aaamusic | On 29, Jan 2012

 

Roxy Music will release a deluxe box-set entitled ‘Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982’ on Monday 2 April, celebrating 40 years since the release of the band’s eponymous debut album in 1972. The release is the first of a major reissue campaign with Virgin Records.

‘Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982’, an 8 CD + 4 DVD deluxe box set will feature all eight Roxy Music studio albums – Roxy Music, For Your Pleasure, Stranded, Country Life, Siren, Manifesto, Flesh And Blood, Avalon. In addition, a selection of non-album singles, B-sides and remixes, some of which are available on CD for the first time ever will also be included.  Each album will be represented on DVD format as high-resolution audio, transferred digitally from the original analogue masters, making this release an absolute ‘must have’ for Roxy Music fans and collectors.

Roxy Music – Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera, Paul Thompson and Graham Simpson – landed in 1971, seemingly from far beyond Planet Earth, to part bewilderment part rapture…. an intoxicating cocktail of fashion, romance, nostalgia and futurism with songs that were almost cinematic, set to soundscapes that stunned and perplexed.

Roxy Music’s debut album, the self titled Roxy Music, was released in 1972 to critical acclaim and exemplified the band’s penchant for glamour, both in the lyrics and with the album cover of model Kari-Ann Muller, kickstarting a tradition of iconic album covers featuring female models. Single ‘Virginia Plain’ – not featured on the original album release – reached No.4 in the UK singles chart. For Your Pleasure, released the following March and including the classic Roxy tracks ‘Do The Strand’, ‘In Every Dream A Heartache’ and ‘Editions Of You’, was the last album to feature Brian Eno in the recording line up, and displayed a more elaborate production treatment with a variety of fade ins / outs and tape loops. Non-album single ‘Pyjamarama’ is included on ‘The Complete Studio Recordings’, as the original Island label remix and a 1977 remix, plus its B-Side ‘The Pride and the Pain’.

November 1973 saw the release of Stranded, which reached No. 1 in the UK Album Chart, producing the Top Ten single ‘Street Life’,and featuring 1973 Playmate of the Year (and Bryan Ferry’s then girlfriend) Marilyn Cole on the cover. A year later, Roxy Music released Country Life, this time featuring two models on the album cover (Constanze Karoli and Eveline Grunwald) and producing the single ‘All I Want Is You’.

Siren, released in 1975 and featuring Jerry Hall as the cover girl, includes arguably Roxy Music’s best-known song ‘Love Is The Drug’, which charted at No. 2 upon release, and a second single ‘Both Ends Burning’. A four year gap preceded the release of Manifesto in March 1979, which reached No. 7 in the UK charts and featured an eye catching album cover of mannequins conceptualised by Bryan Ferry and long time designer and Roxy Music collaborator Antony Price, this time producing three singles including the No. 2 hit ‘Dance Away’ and ‘Angel Eyes’.

The No. 1 album Flesh And Blood was released in 1980, Roxy Music at this point was Ferry, Mackay and Manzanera due to the departure of drummer Thompson. Roxy Music’s cover of the John Lennon song ‘Jealous Guy’, was released as a single in 1981 and included the B-Side ‘To Turn You On’. The most commercially successful Roxy Music album, Avalon, was released in 1982, charting at No. 1, and staying in the UK album charts for over a year, with three single releases including the Top 5 song ‘More Than This’.

‘Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Recordings 1972-1982’ brings together all of Roxy Music’s albums with a plethora of tracks previously never released before on CD, including the USA 7” mixes of ‘Do The Strand’ ‘Love Is The Drug’ and ‘Take A Chance With Me’, two edits of Country Life opening track ‘The Thrill Of It All’, plus its B-Side ‘Your Application’s Failed’ (the only track to date written by Thompson), 7” and the 7” single versions of ‘Oh Yeah’ (from Flesh And Blood) and ‘Avalon’.

Further reissues are planned for 2012 with details to be announced at a later date.