01	Do the Strand						04:04
	02	Beauty Queen						04:39
	03	Strictly Confidential						03:47
	04	Editions of You						03:49
	05	In Every Dream Home a Heartache						05:28
	06	The Bogus Man						09:19
	07	Grey Lagoons						04:12
	08	For Your Pleasure						06:51

The second Roxy Music Album
Recorded at AIR Studios, London, February 1973
Words and Music by Bryan Ferry
Bryan Ferry - Voice and Keyboards
Andrew Mackay - Oboe and Saxophone
Eno - Synthesizer and Tapes
Paul Thompson - Drums
Phil Manzanera - Guitar
Guest Artiste: John Porter - Bass


For Your Pleasure
Date of Release 1973

On Roxy Music's debut, the tensions between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry propelled their music to great, unexpected heights, and for most of the group's second album, For Your Pleasure, the band equals, if not surpasses, those expectations. However, there are a handful of moments where those tensions become unbearable, as when Eno wants to move toward texture and Ferry wants to stay in more conventional rock territory; the nine-minute "The Bogus Man" captures such creative tensions perfectly, and it's easy to see why Eno left the group after the album was completed. Still, those differences result in yet another extraordinary record from Roxy Music, one that demonstrates even more clearly than the debut how avant-garde ideas can flourish in a pop setting. This is especially evident in the driving singles "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You," which pulsate with raw energy and jarring melodic structures. Roxy also illuminates the slower numbers, such as the eerie "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," with atonal, shimmering synthesizers, textures that were unexpected and innovative at the time of its release. Similarly, all of For Your Pleasure walks the tightrope between the experimental and the accessible, creating a new vocabulary for rock bands, and one that was exploited heavily in the ensuing decade. - Stephen Thomas Erlewine

1. Do the Strand (Ferry) - 4:04
2. Beauty Queen (Ferry) - 4:41
3. Strictly Confidential (Ferry) - 3:48
4. Editions of You (Ferry) - 3:51
5. In Every Dream Home a Heartache (Ferry) - 5:29
6. The Bogus Man (Ferry) - 9:20
7. Grey Lagoons (Ferry) - 4:13
8. For Your Pleasure (Ferry) - 6:51

Bryan Ferry - Keyboards, Vocals, Art Direction, Cover Art Concept
Phil Manzanera - Guitar
CCS - Artwork
John Anthony - Producer
Brian Eno - Synthesizer, Keyboards, Tape, Tapes
Bob Ludwig - Digital Remastering
Andy Mackay - Oboe, Saxophone
John Middleton - Engineer
Roxy Music - Arranger, Producer
John Porter - Bass
John Punter - Engineer
Paul Thompson - Drums
Smile - Hair Stylist
Eno - Synthesizer, Tapes
Chris Thomas - Producer
Anthony Price - Clothing/Wardrobe, Make-Up, Hair Stylist, Wardrobe
Nicholas Deville - Art Direction, Art Direction, Photography
Antony Price - Clothing/Wardrobe, Make-Up, Hair Stylist
Karl Stoecker - Photography
Jennings - Crew

2000 CD Virgin 47449
1973 CD Reprise 2-26040
1973 LP Warner Brothers 2696
1973 CS Reprise 4-26040
2000 CD EMI 847450
2001 CD EMI 65823




Do the Strand
Composed By Bryan Ferry
Performed By Roxy Music

AMG REVIEW: Over the years, a lot of performers have exhorted their followers to do certain dances, from Little Eva's "Locomotion" to the Bay City Rollers' "The Bump." Opening their sophomore album in early 1973, Roxy Music issued a similar order. Only instead of telling the listener how to dance the dance, Bryan Ferry simply reeled off a role call of all the famous people who already danced it, the insinuation being if you're cool enough to do the Strand, then you don't need a pop group to give you the instructions.
Aggressive, exclusive, and absolutely compulsive, "Do the Strand" - "a danceable solution to teenage revolution" - rides on an ever-building backdrop of instrumental chaos. Honking sax and plodding piano open the number but, by two minutes in, the entire band is competing for space in the mix and still Ferry's vocals rise above it all: "They're playing our tune/by the pale moon...and we like the strand."

"Do the Strand" was issued as an unsuccessful U.S. single during 1973; four years later, it repeated that non-performance in the U.K. as a trailer for the band's first greatest-hits collection. - Dave Thompson


Editions of You
Composed By Bryan Ferry
Performed By Roxy Music

AMG REVIEW: Though no U.K. single was drawn from For Your Pleasure, when the Roxy Music catalog was reissued during 1977-1978, the frenetic "Editions of You" did indeed make it out (as the B-side to "Do the Strand") and, even at the height of punk's metamorphosis into the seething trickery of the looming, post- Low electro scene, it tore every other contender to shreds.
The lyric is little more than a scattershot assemblage of apparently disconnected streams of verbal clichйs - "boys will be boys...love's a gamble, hard to win, easy lose...let the chips fall where they may." Behind it, however, Roxy goes into freakish overdrive, literally slam dancing one another out of the spotlight to create one of the most heart-poundingly violent musical assaults of the age.

And no, it didn't make the chart. Even punk, it seemed, had its limits. - Dave Thompson



In Every Dream Home a Heartache
Composed By Bryan Ferry
Performed By Roxy Music

AMG REVIEW: Okay, it's creepy-crawly weirdie time. Two albums old, and Roxy Music had already compared their women to automatons, automobiles, sirens, and sex kittens. "In Every Dreamhome," however, stripped the last slice of lifelike dignity from the object of Ferry's affections, and revealed her as a simple inflatable. "I bought you mail order, my plain-wrapper baby...the perfect companion."
It is a song of two halves. The first half, as the nubile rubber maid's virtues are extolled (and, possibly, feared - "disposable darling, can't throw you away now"), is slow and sinister, the band burbling away behind the grim confessional. And then..."I blew up your body, but you blew my mind" - and all hell breaks loose.

