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52 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Stranded's looking glass world., November 1, 2001
After the spavined weirdness of the first Roxy Music album, and the deeply disturbing follow-up For Your Pleasure, Bryan Ferry ousted Eno from the band and attempted something new with Stranded, not only for him but for all pop music -- a hymn to life, a Thus Spake Zarathustra in sound. But be warned: Anyone lucky enough to hear Stranded will spend years afterward searching in vain for anything remotely like it, and equally fruitless will be your many attempts to find a metaphor to describe it. Some will say it sounds like the aurora borealis, others that it's the essence of autumn trapped and bottled as a musical elixir. For me, it's like an amethyst rotating slowly underneath a concentrated laser, the spectacle being the mesmerically fluctuating veins of light inside. These gemstone comparisons are the hardest for me to resist, because Ferry crafts songs throughout more like a master jeweller than your typical riff-obsessed rocker. Song titles like "Mother of Pearl" were not idly chosen.
"Mother of Pearl," in fact, is the centerpiece of the album, an eight-minute wigout somewhere between a Can experiment and Sinatra. It roars out of the gates with abrasive guitars and cut-up vocals, then after a minute suddenly and unexpectedly slows down into a repetitive groove, giving Ferry space to play the tortured crooner. You can literally envision the nonexistent moment when, wiping the sweat from his brow, he pulls up a stool in front of his screaming fans for an intimate confession. All at once it's a deconstruction of rock cliches, a foregrounding of tried-on personas -- Elvis's in particular, who Ferry also channelled in For Your Pleasure's sublime "Beauty Queen" -- and a highly personal catharsis, but it's by no means dry. Anyone who dares to sing it at a karaoke bar will be the hit of the evening, and can expect to be raised aloft on the arms of the crowd like a soccer champion. It's that potent.
Everywhere on Stranded, Ferry's effects are just as perfectly chosen. The languid cello in "Just Like You" caresses you like a breath of autumn wind, but just when you're about to drift off into peaceful slumber, he follows it up with the seriously cranked "Amazona," which features the highest-pitched guitar solo in history. "Psalm" taps into religious ritual but makes it safe for the secular, while "Serenade" is a pithy Apollonic blast that ends with Ferry needlessly asking: "Will you swoon / As I croon / Your serenade?" "Song For Europe," having appeared to stunning effect in the Fassbinder flick In a Year of Thirteen Moons, was what made me seek out Roxy Music two or so years ago when, luckily for me, their entire back catalogue was being remastered. It has Latin and French lyrics and marks Ferry's not entirely successful bid to be considered alongside Keats and Shelley instead of Bowie and Bolan... but what other rock star would even try?
In short, while my generation may think Stranded belongs in the classic rock ghetto, most of what was released last week already sounds more aged. The macho gestures of most rock music just don't cut it after hearing the limpid and transparent textures Ferry coaxes from his mini-orchestra on this album. Stranded makes me wish far, far more pop albums were made by men instead of boys.
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is Roxy Music's 
