Roxy Music – Siren – De recensies

Recensies

Het vijfde Roxy Music album Siren werd in de Britse, Amerikaanse en Nederlandse pers uitgebreid beschreven. Een selectie daarvan wordt hieronder weergegeven. De Nederlandse recensies bevinden zich onderaan dit artikel.

Melody Maker, 5 oktober 1975

Siren’s call to the ‘real’ Roxy

So vivid is the impression created by this, the fifth Roxy Music album, that I’m reminded constantly, as I return and again to the record the unique impact made by the band on the first occasion I saw them perform live, sometime towards the end of July 1973. Despite the local publicity which preceded the gig at a small, undistinguished country club – the audience was in no way prepared for the spectacle of Roxy Music. The bass player in Budgie was probably the most elegant figure most of them had ever witnessed on stage, so when Roxy breezed into sight like timewarped Star Trek mutants crossbred with some renegade strain of 50’s rock and roll delinquents, there was a tangible air of confusion. By the time they’d been regaled by the sound of “Virginia Plain,” “Re-make/Re-model”, “The Bob” and “2HB” – with Manzanera and MacKay scything across Ferry’s manic electric piano jabs and Thompson and Kenton’s unswerving rhythm, then transformed by Eno’s devious devices into the music of some future apocalypse – the audience had been pushed as far as they were prepared to go. “Play some rock and roll!” demanded a voice from the darkness. Ferry’s immediate reply was devastating. Inscrutable in his black leather regalia, he allowed himself a smile as he focused on the dissenting audience and announced: “We ARE rock and roll.”

I required no further evidence. Roxy Music established themselves as an essential band. The concept of Roxy, for instance, embraced the spirit of rock and roll with affection land a casual arrogance. Their innate intelligence and musical ability – so conveniently overlooked by detractors of the band – enabled them to assimilate past and prevailing styles and techniques and create, in the ensuing synthesis of ideas and information, new possibilities for rock music. Their first album – one overlooked in one’s enthusiasm the shortcomings of Pete Sinfield’s production – was refreshing and inspiring in its audacity, irreverence and, more importantly, in the confidence and originality of Bryan Ferry’s compositions.

“For Your Pleasure”, their second album and prior to “Siren” my favourite Roxy collection, further developed the panoramic, technicolour collage of styles and sounds which made Roxy such an intriguing exciting prospect. It was a totally enthralling album, deriving its strength from the diverse sources of its inspiration and the intelligence and imagination with which those influences were deployed. The very fabric of the music on “For Your Pleasure” was alive and vibrant in a way neither of its successors, “Stranded” and “Country Life,” could match. It was somewhat paradoxical that as Roxy were growing ever more assured musically, they should sound restricted and constrained by Ferry’s use of the band as a vehicle for airing his private obsessions. Perhaps this had to be so. Certainly, such a tactic established Roxy as an increasingly more successful band in commercial terms. Yet both Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay have recently remarked that they regarded “Country Life” as the ultimate expression of one facet of Roxy Music. Mackay, particularly, hoped that “Siren” – which the band had then only begun recording – would recapture something of the quality which had characterised the first two albums. Like Manzanera, he recognised the need to develop away from the aural extravagance which had been taken to its limit by “The Thrill Of It All”.

Independently, Mackay and Manzanera viewed “Siren” optimistically, and one felt assured that Roxy would fulfill all of one’s expectations with their new album. They have. “Siren” presents as substantial a development as one could have expected from “Country Life”. It’s a superb album, striking the listener immediately with a force and invention reserved only for the most special musical experiences. The overall sound, while never lacking the essential characteristics one associates with Roxy, is less dense and ornate than much of its predecessor. There’s a crispness and vitality in Chris Thomas’ production which is reminiscent of the sense of adventure and cavalier spirit which marked their early recordings, an impetuosity which has lately been absent from their : work. The same diligence which was applied to “Country Life” is evident here, but there is, too, an inner radiance which demands one’s exclusive attention rather than the uncommitted admiration the previous work provoked.

Lyrically, the majority of the songs in this collection reflect Ferry’s continuing obsession with unrequited love, starstruck lovers, and the loneliness of enduring heartache whilst maintaining a facade of conviviality. It follows inevitably from the album’s title that this should be the case. (The siren being a mythical sea nymph, half-woman, half-bird, whose songs entranced sailors and lured them to their death.) The songs, then, are frequently addressed to an unidentified female whose insidious and deceptive character has drawn the singer to the edge of despair. The constant permutations on this theme would, in the hands of a less sensitive and original writer than Ferry, have become trivial and tedious. Ferry, however, is so sure in his control that he is consistently able to infuse the various scenarios with an intriguing depth. And, what is even more striking, is the variety and humour with which these songs are graced.

