I think they never came close to the first album but everything else is consistently high quality.

If I was forced to pick three, I'd go with:

Roxy Music
Stranded
Avalon

who doesn't remember then by title but by the covers???? Stranded was always my fave!

Street Life?

Me...

'For Your Pleasure' is up their with the best of Bowie.

Oh, Manifesto is well under rated. Musically, sounds like some of the stuff that Joy Division/Japan where doing a year later.

"For Your Pleasure" surely.

Mind you, I always had a soft spot for the live "Viva!" album mainly for the excellent versions of "Out Of The Blue", "Pyjamarama" and "Both Ends Burning", probably my three fave Roxy tracks.

I have the 4 CD Thrill of it All set, can I go for that?

I said 'DONT!"

Ive been completely in love with that song since I was 10 years old and my auntie Sharon used to play it on the dansette.

37 years later it's beauty has only deepened.

A 'pop' song that takes longer to start and to finish than the actual 'song'?
That has no chorus?
That has a duelling soprano sax / guitar section at it's core (Manzanera's finest hour in the coda!)
The best opening line in the history of pop?
Is 2 and half minutes long but distills more yearning, texture, atmoshphere, invention and burning energy than most bands manage in a career?...

Im off to ring me auntie.

Siren is an overlooked corker, and probably the most consistent album throughout. Apart from Manifesto both later albums are as you'd expect., and you may be better off investigating

Roxy - Viva Roxy
Bryan Ferry - In Your Mind
Eno - Before and After Science

And if you haven't got it yet - you must grab the first album

PS (you can grab the pre-disco versh of Angel Eyes below)
http://planetmondo.blogspot.com/2007/11/b-side-babies-pt-2-roxy-music-an...

Less of a bodyshock than the first two, but for the first and only time there's a warmth and a singularity of vision that is exquisitely married to the usual camp; as someone recently said about the novelist Paul Auster, "Stranded" was post-modernism with a pulse.

nowt.

I am a 'Greatest Hits' kind of Roxy man, but I did quite enjoy Ferry's Frantic album, and loved this Eno/Ferry/Thompson track:

The first one did sound amazing in 1972 and still does. In fact for my money it's one of the greatest debut albums ever made.However my vote for the best Roxy album would be for "Stranded". Also totally agree with the comments above re "Pyjamarama" Great title too!

..but Stranded takes it

...they are a bit edgier and punky, but Stranded is possibly the more enjoyable, retaining just enough edge to keep them from sounding ordinairy.

from the debut through for your pleasure, stranded, country life and siren is pretty much unsurpassed I would argue.

good question. Personally I haven't heard a better Roxy song than "If There Is Something".

..Ferry interview. Just don't mention Otis.

to that new album they've been working on sporadically over the last few years.

the words 'back' and 'burner' spring to my mind as a new ferry solo offering is apparently imminent.

'Street Life', 'Mother of Pearl', and 'Psalm'. Sigh.

'Country Life' a close second - I went through a phase of playing 'Triptych' over and over. Couldn't believe my ears.

always loved his version of carrickfergus

his lilting voice well suited to that sublime melody

I wasn't a real big Roxy Music fan until I heard Avalon in SACD surround sound.

It sounds great in stereo,too, of course.

But the surround version is truly astounding. I think having nearly all the master tapes must have helped. But it sounds so fresh and so musical, I must have played the SACD version almost to destruction.

The whole surround thing didn't really happen. (Just like Quad back in the 70s) So you might pick up the SACD version fairly cheaply and it also plays in stereo on non-surround set-ups.

...like many others, I would probably opt for Stranded but would sorely miss all the rest.

Ferry solo has to be one of the best interpreters of other people's material around. In addition to all those mentioned above I also like 'Rescue Me' from the Taxi LP - a complete re-invention and absolutely lovely.

the one with Eno producing that we see them recording in the BBC doc?

Lovely to read people's fondness for such a massively underrated band - for me there were no bad studio albums - "For Your Pleasure" and "Stranded" are my faves.

miles ahead of Stranded and Country Life, great though they were. But I can still remember the convulsive effect the first album had on me as an impressionable 12 year old, unforgettable.

A great band indeed, and over time the more Avalon appeals and is probably my favourite now. Couldn't really take to it at the time but reckoned that was probably my fault. And it was.

Even after all these years, I can't think of anyone who has sounded like them.

