Friday, October 23, 2015

40 Year Itch : Consuming Me, Consuming You

Jerry Hall in a Siren cover outtake

Roxy Music : Sentimental Fool


    On October 24, 1975 Roxy Music released their fifth album, the critically acclaimed Siren. The album kicks off with the hit single "Love Is The Drug"; Bryan Ferry playing up his role as the suave statesman of the over-sexed 70's. But the tunes that follow seem to dismantle his playboy myth to reveal a "sentimental fool" , "mystified and blue" ; "an average man" "shattered by dreams" who "couldn't bear to be alone."





    If you haven't already, play Siren with an ear towards John Gustafson's bass which, thankfully, is mixed up front. He propels every song forwards and does some digitus gymnastics along the way. This would be his last of three studio albums with Roxy Music which would disband for four years filled in by the record company with a live album and a greatest hits collection.



  My deep track pick is "Sentimental Fool" which begins in an Another Green World haze of Manzanera-tronics and ends with 90 seconds of post punk funk, Ferry crooning in falsetto "Oh once she gets in /Through thick and through thin /She'll show you what living's for". The playboy has been played.


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