An Ideal of Beauty
"There's a new sensation" croons Bryan Ferry as the singer and chamberlain of ROXY MUSIC, and this album is, indeed, "a fabulous creation." This is one of my favourite albums. The fast songs, DO THE STRAND and EDITIONS OF YOU, have a great beat and are easy to dance to. Ferry evokes siren songs of intense longing with BEAUTY QUEEN and GREY LAGOONS. The remaining songs are of life and death, neither of which is to be taken seriously. A strength of Ferry's delivery is that he appears to be adamant about the truth of which he speaks -- no matter how ludicrous. He betrays not even a wink, which only makes it more compelling and entertaining.. The band supporting all of this super-serious nonsense are clever in their own right. The saxophone and oboe of Andrew Mackay are everywhere. One time humourous another seductive. It is Mackey who stands out on a second listening. Then, a little farther back, is the guitar of Phil Manzanera, the link between Ferry and Eno. It is Eno who is subliminally hiding in the shadows. The kind of instrumentation you don't notice till it has departed. Altogether, Glam Rock at its best. Go ahead, take Amanda for a spin. She's the kind of girl who only leaves you guessing, but don't ask why.
decadent glam rock at its best
From model Amanda Lear looking pre-S&M on the cover, to the insane outfits of the band in the booklet, it was already obvious by the second Roxy album that this is a different kind of glam. Besides crediting their hair stylists and designers, Roxy Music were apparently a band pushing style as well as substance. Equally, in fact.
"Do the Strand" is a favorite, as it and "Editions of You" are the only real songs you could imagine hearing on the radio. Yet "Beauty Queen" is a ballad in classic Ferry tradition: "ooh the way you look/makes my starry eyes shiver". Bryan's almost-vampirish vibrato twisting about every phrase is something it takes time to get used to. If you have a sense of humor, it shouldn't take too long.
The masterpiece of the album however, is the one everyone has to mention. "In Every Dreamhome a Heartache" could probably beat out a Bowie glam tune out of sheer decadance and eerieness. "I blew up your body...but you blew my mind" is just one example of the essential couplets in this vaguely-psychedelic blowout.
"The Bogus Man" may be one of the strangest tunes, but definitely amazing. The lyrics may only last 4 minutes, but odd droning of the synths (courtesy of Eno), guitar from Phil, and heavy breathing gasps from Ferry for the next 5 minutes is pure 70s bliss.
The rest of the tunes, I suppose, are a bit difficult to describe. That's for you to find out.
Nostalgia For An Age Yet To Come
Others have noted that although this album is close to 30 years old it still sounds like the future - and they're right. If your experience of Bryan Ferry is the clean sheen of albums like Avalon, then "For Your Pleasure" may not be where you want to go. Although lightened with some genuinely great pop songs, the overall feel of the album is defined by the brooding grind of deliciously chilling songs such as "The Bogus Man" that tap a futuristic goth vein that Roxy Music never really went close to again. Some make much of this being the last dance of Eno and Bryan working together but the truth is Eno never went here again either. For Your Pleasure is a one-off that is so far beyond the sum of its parts that it probably mystifies those who made as much as those who continue to be entranced by its dark but oh so alien caress.
This one is as black chocolate is to milk chocolate...
... compared to the other later Roxy Music albums. It is dark, weird, bitter-sweet, serious, compelling, melomaniac, sometimes cerebral, always twisted, yet it's lyric density and the outworldly atmosphere it evokes and breathes seem to make this album float in a place all of its own. The songs are little islands, populated with either lustfull palm-trees or looming with big and dark baobabs...Bryan Ferry's twisted, sometimes hectic, vibrating vocals are here not just unusual as usual, they're even straight oblique. First listeners will inevitably find it strange and bizarre, if not weird... but Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music were never more of a high-lyrism-powered esthete's band, than when Brian Eno was still among them (this was to be their last joint album, before Brian definitively left the helm to Bryan, in order to pursue his own career).
In conclusion, For Your Pleasure must have been one of the most epic album of the now forgotten, often under-rated, early glam-rock pioneering frenzy. Artcover is by courtesy of Amanda Lear. Special flavour. Like all the rest.
On my "My Fifteen Favorite Albums Ever" list
The second, and best, Roxy album, and the last before Eno left the group. For me, this choice is the most rooted in personal nostalgia. While I do think it stands worthy in a top 10 list, its presence here is admittedly partly because Roxy Music was pivotal for me, and this album more than any other. As an early teen, I was blindsided by this lush, complex, and defiantly sexy sound. Half from Brian Ferry's James Bondish presence, half from the experimental rock backing him, I was changed. I would lay in my room at night with headphones on listening to Roxy Music for hours. In Every Dreamhome A Heartache is simultaneously beautiful, silly, sexy, absurd, epic. It just dares you to not smile, and swoon.