One of only two big hit singles I can think of who save the title for the end of the song...

mainly due the fact that it has Song for Europe on it and also Mother of Pearl.
I also like Another Time Another Place as a Bryan Ferry solo album. I do not like his recent Dylan cover album very much

For Your Pleasure, Stranded and Country Life are my favourites. FYP doesn't have a weak link. The Bogus Man is one of many songs they did (several already mentioned in this thread) that just doesn't sound like anyone else. Is there a wittier song about trend-following than Do The Strand?

Stranded has two of their most extraordinary singles (Street Life and Mother Of Pearl), While Country Life is right up there, with Three And Nine being my favourite of the less well-known songs.

...10.15 Saturday Night by The Cure but that obviously came afterwards. And it certainly doesn't sound like any other Roxy Music track.

album than "Avalon"? I still marvel at the production on that record, that coolness, the way eveything is so clear. I don't think I have ever been so impressed by the "sound" on any album as much as "Avalon".

version of "If There Is Something" is a joy to hear and the whole of pretty much any version of "Out Of The BLue" is still a rush.
Incidentally, with only eight bona fide studio albums has any band ever had an exponentially greater number of compilations/live albums released? There must be over 25 such collections
I still love the old blighter though, even though if you have enough dosh you can basically book him to do a turn at your "works do" and he'll turn up with tapes and run through "Lets stick Together" and one or two
Great to see the unregarded "In Your Mind" get a shout - far better than the over-praised "Bride Stripped Bare"

is a much overlooked classic Roxy single IMO

Does it for me because it's the album that links the original, edgier band with the smoother outfit they would become. The writing is sharp and the playing has got a great blend of muscle and sophistication.
It also features, IMHO, their finest moment - Both ends burning.

Although I like so get the comment up-thread? Like, how Stranded kinda stronger than FYP. Like - duh!! That is like so weird? Well, yeah - but, dude, here's the thing - FYP is like so like totally unique and - woah - wait - Editions of You? Like Tuuune dude.

Sorry about that - typed while daughter watching Wizards of Waverley Place in the background - but FYP is the one for me - although "Song for Europe" from Stranded is monumentally bonkers, utterly pretentious, quintessentially Roxily brilliant.

I think I started with Manifesto (like Steven) and worked backwards, but somehow missed hearing albums 2,3,4 in my 'formative years' so their contents - bar those that were compiled onto the original (and best) 'Greatest Hits' LP - don't mean so much to me now.

I agree that If There Is Something is outstanding... and I love the first album as a piece... and I love Manifesto as a piece too (greater than the sum of its parts, perhaps)... and it was a lovely surprise to hear the pre-disco versions of the Manifesto singles, especially 'Trash', on the box set... and 'Oh Yeah'/'South Downs' is favourite A & B side combination ever... oh, I could go on... but I won't.

Never took much to Avalon, though.

If anyone else loves 'South Downs' and was baffled (as I was) by the accidental backwards version on the box set, it appears (the right way round) on a various artists compilation I was involved with a while back, 'Live In Hope'. It's the only way to find that one on CD bar a very obscure CD single.

So... WHEN are we going to see deluxe reissues of all the Roxy albums then? And the BBC radio sessions? What's the problem, Universal....?

...trust me, when you hear it forwards it's a thing of great beauty.

...was the Extended Play single (BF was my first teenage crush)with The Price of Love on it. I then bought all the earlier Roxy & BF albums & all of them since (except re-issues & some of the more recent greatest hits packages). As I have most of them on vinyl, the ones I rebought on CD are my favorite ones & these are Let's Stick Together (I much preferred his re-workings of the Roxy first album tracks on here because the first album sounded much too strange to my young ears at the time), Avalon, & a Roxy greatest hits one that has all my favorite tracks on it. I still think Avalon sounds great today, it doesn't have that terribly dated 80s sound to it with those awful synthdrums etc.
My vinyl version of Manifesto has the rock version of Angel Eyes on it, not the disco-ed up version which I didn't like. Also not too keen on some of his later solo albums eg Mamounia, very boring & over produced; they all sound the same. Am I also the only one to think his voice is sounding weaker & frailer than it used to?

that Virginia Plain was one of two pop singles that only featrure the track's title right at the end of the song. The other one I can think of was "The Prince" by Madness.. was this the one you were thinking of???

is the other one usually given as the answer to this

...was indeed the one I was thinking of.

But yes, you're right, The Prince. Nice one. Any advance on three?

'Journey to the centre of the earth' - Wakeman.

Make that deeply, deeply ashamed.

I think you have strayed from the path of Roxyness

Your Application's Failed any thoughts on that ?

..was a couple of years ago when my then 13 year old daughter said to me: "Dad, have you got any Roxy Music records?"