Ferry continues to try and keep control, howling the title like a rosary mantra. But the guitars increase, the phasers ride into overdrive, and, just when you think it's all over, it comes back again, for one of the most dynamic false endings you'll ever hear. And, if you think the studio version is scary, there's a live take on Viva which will tear the heart out of your stereo system. Play it on headphones as you're falling asleep. Your nerves will never forgive you. - Dave Thompson



For Your Pleasure
Composed By Bryan Ferry
Performed By Roxy Music

AMG REVIEW: The title track to Roxy Music's second album really doesn't sound like anything special. A vaguely valedictory Bryan Ferry lyric fades into an ambiguous chorus of "ta-ra, ta-ra"; the band plays in unaccustomed leaden boots and only drummer Paul Thompson sounds like he's breaking a sweat. So wander off and play some singles instead...the B-side of 1975's "Both Ends Burning," for instance, and see just what a great song "For Your Pleasure" really is.
Recorded live, but omitted from the Viva! Roxy Music album, it's one of the finest concert recordings in the whole Roxy canon, possessed of a dynamic sparseness which the (possibly over-produced) studio version barely hints at. Quite possibly it's the version which Simple Minds were thinking of as they prepared their own cover, in 2001, but rest assured that they only came close to perfection. Roxy, on the other hand, nailed it. - Dave Thompson



Roxy Music
For Your Pleasure
Virgin (47449)
UK 1973

Bryan Ferry, vocals, keyboards; Andrew MacKay, oboe, saxophone; Brian Eno, synthesizer, tapes; Paul Thompson, drums; Phil Manzanera, guitar; with John Porter, bass

Tracklist:
1. Do The Strand — 4:04
2. Beauty Queen — 4:41
3. Strictly Confidential — 3:48
4. Editions of You — 3:51
5. In Every Dream Home a Heartache — 5:29
6. The Bogus Man — 9:20
7. Grey Lagoons — 4:13
8. For Your Pleasure — 6:51

total time 42:19

matt

For Your Pleasure is Roxy Music's dark album. I don't think it has a consecutive run of songs on it as immediately impressive as the great first five on the debut, but I find it as a whole to be more consistent and even better overall. The band still wrote solid pop hooks (I think "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You" are as good almost anything on the debut) but they displayed a greater interest in developing other sides of their sound. On the previous album, the band had more ideas than quality material in which to incorporate them (a problem that I think marred a few songs on the second half of that record). That isn't an issue here, as the band had honed their strengths since last being in the studio.
For Your Pleasure has the fingerprints of Brian Eno all over much of it. He had become a cult figure with audiences and this likely led to a more prominent role in the studio (which probably also contributed to the irreconcilable creative differences with Bryan Ferry). Even the tunes that seem most obviously Ferry's sound manipulated by Eno in some way, whether it's that extra blare and dissonance on "Do the Strand," the wild synthesizer solo on "Editions of You" or the brilliantly processed guitar which carries the otherwise girl-groupish "Beauty Queen," thereby creating one of Roxy Music's most effective juxtapositional clashes. But Eno is really let loose on the second half of the album. The noir-ishly atmospheric "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" captures the Brian Eno era of Roxy Music perfectly. Over minimal musical accompaniment, Ferry croons achingly about his erotic obsessions; in this particular case, an inflatable doll. It all leads to a classic moment when Ferry sings the lyric "I blew up your body," music halts and he then murmurs "...but you blew my mind," after which a brief pause is punctured viciously by some wild guitar soloing, taking the creepy confessional to an entirely different level. I should probably make clear at this point that there is virtually nothing about the content of this song — or a good deal other of Roxy Music's songs — that on paper would normally make me the least bit interested in hearing it. I'm really not sure how Roxy Music managed to avoid descending into total campiness, but, to my ears, they rarely ever did. I think this album has many pleasures and I find that none of them make me feel guilty.

Then there's "The Bogus Man," the most "prog" that the band ever got. It's a warped nine minute vamp with repetetive, chant-like vocals about being chased by the Bogeyman. Eno manipulates Ferry's voice, multi-tracking and treating it, getting it to sound thin and sickly. Eno then fills out the rest of jam with squonking noises and mellotron shades, and he gives Phil Manzanera's guitar a sticky, needle-point quality. This was a one-of-a-kind item in Roxy Music's history and it provides a glimpse at what their future might have sounded like had Eno remained in the band.

The bizarreness is given a momentary reprieve with the straightforward, lighthearted "Grey Lagoons." I like the song a lot; it sounds vaguely gospel-inflected and I think it has one of most attractive melodies in the band's catalog. It's just too bad that it has an instrumental break in which the mood switches from a genuine elegance to an old-timey rock and roll boogie. Such a move could have worked on a song that courted camp to begin with or which had tongue in cheek, but "Grey Lagoons'" lack of irony makes it an undesireable candidate for such treatment. Eno is back to his tricks on the album's finale, the forboding, atmospheric title track. The tune is drawn out well past its final verses and by all accounts should be considered padding at nearly seven minutes. But Eno controls the tension superbly, building it up until nearly all that is left are drumrolls, a fractured piano and his quivering, looped synthesizers. Then these sounds are replaced by industrial noises and voices that eventually fade out. It's a great way to end an excellent album.

review by Matt P. — 9-8-05