Top Artists – Roxy Music

Roxy Music – Viva! Roxy Music

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • Both sides of this original UK Island pressing (the first copy to ever hit the site) were doing everything right, earning INSANELY GOOD Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades from top to bottom – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • This is an album I have been playing regularly lately and it has really grown on me over the last couple of years – a truly fine album that rewards repeated plays, as should any classic release from this incredible band
  • A tough shootout, as no other copy earned a 3+ grade on either side, which simply means that when you find a top copy, it sets such a high standard that everything else ends up falling short of the standard and must be marked down accordingly
  • Guaranteed to be a huge improvement over anything you’ve heard, this Brit is big, punchy, and full-bodied – Bryan Ferry’s leads really soar
  • A killer pressing with energy and presence that positively JUMPS out of the speakers, two of the qualities that we prize most highly in our Hot Stampers, and two of things among many that Heavy Vinyl does so poorly
  • “…Viva! is a tough, powerful document of Roxy at the peak of their live powers, featuring a fine cross-section of their best work.”

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Roxy Music / Self-Titled

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • A vintage UK pressing of Roxy’s amazing debut LP with two solid Double Plus (A++) sides – this is some of the most dynamic sound the band achieved
  • Andy Hendriksen’s engineering (over the course of a week!) is superb in all respects – we think the best pressings of this first album reveal a recording that is superior to any other by the band
  • A Top 100 album, Roxy’s Masterpiece, and a Must Own Desert Island Disc of glamorous Arty Rock
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Falling halfway between musical primitivism and art rock ambition, Roxy Music’s eponymous debut remains a startling redefinition of rock’s boundaries. Simultaneously embracing kitschy glamour and avant-pop, Roxy Music shimmers with seductive style and pulsates with disturbing synthetic textures.”
  • When it comes to rock and pop music in 1972, our picks for the best of the best, numbering at the moment a mere 21 titles, can be found here
  • This link will take you to the Hot Stamper pressings of our hardest rockin’ albums currently available

Folks, this is a true Demo Disc in the world of Rock. It’s rare to find a recording of popular music with dynamics like these. The guitar solo at the end of “Ladytron” rocks like you will not believe.

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The Polydor Super Deluxe UK Pressings Are the Only Way to Fly

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

No domestic pressing or other import in our experience has ever been better than passable; we know, we’ve been cleaning and playing them for more than thirty years.

This British LP is cut by one of my favorite mastering houses in England, which no doubt accounts for the excellent sound. The estimable Robert Ludwig cut the domestic pressings. Unfortunately for us Americans it sounds to us like they gave him a dub tape to master from. (The same thing happened on Avalon by the way.)

This is a transitional album. Some of it sounds like Avalon (Oh Yeah, Over You, etc.) and some of it sounds more like their earlier material. It may not be as consistent as Avalon but it’s well worth owning for its best songs (listed below) and comes highly recommended for fans of the band. 

Best Tracks

Standout tracks on side one include In the Midnight Hour / Oh Yeah / My Only Love

Standout tracks on side two include Over You / Eight Miles High / Rain, Rain, Rain

Insightful reviews for the album follow:

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Siren on Import Vinyl? Not So Fast

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

Siren is one of our favorite Roxy albums, right up there with the first album and well ahead of the commercially appealing Avalon.

After reading a rave review in Rolling Stone of the album back in 1975, I took the plunge, bought a copy at my local Tower Records and instantly fell in love with it.

As is my wont, I then proceeded to work my way through their earlier catalog, which was quite an adventure. It takes scores of plays to understand where the band is coming from on the early albums and what it is they’re trying to do. Now I listen to each of the first five releases on a regular basis.

Somehow they never seem to get old, even after more than forty years.

Of all the Roxy albums (with the exception of Avalon) this is probably the best way “in” to the band’s music. The earlier albums are more raucous, the later ones more rhythmically driven — Siren catches them at their peak, with, as other reviewers have noted, all good songs and no bad ones.

Imports? Not So Fast

The British and German copies of Siren are clearly made from dub tapes and sound smeary, small and lifeless.

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Roxy Music – Manifesto

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • This early UK import pressing boasts KILLER Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) sound throughout – exceptionally quiet vinyl too
  • It’s simply bigger and richer than any other copy we played, with rock solid energy to beat them all
  • Forget the dubby domestic pressings and whatever crappy Heavy Vinyl record they’re making these days – the Tubey Magic on this pressing and the others in our shootout prove again and again that the UK LPs are the only way to fly on Manifesto
  • “The songs ending each side fade out with real grace and leave you hanging, wanting more — drenched in a romance out of reach.”
  • If you’re a Roxy fan, this title from 1979 surely deserves a place in your collection

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Pitchfork’s Review of the 2012 Roxy Music CD Box Set

More of the Music of Roxy Music

Reviews and Commentaries for the Music of Roxy Music

Tom Ewing has written a beautiful piece here about one of my favorite bands of all time.

