Barely a back catalogue is immune to repackaging, but this does often afford a welcome opportunity to delve into vintage records loaded with extras, from previously unreleased material to replicas of the original publicity collateral. My friend Steven Wilson has been involved in many of these projects, applying his mastery of 5.1 Surround Sound to remix albums by the likes of King Crimson, Yes, Tears For Fears and XTC, carefully treading the delicate balance between not messing with the original form, and discovering new dimensions of it for curious ears.
Wilson's skills pop up on today's fulsome re-release of Roxy Music, the first of eight studio albums by a band which, long before it bowed out with the louche 80s gloss of Avalon, should rightfully be regarded as responsible for some of the most interesting art rock of the prior decade...arguably, up there with Bowie. Indeed, this album - originally released on June 16, 1972, the same day as The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars - can be compared with The Dame at his most musically extravagant. No wonder, then, that Peter Gabriel somewhat conflated the two when he left Genesis in 1975, vowing to either "Do a Bowie", "Do a Ferry" or "Put a Furry Boa around my neck and hang myself with it" - thus encapsulating the art rock era into one pithy, pre-punk quote (punk, incidentally, was often thought to set out to kill progressive rock: not so, claim many - it was to counter the outré bombast of bands like Roxy Music).
Roxy Music and Bowie certainly trod common ground in the early 1970s, and indeed If There Is Something on this album finds Bryan Ferry even sounding like his contemporary. But let's end that comparison lark right there. Because this was 1972, far enough into the 70s to be mainstream, but not so far out of the 60s to be whatever it wanted to be. Thus, Roxy Music is everything - art rock, space rock, prog rock, you-name-it-rock. The band themselves had little sense that the album would reach a mainstream audience. “We thought art students; people like us; limited interest; underground. Coming overground was … interesting,” Bryan Ferry recently told The Guardian. “Thinking about the songs, some of them are collage-like, with different sounds and moods within them – they will change abruptly into something else. For instance, Sea Breezes is a slow song, and suddenly moves into this angular, quite opposite mood. I found that interesting, and this band was perfect for that; they were game for anything. We were constantly fiddling around, changing things. I was still trying to find my voice. I [now] think sometimes I’m singing too high, or I should have had another go at that.”
Perhaps if there's one thing that makes the initial mixed reaction to Roxy Music understandable is that it is so varied. It is glam without the somewhat conventional rock and roll influences that glam acts like The Sweet and T-Rex brought to bear; there are the hints of prog rock, with Brian Eno's at times bonkers synth effects (later credited as 'Enossification' when he loaned himself to Genesis for a track on The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway). And yet there is the deliberately ragged, too, such as The Bob, a collage about World War 2 which echoes The Doors and The Velvet Underground, with mad changes of time signature and Andy Mackay's signature saxophone thrown into the soup. And there is romanticism, too, such as Chance Meeting, inspired by Brief Encounter and with Ferry at his Weimar lounge act best.
Some critics tried to cast Roxy Music as a pastiche act when their debut appeared. And while a track like Would You Believe goes down the well-trodden path of straight-forward rock-and-roll (and is a storming slice of boogie, to boot), and Bitters End delves into barbershop camp, this is an album which stands on its merits, almost 46 years since it was recorded. Even with sonic parallels to Bowie, in particular, but other contemporaries, Roxy Music is, today, a terrific record to listen to.
Which is why the super deluxe package released today generates intense curiosity. For example, Virginia Plain - the hit single of the summer of 1972 - is restored to the line-up of an album it was oddly absent from when the UK version came out in June that year. And, yet, if your only knowledge of Roxy Music is through such a rip-roaring glam single, it fits the album's entire canon perfectly. Perhaps this might explain the album's somewhat odd birth, in which Island Records boss Chris Blackwell and his A&R chief, Muff Winwood (brother of Steve) needed convincing by junior A&R man Tim Clark (who now manages Robbie Williams). Indeed, Blackwell and Winwood had grave misgivings about Roxy Music themselves, let alone an album with fronted by Ferry and his odd vibrato croon, Brian Eno's synth wigouts and Andy Mackay's saxophone darting about the place.
Eight years in the making, this isn't the cheapest super deluxe package (£129 on Amazon - somewhat ridiculous for three audio CDs, a DVD and a book), but the package is certainly "sumptuous", to use that superlative. Musically, it's a fascinating compendium of a band that would become one of the 70s' most influential, still finding their form, but doing so with such breathtaking confidence, plus a degree of swagger, that it makes for a compelling few hours of your listening life. The musical extras do, actually, add much: as with most other bands' BBC Sessions, the Roxy disc is superbly recorded, revealing details in live performances that the technology of the time rarely captured on bootlegs and the live albums of their day. And Steven Wilson's remixes - as always with his work - opens up aural dimensions to an album that was always so theatrical in its soundscape (the perfect medium, then, for him to work with). There is also DVD of Roxy Music at Le Bataclan in Paris in November 1972, providing a glimpse of a band which, I think, rarely gets a look in as one of the era's great live acts. Even the glossy, 136-page book put together by Ferry and former Melody Maker journalist Richard Williams (an enthusiastic champion of the band) is also included.
If nothing else, the re-release of Roxy Music prompts a timely re-evaluation of the band itself. Bryan Ferry's departure into musical slickness in the 1980s and, latterly, political interests at odds with the mainstream music industry sentiment (his support of The Countryside Alliance, his apparent affliction with the Conservatives, and a personal reputation which, Chris Difford's autobiography Some Fantastic Place reveals is less than glowing - Difford worked as Ferry's driver during a lean period...) has somewhat airbrushed him from the pantheon of influential artists in the rich, creativity of the classic rock era. The components of this package place Ferry back into the mix, combining his undoubted persona with Eno's inventiveness, and a band generally driving together with full force. It ain't cheap, but this has been a thoroughly rewarding experience.
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