The opening track, “Love Is The Drug” – also released as a single – establishes the new mood efficiently against a vigorous musical backdrop gripping in its staccato propulsion and lent even greater emphasis by Andy Mackay’s brass flourishes. But it’s Ferry’s lyrics which attract one to the composition after this initial introduction: “Face to face, toe to toe/Heart to heart as we hit the floor/ Lumber up, limbo down/The lost embrace, stumble round.” It’s Ferry in one of ‘his favourite personae, as the latenight bar prowler, but given a lighter edge through the less intensely private lyrics. “End Of The Line” and “Could It Happen To Me” find Ferry similarly lovelorn and wasted, but the irony in the lyrics elevates both compositions. They are characterised by infectious melodies and harmonies in the style of minor Sixties’ pop classics. Half familiar but distant. Musically, both cuts are compatible with that mood, with Eddie Jobson’s serenading violin giving a mournful ambience to the former, and Andy Mackay’s brass arrangement lending distinction to the latter. Lyrically, again there is a welcome irony, particularly on “Could It Happen To Me”: “Oh boy, is it getting rough/When my old world charm isn’t quite enough/Once more it’s a crying shame/Only this time no one but myself’s to blame..” Actually, Ferry not only seems to have regained his ability to introduce a certain impertinence to his work, but his vocal style has recaptured the cool, distanced composure and detached insolence of “For Your Pleasure”.

The superficial innocence of the two aforementioned songs gives way to a darker, more intense vision on “Sentimental Fool” and “Both Ends Burning” – with “Nightingale” falling somewhere in between. This latter track has an air of desolation, superbly emphasised by Manzanera’s typically perceptive, restrained guitar and the chilling sonority of Andy Mackay’s oboe. The delicate calm of his solo is broken in a spectacular moment as Jobson’s multitracked violin streaks in behind Ferry’s vocals for the final section of the song. “Both Ends Burning” and “Sentimental Fool” feature Ferry in another of his characteristic disguises: victim of his own hedonism, reflecting on a past of shattered romance and the imminent break-up of yet another relationship, yet unable to control his own desires. Both tracks spotlight Mackay and Manzanera at their most concentrated, creating the perfect musical backdrop for Ferry’s drama. Only one track deviates from the overall mood of the album. “She Sells,” which opens the second side, is something of a curiosity. Without a lyric sheet the significance of the song is elusive. Jobson’s piano leads the band into some transformation of a Thirties swing routine, and from this base Mackay delivers an inspired solo. What can be gleaned from listening with an ear to the speaker sounds fairly ominous, and the lyrics have a definitely cynical edge. It could be interpreted as an attack against some of Ferry’s contemporaries, although that might be too much of a presumption to make without further evidence.

Which leaves us with two more tracks, the album’s triumphant moments: “Whirlwind” which takes out side one, and “Just Another High,” which closes side two on a note of unequivocal grandeur. “Whirlwind” is Roxy at their most reckless. It comes riding in on the back of Manzanera’s guitar, striking a note of pure alarm with Ferry’s vocals. Instead of the sheer cluster of hurtling sound apparent on a song of similar momentum like ” Serenade,” say, “Whirlwind” has the breathless, speed rush of “Editions Of You” (indeed, there’s an almost identically placed organ break here). The crystal like purity of Manzanera’s solo emphasises the prevailing clarity of the piece with astounding precision.

Even “Whirlwind,” however, has to take second place to “Just Another High,” which is as supreme an achievement as either “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” or “Mother Of Pearl.” It is, in fact, “Heartache” which the mood of this song initially evokes, with Manzanera’s guitar creating a similar menacing tension as Ferry half recites the opening lines with an air of disenchantment. He’s addressing another lost love, this time with a suggestion of cruelty: “Maybe your heart is aching – I wouldn’t know now, would I? Maybe your spirit’s breaking up – I shouldn’t care now, should I? Maybe you’re thinking of me – well I don’t know, now do I?” As the piece develops, though, it becomes genuinely moving and takes on something of the emotional gravity which embellished “Mother Of Pearl.” The final effect of Ferry’s voice against the sublime lyricism of Manzanera’s guitar is immensely powerful and the climax where Ferry is joined by a chorus repeating the title as he sings, “Just a craa-a-a-a-zy high to be stuck on you” is quite overwhelming.

