Monday, November 12, 2007

Wild In The Country


Your Monday heartstarter comes courtesy of my local charity shop where last week I picked this up on CD for £1.00. Less than the bus fare there! (except I walked). Don't you just love it when in amongst all the 'Uncut' magazine Playlist CDs and Dance Trax 95 compilations you find a real gem like this?

This is Roxy's fourth album and some think their finest. Tux crooner-mode Ferry shows signs of emerging from inside of the art-rock thrash but doesn't yet dominate, and the songwriting is tiptop throughout.
.
Oh, and for those of you who take an interest in these things...'the supposedly 'uncredited' cover models are in fact named on the album - but not as models. They were Constanze Karoli (reportedly the sister of Can's Michael Karoli) and Eveline Grunwald, who are credited on the lyric sheet with the German translation of "Bitter-Sweet." Bryan Ferry met them in Portugal and persuaded them to do the photo shoot as well as help with the words to the song' (Wiki).

So there you go.

Roxy Music - 'All I Want Is You' (1974)
Roxy Music - 'A Really Good Time' (1974)

(Buy here - or keep trawling them charity racks...Thanks for all the comments to the 'last post' x)

15 comments:

  1. Last Xmas my daughter bought me a couple of those frames purpose made for album covers (such a simple, and great idea). I promptly filled them with Roxy Music's 1st album cover and this one. But the feeling was that visiting olds (parents etc) maybe a bit shocked so I relented and replaced Constanze & Eveline with Bowie's Ziggy Stardust.

    I'd always had this album on cassette only. Last year I thought it was about time I put that right.
    Bought a copy on ebay for a £5 which although visually ok was a crackler (got a refund no probs). Then 2 weeks later at a car boot sale I found a guy selling what was obviously his old vinyl collection. He was just packing up. In it I found Roxy's first 5 albums, all original issues, all in plactic protective covers - for 50p each!
    Result!

    Apparently the lighting for the cover shot came from car headlights.

    Think I'm done with the trivia now.

    ReplyDelete
  2. See, you get stories for comments here, STORIES. They do say every picture tells one...

    *hmmm..perhaps a Rod post soon...*

    Always a pleasure Darcy.

    ReplyDelete
  3. F*** me, I wish I had Bryan Ferry's powers of persuasion!!!

    For what it's worth I think the three albums before this were all better. Nothing on this album can compete with Ladytron, If There Is Something, Do The Strand, Editions of You, Mother of Pearl, Street Life etc.

    Still pretty damn good though, and better than Siren.

    My best recent bargain: I got Midge Ure's 'If I Was' greatest hits CD for £1 earlier this year. My kids swear 'Call of the Wild' is about Doctor Who!?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Have to agree with Mick about the first three albums, but I still remember sneaking into my brothers room to sneak a look at this album cover every now and again. This was sex education to a young boy like myself. (No wonder I left school knowing absolutely fuck all about girls!)

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a nugget, They didn't really make a bad album in the 70's, just some better than others - Prairie Rose, Casanova are crackers on Country Life, but I struggle with Bitter Sweet and Triptych - and prefer the live version of Out Of The Blue.

    Have you ever seen the non girl cover - just the bush (shall I rephrase that!)

    How about a Ferry posting - In Your Mind Perhaps? (The Cover was recently reworked by Tiga) and has the great Love Me Madly Again and Tokyo Joe on it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. The first time I ever saw that sleeve was at Harlequin Records in Shepherd's Bush (how appropriate) and became a Roxy Music fan on the spot.

    I think it was the American version of the sleeve that just had the, um, bushes on the front. Bloody prudes.

    Agree that the previous 3 albums are better. The first side is a cracker though, don't much care for the reverse except for "Prairie Rose"

    ReplyDelete
  7. I used to work in Oxfam, pricing records in my spare time. I got shit from the manageress once for under-pricing, i.e. Madonna Who's That Girl? OST on tape for 59p, and David Bowie's Space Oddity on vinyl for 95p. Always support the underdog, that's me. (The shop was also good for the rare Pet Shop Boys CD singles I was collecting.)

    ReplyDelete
  8. I second that...we ARE prudes! Sadly...

    ReplyDelete
  9. and there was me worrying about the lack of filth round here lately.
    x

    ReplyDelete
  10. It was all about the cover for me. I'd seen those 'sheer' bras before on page 156 of mum's catalogue.

    Was Constanze Charlie's sister?
    And the Doris on the right has that Germanic army bloke 5 o'clock shadow look. (What's her name - Salisbury Plain!)

    I could never write Roxy Music on my school 'haversack' as I was about as cool as Tim Henman's dad.

    And my, look how the Comments are simply flooding in. You've struck a rich seam with this 1 bonny lad. Or is it just that you simply can't go wrong with tits on the front page?

    ReplyDelete
  11. You know I spend LITERALLY MINUTES planning and working on posts for this blog and I post an LP cover with some girls in their pants on and you lot go crazy. Sheesh! I despair, I really do.

    Mind you, UK TV viewers are at least guaranteed nightly beaver action on the Beeb at the moment...

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh and Steve - CDs are £3.50 each in my local Oxfam. Outrageous! You want the Romanian Orphans for yer bargains round here.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I have to be careful doing posts with totty in them, the wife reads me blog.

    I am thinking of a Jenny Agutter one though.

    Oh, the "mileage" I got out of mum's catalogues.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Lee - I am often 'thinking of a Jenny Agutter one...'

    ReplyDelete
  15. I was many plays into this album before I finally came to realize that A Really Good Time is my fave track. Good choice, Davy. Thrill Of It All, Bitter-Sweet and Triptych are all tied for second.

    There used to be a really great home-made video for A Really Good Time on youtube starring a transvestite named "Petra". It was just this (wo)man filming herself on her balcony with city lights in the background just kind of posing as the song played. Absolutely perfect. I wish it was still up there... ):

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.