#387: Roxy Music's Country Life

Roxy Music's fourth finds the band having more or less fully grown into their post-Eno sound. Bryan Ferry's vibrato affectations are mostly under check, Phil Manzanera's guitar leads come to the fore, along with several songwriting contributions, and John Gustafson's funky basslines capably buoy this adventurous set. The record is bookended by two of Roxy's best: "The Thrill of It All" is sophisticated, expansive, densely layered rock and roll, while the slide guitar, rock solid bass and wailing sax solo on closer "Prairie Rose" evoke a wild night in a Texas roadhouse (not inappropriately; the song was inspired by Lone Star girl Jerry Hall). In-between, various textures are explored... "Three and Nine" grooves along leisurely, while the New Romanticism that would come to characterize Duran Duran a decade later is predicted on "Out of the Blue." "If It Takes All Night" takes us back to that honky tonk, and a distinctly Weill-esque Germanic chaos presides over "Bitter Sweet." What stands out on Country Life more than any given number, though, is the musicianship of the players and the chemistry between them. This is perhaps most evident on penultimate tracks "Casanova," an experiment in funk cacophony balanced precariously on a keyboard riff that would do Stevie Wonder proud, and the piano and string driven "A Really Good Time," which burns with an intensity as restrained as the previous track's is raucous.

And hey, that cover artwork ain't nothin' to sneeze at, either...

Some other thoughts:

#388, The Beatles' A Hard Day's Night: The soundtrack to their 1964 Mockumentary of the same name (which is probably responsible for the existence of the Monkees), A Hard Day's Night spent 14 weeks at the top of the Billboard chart. Interesting fact: The title comes from one of Ringo's off-handed malapropisms.

#386, Wu-Tang Clan's Enter the Wu-Tang: 36 Chambers: I want to like this one more than I do, but where hip hop is concerned, I probably just tend to lean toward more sample heavy production and a single, charismatic MC. That said, each of the Wu crew brings his own talents, and Ol' Dirty Bastard is always fun to listen to, for his sheer weirdness, if nothing else.