You’ll be able to hear it for yourself in about two weeks’ time. Meanwhile, just take my word that “Siren” more than confirms Roxy Music’s position as one of the most essential bands to have emerged so far this decade.

Allan Jones, Melody Maker, 5 oktober 1975

Village Voice, 29 december 1975

Roxy Music, ‘Siren’

Siren is the new album from Roxy Music, one of the world’s better rock and roll bands; it is exciting, exhilarating, and beautifully made – driven by straight-ahead rock power, and ridden with subtlety. There is a better feel for the dynamics of melody and arrangement on Siren than is to be found anywhere else these days, outside of Steely Dan and the Spinners’ “Games People Play” – the care taken with Roxy’s sides can make you dreamy. The songs, which trace a young hustler’s odyssey from cynicism to romance-from, say, Michael Caine’s Alfie to something like Charles Boyer’s headwaiter-as-nobleman act in History Is Made at Night-are completely convincing, and always in good taste.

They are also extremely effete. Now, rock and roll is not supposed to be effete (or, for that matter, in particularly good taste), and the combination helps make Roxy interesting. Mostly, this comes down to singer, songwriter, and band leader Bryan Ferry, who trades in a very intense kind of camp sensibility, perhaps best captured in “All I Want Is You,” from last year’s Country Life LP, which found Ferry warbling “L’amour, toujours l’amour!” as the band charged forward hell-bent in the general direction of “It’s All Over Now.” There are rules against this sort of troublemaking; it says in the book you can’t get away with it, but Ferry does. He lets you know that whatever it is he’s singing about at any given moment is a great joke (and it is); but at the same time, he really means it. Ideally, laughter and despair are the proper responses to most everything Ferry does.

He really does mean it, I think. Ferry works harder conveying ambivalence and distance than almost anyone else does to convey certainty and immediacy-listen to him long enough, and he actually begins to sound like a real person. Every line played by guitarist Phil Manzanera or saxophonist Andy Mackay is exactly in place; the band flies through the tunes, catapulting Ferry through his adventures, while out of the corner of one eye he keeps tabs on the drummer’s timing. Typically, Ferry sounds on the verge of madness in vocals that are arranged with the precision of those on Dion and the Belmonts “I Wonder Why”; the result is unabashed rock and roll with an odd but unmistakable undertone of gentility, music not simply of taking care, but of being very careful.

Which is to say that while Bryan Ferry may not be the thinking man’s rock star, he is surely thinking all the time.

Ferry plays around with a great many personae, enough to imply a fairly classic role confusion, but his touch on Siren is so sure it implies rather that the confusion is less Ferry’s problem than his subject matter. Since Ferry deals in romantic pop, identity means true love, which, utopia-wise, holds out the promise of both identity and kicks. However, our hero (or anyway Ferry’s) has been around long enough to know that true love also contains the promise of absolute disaster: the shattering of what little spurious narcissistic identity he has been able to patch together, and the destruction of his ability to get any kind of kicks at all. (Never was the masochism of the Don Juan closer to the surface than in Ferry’s version). All of which is to say that Ferry is playing out the role, 10 years after mod, of the lower-class young man (aging, though) who has found no crutch in his struggle to survive in a class-bound society save style.

This is not style as we learned about it from long-gone Swinging London-Mary Quant, Lord Harlech being nice to “the new elite,” and all that. In Ferry’s world (as in the real one) the great Cockney tide has ebbed, and things in Britain are as they were. Once more, style can only mean a perfect imitation of the shrug of the shoulders which the upper classes seem to learn before they learn to walk-an imitation of those who do not care, of those whom nothing in this world can touch. It is a lust for a life lived in situ, so to speak, as opposed to the nervous stasis that is the best the Ferry hero can do. He knows the race is to the swift; but he also knows there are those who need only watch the hopeless spectacle from the boxes, if they are interested, which they are not.

Ferry’s man, then, must imitate those who effortlessly keep him down, whose very existence mocks his attempts to emulate them. The world he inhabits simply offers no attractive alternatives; when Ferry’s hero reaches for style, he is not putting on airs, but trying to breathe. Sometimes, he breaks out of the trap (“Don’t want to hear about et-ti-ket,” Ferry cries in “All I Want Is You,” just before lapsing into French); sometimes he tries to blow the trap up. (The cover of Country Life, with its Soho queens lying half-naked in a verdant green, parodied a British magazine of the same name devoted to the buying and selling of the manors to which are born the bulk of its subscribers). And there are those moments in which the singer really does transcend the trap. “Take me as I am,” Ferry pleads in “Could It Happen to Me,” perhaps the finest tune on Siren, “an average man.”