This career-spanning box set to mark Roxy Music’s 40th anniversary is often startling, usually wonderful, and more affecting than expected. It’s also fascinating as the story of a gradual hardening of an elegant, enigmatic persona, of Bryan Ferry’s transformation from art-school pop star to self-made sphinx.  

In their 1970s heyday, Roxy Music enjoyed enormous critical and commercial success, but even so, they and their art-school rock were admired more than trusted. American critics snipped at leader Bryan Ferry’s arch romanticism, while the Brit press considered the models Ferry squired and the suits he doffed and dubbed him “Byron Ferrari”. Almost everyone affirmed that the band were great, while disagreeing as to when, exactly. For some, the great achievement was 1982’s farewell, Avalon– impeccably designed pop for weary grown-ups. Others went a decade further back, to the early, playfully experimental albums Roxy released when Brian Eno was in the band, playing androgyne peacock to Ferry’s tailored lothario. Whether you see their development between those points as progress or cautionary tale, it’s easy to let this contrast define the band.

This box set of remasters to celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary– not lavish, but thorough and reasonably priced– is an opportunity to break free of narrative and see what sets every phase of Roxy Music apart. The answer is Bryan Ferry, one of rock’s great, sustained acts of self-definition. In classic 70s style, like Bowie or Bolan, Ferry invented a pop star. A sybarite with a plummy, awkward croon, gliding through his own songs like they were parties he’d forgotten arriving at. A flying Dutchman of the jet set, doomed to find love but never satisfaction. Having worked his way into character over an album or two, he simply never left it, becoming more Bryan Ferry with every record and every year, whether performing or not.

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Roxy Music – Stranded

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • Both sides of this original UK Island pressing (the only way we offer it, the Polydor pressings are a shadow of the real thing) were doing practically everything right, earning STUNNING Shootout Winning Triple Plus (A+++) grades or close to them from top to bottom
  • Here are just a few of the things we had to say about this incredible copy in our notes: “silky and spacious”…”really big and rich”…”vox jumping out of the speakers”…”big, weighty bass”…”fully extended from top to bottom”
  • Rich, smooth and oh-so-analog, the Tubey Magic on their early albums is off the scale, especially here
  • Hands down one of the two best-sounding Roxy albums ever
  • 4 1/2 stars: “Without Brian Eno, Roxy Music immediately became less experimental, yet they remained adventurous, as Stranded illustrates…emphasiz[ing] both [Bryan] Ferry’s tortured glamour and Roxy’s increasingly impressive grasp of sonic detail.”

Stranded is one of the better recordings by the band, coming in second for sonics only to the first album, which is really saying something considering that the first album is a Better Records Top 100 title. The Tubey Magic on the early albums has to be heard to be believed!

These British pressings give you the richest, fullest, biggest sound with the least amount of sibilance on the vocals, grain or grunge. It’s the rich, full-bodied analog sound we adore here at Better Records, although it’s worth noting that the sound on some tracks is noticeably better than on others.

We thank Chris Thomas for his production and John Punter for his engineering work at AIR Studio. This album and the first one are without question the two best sounding Roxy albums, and that’s true for any incarnation of the band.

Both belong in any serious rock and pop collection, and if you are a fan of Art Rock, every Roxy album should be on your shelf, along with your Bowie, Pink Floyd, Supertramp, Eno, Peter Gabriel, 10cc and so many others (most of which are personal favorites of mine, albums I have played hundreds of times over the last 50 years and plan to play hundreds of times in the years ahead).

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How Good Is the Bilbo (Dennis Blackham) Cutting of Avalon?

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

An erstwhile customer wrote this on Reddit (I think that’s where I found it) a few years ago:

…the 7 Hot Stampers records i have bought from Better Records in the past, (albums I know well all my life, and that I have already had many versions, incl. OG’s 1st, and “audiophile” versions) are some of the best sounding records in my collection.

They have helped improve my listening skills enormously; not just “listening”, but 100% enjoy and appreciate the music. Seeking out for my “own” hot stampers now, is what really makes this hobby so interesting! (for example: Roxy Music Avalon, after buying and comparing 5 copies, incl. UK 1st Arun cut, I now have “my” best sounding one, and indeed it is a reissue (vintage, not modern “audiophile”)¨! Denis Blackham (BilBo) did a very good job on this one…

I replied:

Yes, the Bilbo cutting of Avalon can be very good, something we know from having played them by the dozens.

It has been many years, more than a decade I should think, since a Bilbo cutting won a shootout. Still, they can be very good, probably falling somewhere in the 1.5+ to 2+ range, but if you want to, you can certainly do a lot better, which is the kind of thing you learn when you have piles and piles of clean British pressings to play.

We stopped buying the Bilbo pressings many years ago, and they no longer show up in our stamper sheets these days. Why spend the money for them when something better is just as easy to find?

