John Punter, Engineer – Rev/Com

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.

(more…)

Our Top Copy of Broken Barricades Was Amazing Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of Art Rock Albums Available Now

Our recent Shootout Winning early UK pressing was described this way:

Looking for some proggy music that falls somewhere between Jethro Tull and Supertramp, with sonic credentials to match the recordings of those two very well-recorded bands? Well, look no further.

This early UK press is full of the Tubey Magic and studio space that makes the band’s recordings the joy they are to play on a heavily-tweaked audiophile rig.

If you’re a Prog Rock or Art Rock fan, this is a classic from 1971 that belongs in your collection. This also just happens to be our pick for the best sounding recording by the band. Others of similar stature can be found here.

And here are the notes that back up everything we had to say about the copy that knocked us out.

We LOVED playing this album, both for the music and the sound. These guys don’t get the respect they deserve among audiophiles, but we’re doing our best to try to change that.

Side one kicks off with the hit track Simple Sister, and you won’t believe how hard it rocks. Some copies are overly clean — they have the kind of clarity you might hope to find, but lacked the richness and fullness that makes ’70s analog so involving. Those “clean” copies simply do not earn very high grades from us. We leave that sound to the Heavy Vinyl and CD crowd; they seem to like it.

Punter and Thomas

John Punter engineered and Chris Thomas produced. They have worked on many of our favorite — and best-sounding – albums by British artists.

(more…)

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.

(more…)

Listening in Depth to Country Life

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

The domestic, German, Japanese and Dutch pressings are not remotely competitive with the Brits on this album (which is not true for all Roxy’s albums but clearly true for this one, Siren being the obvious exception to the rule).

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.)

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

Want to find your own top quality copy?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that tend to win our shootouts.

(more…)

The First Two Roxy Music Albums Are the Band’s Best Sounding

Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Roxy Music Available Now

For Your Pleasure is a Masterpiece of Art Rock, Glam Rock and Bent Rock all rolled into one. AMG calls Roxy Music the “most adventurous rock band of the early ’70s” and I’m inclined to agree with them.

Spacious, dynamic, present, with HUGE MEATY BASS and tons of energy, the sound is every bit as good as the music. (At least on the best copies it is. That’s precisely what Hot Stampers are all about.)

Strictly in terms of recording quality, For Your Pleasure is on the same plane as the other best sounding record the band ever made, their first.

Siren, Avalon and Country Life are all musically sublime, but the first album and Pleasure are the only two with the kind of dynamic, energetic, POWERFUL sound that Roxy’s other records simply cannot show us (with the exception of Country Life, was is powerful but a bit too aggressive).

The super-tubey keyboards that anchor practically every song on the first two albums are only found there. If you want to know what Tubey Magic sounds like in 1972-73, play one of our better Hot Stamper Roxy albums. Roxy and their engineers and producers manage to capture a keyboard sound on their first two albums that few bands in the history of the world can lay claim to.

I love the band’s later albums, but none of them sound like these two. The closest one can get is Stranded, their third, but it’s still a bit of a step down.

Chris Thomas and John Punter

With all the latest technological advances in playback, I can tell you that these records sound a whole lot better than I ever thought they could.

For Your Pleasure is an amazing recording. Chris Thomas produced side one; he produced the rest of their albums (and engineered The Beatles and Badfinger and mixed Dark Side of the Moon and on and on).

The album has many of his trademark qualities: an enormous, 3-dimensional soundstage; tons of bass; tremendous dynamics; and energy to rival anything around.

John Punter‘s engineering is superb in all respects — virtually faultless.

Big Rock Records with Big Rock Sound

Both of these albums are the very definition of big speaker albums. The better pressings have the kind of ENERGY in their grooves that are sure to have most audiophile systems begging for mercy.

This is The Audio Challenge that awaits you. If you don’t have a system designed to play records with this kind of SONIC POWER, don’t expect to hear them the way the band and those involved in their productions wanted you to.

This album wants to rock your world, and that’s exactly what our Hot Stamper pressings are especially good at doing.

Roxy Music is one of the most influential and important artists/bands in my growth as a music lover and audiophile, joining the ranks of Steely Dan, 10cc, Ambrosia, Yes, Bowie, Supertramp, Eno, Talking Heads, Jethro Tull, Elton John, The Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Cars, Led Zeppelin, Cat Stevens and countless others, musicians and bands who dedicated themselves to making the highest quality recordings they could, recordings that could only come alive in the homes of those with the most advanced audio equipment.

My system was forced to evolve in order to reproduce the scores of challenging recordings issued by these groups in the 70s.

It’s clear that these albums informed not only my taste in music, but the actual stereo I play that music on. It’s what progress in audio is all about. I created the system I have in order to play demanding recordings such as these, the music I fell in love with all those years ago.

Want to find your own killer copies?

Consider taking our moderately helpful advice concerning the pressings that have been winning our Hot Stamper shootouts for years. For Your Pleasure and the first album only really come alive:

Of course it needs to be played loud. What Roxy Music album doesn’t?

Furthermore, the better copies sound their best:

(more…)