turned musical notions upside down and shook all the so-called integrity out of their pockets; brainy lyrics on a concept album weren't just for Emerson, Lake and Palmer anymore.
Ferry's character, a romantic pessimist and dissolute matinee idol, was Roxy's languid focal point. Stompy and racing, Siren is a meditation on the temptations of love; it answers the feminine call with yearning, irony and skepticism. The album is a sort of delirious trek through the world's most decadent fern bar, kicking off with the group's first U.S. hit, "Love Is the Drug," a chugging, hiccup-y metaphor that grinds gossamer flights of romance into a miserable round of search, score, crash and search some more. With Ferry's mannered vocals twining archly around the lyrics, even songs like "Sentimental Fool" and "Could It Happen to Me?" take on a distanced poise that undercut the lyrics' ostensible swoon. His off-key gulps made the singer-songwriter school of rock emotionalism seem rather dated -- Roxy's idea of romance was embodied in their music's attitude, and attitude itself became musical substance.
Art rock and its gaudy cousin, glitter, were notoriously self-conscious, and therefore suspect -- rock was supposed to be all about impulse. But Roxy's treatment of music as an artificial structure made them free to rock. Sure, "End of the Line" toys with being a ravishing blue ballad, and "Whirlwind" quotes Shakespeare, but that's the point: Torch songs and great plays are as much Western avatars of romanticism as howling arena rock is. Add grim bass lines and downtown strut, and you have the crazed funk of "She Sells." Set flaming infatuation to quick-ticking drums and lonely-boy sax, and you have "Both Ends Burning." It took Roxy Music five records and the loss of one genius to sculpt an impossible paradox out of rock and its expressions: elaborately cool, genuinely heartfelt and grandly unsettling. (RS 854)
Further Listening:
Roxy Music (Reprise, 1972) FOUR STARS
For Your Pleasure (Warner Bros., 1973) FOUR STARS
Stranded (Atco, 1973) FOUR STARS
ARION BERGER
