : tango, fandango, the Sphinx, Mona Lisa. Even Lolita and Guernica did the Strand. Extraordinary song.

"Beauty Queen" allows Ferry to use his crooner type of vocals to make this track a memorable one. Although it starts like a nice and gentle melody, it gets harder and quite rocky further on.

"Strictly Confidential" is rather weird track. Strange atmosphere (but we'll get more of this type on the album). The intro and the background music could have been a Crimson song. In turns into a magnificent cacophony hard to describe and one feels like a kind of bewitchment growing on. Exceptionally bizarre but I like it. It's probably Roxy's darkest track.

With "Editions Of You", we get another great Roxy moment : quite rhytmy song with again a great work from Mackay on sax and Manzarena on guitar. It's the second highlight of this album. A Roxy anthem. It is so wild a song that it has been considered as the first punk song ever written (believe or not). The duo Eno / Mackay is absolutely fabulous.

"In Every Dream Home A Heartache" has again 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?).

Then we get "The Bogus Man" : 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 9 minutes) and a bit boring at the end.

"Grey Lagoons" is another wonderful song in which Ferry can express his lyricism once again. The tempo gets crazier after a while and, again, Mackay has a dominent role here. It is rocking like crazy (Roxy?). Bass play is very good during the "solo" of weird sounds in the middle section (just before Phil's one. The solo I mean, not the weird sounds).

The title track closes the album and it is of the same vein than "The Bogus Man" : repetitive, a bit too long and dull.

This is probably the less accessible Roxy album. Not recommended to start with. It will reach number four in the UK charts.

So, to give an answer to the initial questions, I have to say yes and no. Yes because there are fabulous songs in here but some others are rather complex / experimental. The combination is rather hard to digest at first. But the more you listen to it, the more you like it. So, be patient, it is not a matter of love at first sight here. You need to reach the maturity of an old couple to love it. I am mature enough to do so now. Four stars.

ZowieZiggy | 4/5 |

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