Advertisement

Roxy Music

The Making Of… Roxy Music’s ‘Street Life’

From Uncut's November 2009 issue (Take 150), Bryan Ferry and his bandmates recall the making of Roxy Music's classic single, "Street Life"

Bryan Ferry: “I have a controlling instinct – sometimes being in a band isn’t the best place for me”

Bryan Ferry answers your questions in the next issue of Uncut, out on Friday (November 23). The Roxy Music frontman and solo artist takes your queries, as well as some from Andy Mackay, Paul Thompson and Johnny Marr, on topics including his new album, The Jazz Age, his old paper round, and whether he’s planning to finish the new album Roxy Music recorded last decade.

Roxy Music – Avalon

Some imagined that by Avalon, Roxy Music had degenerated into non-ironic AOR. But the sounds on this, the biggest-selling album of their career, are as avant-garde as anything they'd ever done, just more subtle, Ferry having exchanged art attack for ambient seduction. Remember this came out in spring 1982, as New Pop was peaking—it's as if the Godfather had returned to show the rookies how elegant isolation should really be expressed. Throughout there are expressions of Ferry's uncertainty, plus evidence they'd been listening to Joy Division and Jan Garbarek.
Advertisement

Editor's Picks

Advertisement