Lunch Break: Roxy Music, “Virginia Plain”

Like late 19th-century English literature, I know far more about Roxy Music from those they’ve become or those they’ve influenced than their actual elpees. That’s because I’ve never owned a Roxy Music album (but I own plenty of Eno), and I’ve never read a Jane Austen novel (though I’ve seen plenty of the stories on a movie or television screen).

The last couple of days I’ve been playing the Essential greatest hits el=pee, which starts with the fantastic Re-Make/Re-Model and ends with a live and somewhat lachrymose version of Jealous Guy. In between is their first single, from 1972, the rollicking Virginia Plain, which seems to mash just about every style of rock under a Velvets’ kind of chug.

4 thoughts on “Lunch Break: Roxy Music, “Virginia Plain”

  1. I’m a Roxy obsessive from way back, owning all their albums. At first I thought Ferry’s voice was too weird, but a friend dragged me to see them for the Stranded tour and that hooked me. No other band ever applied intelligence to rocknroll as successfully as Roxy. Most attempts are either not intelligent or not rocknroll, or like The Ramones a kind of fake dumbness with the brains well camouflaged.

    • Ferry’s voice was definitely what tripped me up, plus limited resources and the need to draw the line somewheres landed me elsewhere.

      I’m curious about intelligence and rock’n’roll. Does it manifest in Roxy in the arrangements? The lyrics? The costumes? The album covers? Or simply Eno?

  2. Roxy might be one of the few we can all agree on. Always loved Ferry’s slightly flat, Count Dracula voice. And, just for the purposes of this video, Firebird guitars and Thunderbird basses always give me a boner.

    • Intelligence in the lyrics mostly but also the arrangements and the integration of music and presentation. And sometimes Ferry is really funny, as in this one:

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