- Roxy’s fourth studio LP, here with INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades on both sides of this original UK Island pressing
- Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this amazing copy in our notes: “great size and energy”…”sweet and tubey”…”big, note-like bass”…”huge and solid and jumping out of the speakers”…”lots of weight and body”
- This one is simply bigger, richer, more clear and more Tubey Magical than all other copies we heard in our recent shootout
- Marks and problems in the vinyl are sometimes the nature of the beast with these vintage LPs, but once you hear just how killer sounding this copy is, you might be inclined, as we were, to stop counting ticks and pops and just be swept away by the music
- 5 stars: “…Country Life finds Roxy Music at the peak of their powers, alternating between majestic, unsettling art rock and glamorous, elegant pop/rock. Roxy Music rarely sounded as invigorating as they do here.”
Many of the best songs Bryan Ferry ever wrote and Roxy Music ever played are on this album. Musically, it’s right up there with the first album and Siren. All three represent the high watermark of early- to mid-70s Arty Rock.
These British pressings give you the richest, fullest, biggest sound with the least amount of sibilance, grain and grunge. It’s the rich, full-bodied analog sound — with some problems, to be sure — that we adore here at Better Records.
We thank John Punter for his engineering and production at George Martin’s legendary AIR Studios.
Roxy’s Art Rock
Now for those of you who are not big Roxy Music fans and don’t know this music, this album may take a bit of getting used to. We assure you it will be well worth your while. We think it’s brilliant.
And if you do consider yourself a fan of Art Rock, every Roxy album should be on your shelf, right up there with your Bowie, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Eno, Peter Gabriel, 10cc and too many others to list. (Most are personal favorites of mine, albums I have played hundreds of times over the last 40 years and plan to keep playing until my ears give out.)
What The Best Sides Of Country Life Have To Offer Is Not Hard To Hear
- The biggest, most immediate staging in the largest acoustic space
- The most Tubey Magic, without which you have almost nothing. CDs give you clean and clear. Only the best vintage vinyl pressings offer the kind of Tubey Magic that was on the tapes in 1974
- Tight, note-like, rich, full-bodied bass, with the correct amount of weight down low
- Natural tonality in the midrange — with all the instruments having the correct timbre
- Transparency and resolution, critical to hearing into the three-dimensional studio space
No doubt there’s more but we hope that should do for now. Playing the record is the only way to hear all of the qualities we discuss above, and playing the best pressings against a pile of other copies under rigorously controlled conditions is the only way to find a pressing that sounds as good as this one does.
What We’re Listening For On Country Life
- Energy for starters. What could be more important than the life of the music?
- Then: presence and immediacy. The vocals aren’t “back there” somewhere, lost in the mix. They’re front and center where any recording engineer worth his salt would put them.
- The Big Sound comes next — wall to wall, lots of depth, huge space, three-dimensionality, all that sort of thing.
- Then transient information — fast, clear, sharp attacks, not the smear and thickness so common to these LPs.
- Tight punchy bass — which ties in with good transient information, also the issue of frequency extension further down.
- Next: transparency — the quality that allows you to hear deep into the soundfield, showing you the space and air around all the instruments.
- Extend the top and bottom and voila, you have The Real Thing — an honest to goodness Hot Stamper.
A Must Own Record
This is a recording should be part of any serious rock collection. Others that belong in that category can be found here.
Want to find your own top quality copy?
Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.
Side One
The Thrill of It All
Three and Nine
On the best copies this track is the very definition of Tubey Magical richness and smoothness.
All I Want Is You
A little thinner and brighter than the other tracks on this side as a rule.
Out of the Blue
The best guitar solo ever played on the violin. Go Eddie!
If It Takes All Night
Side Two
Bitter Sweet
The best copies have monstrous bass on this track, along with huge amounts of space. Again, the Tubey Magic can be off the charts here.
Triptych
Casanova
The vocals on this track will always spit to some degree. The cleanest, most tonally correct sibilance is what you are looking for on this track. That, and amazing rock energy!
A Really Good Time
Prairie Rose
Roxy Music
I’ve been a huge Roxy Music fan since 1975. Rolling Stone gave Siren a rave review that year, and I went right out and bought myself a copy on their say-so. I then proceeded to play it every day. This went on for weeks. I’m a bit obsessive that way.
Being obsessive is extremely helpful if you have a desire to excel in audio. It may in fact be the most important trait of them all.
My equipment was forced to evolve in order to be able to play the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups and others in the 70s. These albums informed not only my taste in music but the actual stereo I play that music on. I’ve had large dynamic speakers for the last four decades precisely because they do such a good job of bringing to life huge and powerful recordings such as these.
One of Art Rock’s Greats
I consider Roxy to be one of the greatest Art Rock bands in the history of the world. Although the general public and probably most audiophiles would surely cast their vote for Avalon as the band’s Masterpiece, I much prefer the music of these others — their eponymous first album, Stranded, Country Life and Siren — to the more “accessible” music found on Avalon.
To be fair, that’s splitting hairs, because any of those five titles are absolute Must Owns that belong in any serious popular music collection.
Further Reading