But the game must be played with such second-by-second intensity that one loses oneself in the struggle; style always implies distance, but one’s commitment to style must be so strong the distance is dissolved. Acting as if you don’t care (“Love is a drug/And I need to score,” Ferry chants harshly, kicking off Siren), you find out that you can’t care, and when true love shows its shining face, no one believes your pledge of love, yourself included.

Boo, as Ferry might put it in one of his more brazen moments, hoo hoo.

So the constrictions of class produce spiritual cancer and ultimate debilitation in all who are born short of its kingdom but refuse to settle for less. This is what Ferry sings about, and this is what his singing is about: a strange version of His Master’s Voice. The accompanying music is properly that of hysteria and restraint: the orchestration of a careful and impassioned attempt to stay human, and still win.

Roxy’s triumph is to make good rock and roll out of this conundrum; they turn it into comedy, as Ferry drives in his own pathos, concealing the pain and copping to it too. “Maybe your heart is aching/I wouldn’t know, now would I/Maybe your spirit’s breaking/I shouldn’t care, now should I,” Ferry sings in the gorgeous “Just Another High,” the last number on Siren. He is singing to (or only fantasizing about?) a woman as corrupted as he is. “I was just another jaded guy,” he confesses to her (or only to himself?) “claiming that love, was another high/Just another high.”

Line by line, Ferry climbs out of the trap, dragging his lover with him. But you don’t find out if they make it, or if in truth the struggle is real-if, finally, the song is any more than just another high itself.

Greil Marcus, Village Voice, 29 december 1975

Robert Christgau, 1975

Siren

Good album – a lot of fast ones and a great hook. Of course, Roxy Music albums have always had hooks, but “Street Life” and “Virginia Plain” never told us as much about Roxy’s less accessible music as “Love Is the Drug,” an equation which represents not liberation from artificial stimulants but the breakdown of both sexual and emotional abandon into “just another high.” Very appropriate to situate the song in a singles bar, for that ’70s reality is the exemplary environment for Bryan Ferry’s romantic pessimism. Much of what his music has to say about such environments is fascinating, even perversely attractive – but ultimately a little off-putting, which I guess is the point.

A-

Robert Christgau, 1975

Rolling Stone, 1 januari 1976

Siren

There used to be this ad (in the Fifties, I suppose) for a cigarette: You’re Never Alone with a Strand! A guy alone in the street; belted raincoat, turned down hat brim; fog, drizzle, blurred neon lighting; three in the morning and he’d just left a party or come to the end of an affair or arrived off a train; down but cool (cigarette cool) and romantic, weary – a private eye at the end of a case. I always thought it was Frank Sinatra.

That was one role Bryan Ferry had figured out for himself.

Something else there used to be was two artists called Gilbert and George whose work of art was themselves. They exhibited daily in a classy gallery. Elegant, suited, disdainful, they’d stand there all day while people paid to look. Later on a little song and dance act became part of the picture.

That was something else Bryan Ferry wanted to be – a work of art.

The cover of the new Roxy Music album is credited to eight people, two more than made the music. It shows a siren on the rocks, perfectly posed down to her last blue fingernail, but the lurid lighting gives the game away – it’s another Fifties ad. “Come hither,” she’s saying, “and buy Johnson’s gin.” The song about her isn’t the sea drama, “Whirlwind,” but “She Sells”: “Your lingerie’s a gift wrap – slip it to me.”

By all my usual criteria Roxy Music is decadent. Ferry deals with images of emotions rather than with emotions themselves. Music is only a means to his end, and only one means among many (who else gives their hairdresser equal billing?). For a Pete Townshend or a Bruce Springsteen, the expression of their imagery is their imagery; for Bryan Ferry, the act of making music is as uninteresting as the act of combing his hair – it’s the product that matters. And the reduction of rock to a means of achieving quite other entertainment end is the hallmark of decadence. No doubt about it, and Roxy Music goes into the back drawer, alongside Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Bette Midler.

