Customer Reviews

Re-make/Re-model: Becoming Roxy Music

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Finding a balance between a forensic social history and something that anybody would actually want to read is a difficult one. This is an example that succeeds. Rarely have I been projected by a book into a different time and space and returned to feel so enriched by the experience. It is to Bracewell's credit that he has managed to do this by excavating the recesses of this brilliant band's pre-history by speaking with the protagonists, drawing upon their memories and personal archives intelligently and without prejudice. The result is a work that serves as a delight for true Roxy fans and those in any way interested in the middle-century history of England.

I first heard Roxy Music in 1972 on a WLS AM radio ad in Chicago promoting "For Your Pleasure". I was hooked. This book is fine for exploring the early years of RM, although perhaps a bit over-wrought. Instead, look to "Both Ends Burning" for a thorough analysis of Roxy's music.

This is a history of how Pop art was disseminated across Britain, and how the Sixties turned into the Seventies, as much as it is a story about Roxy Music. Bryan Ferry doesn't meet Brian Eno until page 335, of a ~400-page book! But Ferry, Eno and Andy Mackay didn't just pop out of suitcases in 1972; their careers started much earlier, in Newcastle, Reading, and Ipswitch, and this book brilliantly tells you how. He draws heavily on Jonathon Green's "All Dressed Up" (suppressed for idiotic reasons, but highly recommended) in explaining the milieu of Sixties art and fashion, and how important these provincial players ended up being. The stuff on Richard Hamilton in Newcastle, especially, is fascinating, and opens up the real Sixties in ways that more conventional rock bios could never approach. Roxy was an art project, and if you don't understand the art background, you don't understand the music.

I didn't give it five stars because of the exceptionally poor quality of the photo reproductions -- the book calls them "plates" but they look more like hundred-year-old newspaper cuts. You can barely make out what's in them, which is a shame.

This may be much more significant as a picture of England in that strange and significant decade of the Sixties than as a book about pop and a particular group. It is the story of how cultural clashes and interrelationships form into something else. How the quickening sources of trans-Atlantic rock and roll stars and pop art fed and nurtured and inspired musicians and artists who kind of felt the Beatles and the Stones were not quite "IT". Who were aware of the Irony of it all, the disillusion, the questioning, the rebelliousness, the hypocrisy of society, the sense of it all having been done, but still the need to create. And who also had a sense of history themselves, who actually liked Frank Sinatra as well as Otis Redding and Bob Dylan. As somebody said, Bryan ferry doesn't meet Eno until threequarters through the story - but that is exactly why it is such a good story. You kind of know what happened then. It's hard work but truly rewarding and tells of things you had no clue about. Newcastle-upon-Tyne?? Who knew?

The story of how Bryan Ferry invented the rock band Roxy Music makes for an involving study written for the first time by all band members involved, who chart how a combination of social change and music transformation led to the band's rise and fall. It's a key exploration of a volatile era in rock music focusing on music trends, artistic development, and including anecdotes on some of the artistic 'giants' of the times: any collection strong in rock music history will find it a 'must'.

I found this book almost completely unreadable. I guess if you are interested in the obscure machinations of the avant-guarde art scene in 1950s/60s Newcastle then you might be able to slag through the leaden prose. I found it hard going. I just wanted to learn more about Roxy Music, how they formed, why, the stories behind some of their songs and albums, etc. Pretty hard to ferret that out of this book. To each his own.

And, yes, I did actually read it.

Amazon deleted my thoughtful 1 star review so here we go again.

Don't waste your money. Would someone who has actually bought this book please write in and tell the truth about this book?