Nevertheless, Bilbo is a great mastering engineer and his work is worth seeking out, even though he did not knock Avalon out of the park.

On another note:

If modern engineers are so good at their jobs, as so many on this thread keep implying, where are the records they’ve made that can compete with Bilbo’s cuttings from the old days?

Please name them. I know of none, and I am hoping someone will take pity on a poor fool such as myself and help enlighten me.

Based on the vitriol I am reading, the consensus is that my benighted ravings are shameful and outlandish.

If anyone needs a clue, it’s pretty obvious I do.

Please help me understand what I have been missing for the last few decades, decades in which I was playing tens of thousands of records, listening to them critically and posting my thoughts about them in the 5000 6000 listings found on my blog. (If indeed I am wrong about all this, I’m sure wrong a lot!)

Of course I did not get an answer to that question, and doubt I ever will.

All that would be needed is the name of one specific pressing, mastered by one specific person or company, and released on one specific label with a specific catalog number.

How is it possible that the fans of these Heavy Vinyl records cannot name one good one?

I know how it is possible. The reason no one can name any of the great records being made these days is that no such records are being made these days.

It is our strongly held belief, backed up by mountains of evidence, that there is simply no one alive today making records as good as the ones Bilbo and other mastering engineers have ben making starting all the way back in the 50s and continuing through the 80s and beyond.

This blog is a testament to that fact, as are the Hot Stamper pressings we offer at Better Records.

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Roxy Music – Avalon

More of the Music of Roxy Music

  • An Avalon like you’ve never heard, with superb Double Plus (A++) sound throughout this vintage UK pressing – fairly quiet vinyl too
  • Copies that are exceptionally transparent, with three-dimensional depth and a wide soundstage, present this music the way it was meant to be heard
  • Credit Rhett Davies with creating the sonic space to allow the singers, instruments and subtle studio effects to be balanced and integrated from front to back, side to side and top to bottom
  • The sound may be a bit too heavily processed for some, but we find that on the best copies that sound really works for this music, some of the best ever produced by the band
  • 5 stars: “Ferry was never this romantic or seductive, either with Roxy or as a solo artist, and Avalon shimmers with elegance in both its music and its lyrics.”
  • These are the stampers that always win our shootouts, and when you hear them you will know why – the sound is big, rich and clear like no other
  • We’ve discovered a number of titles in which one stamper always wins, and here are some others

Records like Avalon get people (often known as audiophiles) to spend wads and wads of money in pursuit of expensive analog equipment good enough to bring this wonderful music to life in their very own listening rooms.

The album rewards a stereo with many of the qualities that audiophiles prize most highly when selecting equipment — spaciousness, transparency, clarity, detail, depth, soundstaging, speed, high frequency extension and the like.

The mix is as dense as any we know. Only the best copies have the ability to show you everything that’s on the tape. Credit must go to the amazingly talented Rhett Davies for creating the space to put so many instruments and sounds in.

We would add to that list presence and energy, along with warmth, fullness, and lack of smear on the transients. Whomp and rock and roll power do not seem to play much part in separating the best from the rest, although it’s nice when the bottom end is big and solid.

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For Your Pleasure Is That and a Lot More

Robert Brook runs a blog called The Broken Record, with a subtitle explaining that the aim of his blog is to serve as:

A GUIDE FOR THE DEDICATED ANALOG AUDIOPHILE

FOR YOUR PLEASURE is THAT and MORE

In 1975, after reading a rave review for Siren, their fifth album in Rolling Stone, I took the plunge, bought a copy at my local Tower Records and instantly fell in love with it. I was 21 at the time and that album completely knocked me out. I had never heard anything like it. I knew nothing about the band or their style of music, now known as Art Rock, but it quickly became my favorite genre, and still is.

Naturally I proceeded to work my way through their earlier catalog, which was quite an adventure. It takes scores of plays to understand where the band is coming from on the early albums and what it is they’re trying to accomplish. I spent years trying to get into For Your Pleasure (the lesser of the two albums with Eno in the band), but eventually I wrapped my head around it and learned to enjoy what it has to offer.

The first three albums are by far the band’s best sounding.

Now I listen to each of the first five releases on a regular basis, as well as Avalon, Viva! Roxy Music, a few later albums and many of the Ferry solo releases. It’s probably true that I play Roxy Music and Roxy Music-adjacent albums more than those of any other band. That might have something to do with the fact that even after more than fifty years, this band’s music never seems to get old.

Robert is correct when he points out that Roxy’s early work does not seem to find much favor with the record buying public these days, not even with audiophiles who, one would think, would be attracted to the phenomenal recording quality of the early albums.

As a lifelong fan I have put Better Records’ substantial resources to work in order to find, clean and play as many Roxy Music albums as we can find willing buyers for. There turn out to be fewer buyers than I would have liked, to be sure, but enough to keep their albums on the site and potentially create some new fans, which should be a lot easier now that we know which are the best sounding pressings for all their albums.

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