Well, some doubt about it, because every time I play Siren, the first track is “Love Is the Drug,” which has all Ferry’s calculations, all his cool, and it’s in the Top 20 here in England and a wonderful record to dance to. The story is an old one:

Late at night I park my car
Stake my place in the singles bar
Face to face, toe to toe
Heart to heart as we hit the floor
Lumbered up, limbo down
The locked embrace, the stumble round
I say go, she says yes
Dim the lights, you can guess the rest
Oh – catch that buzz
Love is the drug I’m thinking of.

The rhythm is the military stomp. Ferry barks out the words like some demented sergeant major; the atmosphere is tense, the band excited, the audience frenzied – and these aren’t the usual poseurs, these are rock & roll kids, dancers all. Not so decadent after all.

Two things redeem Roxy. The first is that the image Bryan Ferry is after is a part of rock culture even if he got it from advertising posters and the movies. The romantic loner, world-weary, is one of the self-images of every rock fan – Philip Marlowe, in the Seventies, would be playing the dial with the rest of us. And Ferry’s so sincere about his disillusion. The man who walks by himself, regretting lost love. The siren keeps calling, tempting, “Try again!” and he always does and she’s always faking – the heart in the billboard is empty:

Though it’s all in vain
I’d do it all again
Just to believe one minute
(“Sentimental Fool”)

Let us sing of the tortured heart
And the lonely soul in his world apart
As he plays the field – takes a little pain
Then move our separate ways again
(“Could It Happen to Me?”)

I’m just another crazy guy
Playing at love was another high
Just another high
(“Just Another High”)

This theme runs through the album from beginning to end and it’s all a fake, every word. Ferry’s going steady like the rest of us but, boy, don’t we wish we could do it – play the field, take a little pain, move our separate ways again.

The second thing is that Ferry’s just the singer in his band and he may be using Roxy Music, but they’ve got their own gig going. With the single exchange of Eddie Jobson for Eno (on synthesizer, keyboards, strings) the band has been together for five albums and numerous tours, and there’s a limit to how long you can be part of someone else’s dream. So, while Ferry keeps the words and the tuxedo, the band has written half the music and they do enjoy playing it.

The essence of Roxy’s music is the tension between the band’s drive (Paul Thompson must be singled out as an extra fine drummer) and Ferry’s restraint. The songs are built around short, sharp, lyrical bursts; the music consists of repeated riffs rather than melodies and one of Roxy’s skills is tension building, more and more insistent, while Ferry drones on about his lonely nights.

Siren is the simplest album Roxy has put down. Ferry’s imagery is focused – “Jump up, bubble up – what’s in store,/Love is the drug and I need to score” – and there’s less synthesized clutter, fewer sound effects, more straight solo trading. It’s make-your-mind-up time. In England, Roxy is a major group and people buy them or they don’t – this album’s going to make no difference, just a must for all Roxy fans. With you lot in the States I dunno, but I doubt it. You’ve never really gone for seedily good-looking Englishmen, even with a good rhythm section, and Ferry’s great achievement has been to frame Roxy’s unique sound round just one obsession – himself. He’s made it as a work of art, he’s made it as a product, but I guess he won’t make it as an export statistic – you’ve got enough fetishes of your own.

Simon Frith, Rolling Stone, 1 januar1 1976

The new Rolling stone record guide, Dave Marsh, 1983

Siren

Siren’s title is appropriate; it has that sort of effect on the listener. It is Roxy’s masterpiece, calling the listener back by virtue of its finely honed instrumental attack and compelling lyrical attitude. “Love Is The Drug,” Roxy’s nearest approximation to an American hit single, set the scene of transitory love in a plastic world, while “She Sells” and “Sentinemtal Fool” pictured the participants in the charade as simultaneously pathetic and heroic. It is the album’s music, though – steely sleek and fiery to the core – that makes it a touchstone album of Seventies art rock. While Viva! captured the group at its onstage best, and the Greatest Hits is a fine sampler, Siren remains the album by which their best work will be remembered, at least for now.

The new Rolling stone record guide, Dave Marsh, 1983

Trouw, 1 november 1975

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – Trouw 1 november 1975

Algemeen Dagblad, 1 november 1975

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – Algemeen Dagblad 4 november 1975

Limburgs Dagblad, 8 november 1975

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – Limburgs Dagblad 8 november 1975

Nieuwsblad van het Noorden, 14 november 1975

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – Nieuwsblad van het Noorden 14 november 1975

Het Parool, 15 november 1974

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – Het Parool – 15 november 1975

De Volkskrant, 13 december 1975

Roxy Music – Siren recensie – De Volkskrant 13 december 1975