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 Post subject: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 1:08 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:27 pm
Posts: 231
This may be controversial for some - but to my mind Flesh and Blood is an important album - I feel it redesigned the Roxy sound more completely than any of it's predecessors .. and set the scene for Avalon. I love all Roxy but I've always had a soft spot for this much maligned album - People like to moan about the cover versions but I think the intro to ITMH is the most gorgeous and perfect introduction to any collection of Roxy songs . I feel it must've been a hard album to make because it shakes off the past with Marie Kondoesque determination. Manifesto seemed to have one foot in the past with another tiptoeing into an unclear MOR void .. Whereas F&B's streamlined and polished silver space ship emerged from the late 70's clouds into the clear blue 80's skyline. This is an opinion which has developed over the years - I remember on its release being shocked at it's lack of juxtaposition and yearning for more edge and instrumental passages - but now I see it like a refreshing clear pop diamond. Also all of this was reinforced in my mind by those simple amazingly effective Venetian Blinds on the tour....


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Sun May 22, 2022 3:40 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jul 18, 2010 7:13 pm
Posts: 553
I am listening to it now, by happenstance. Gardner is right. It’s a maturing piece of work, the one that I think had been labelled “ music for hairdressers”, and it’s timeless pop music. The covers are great. “In the midnight Hour “ was originally done for the Kenny Everett Video show New Year’s Eve special. I remember staying up to watch it - no video recordings in those days.
And Eight Miles High is appropriate on the album too , and a precursor to Like a Hurricane, a cover version that has also endured.
And talking of covers, the following year brought Roxy Music their biggest hit, and a song which I’ve been hot and cold on over the following years, Jealous Guy.
Flesh and Blood may only rock in places , but it’s a joy to listen to, in a salon or at home.

ps . I missed the tour, and the blinds.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 4:12 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 6:27 pm
Posts: 231
You make a good point about the post F&B Roxy cover versions .. Also I think I have such a soft spot for this album because it was released in the summer I left school.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 7:30 pm 
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Joined: Tue Oct 09, 2012 9:25 pm
Posts: 85
I was studying for my A levels when 'Flesh+Blood' came out - I have a soft spot for it as well.

I still think 'Same Old Scene' is a perfect single and ,if the band had wanted to, tracks such as 'In The Midnight Hour' and even 'Running Wild' would have made fine singles as well.

I didn't see the band live until they played Dublin for the 'Avalon' tour.I remember the 'Led Zep' fans in my school telling me in 1980 how good a guitarist Phil Manzanera was while the 'Punk' fans respected the band as well.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 11:35 pm 
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Joined: Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:58 am
Posts: 237
MHO about F&B.

Bad things:
1 No TGPT :( :( :(
2 Andy Newmark playing drums, even though the mighty Simon Philips was credited with percussion on the album.
3 The introduction of Neil Hubbard. Why was he needed for the recording???
4 BF playing guitar on F&B. Why? Such a great track live, but a poor one on the album.
5 Phil Manzanera. A truly great guitarist. I think that he must have been pissed off about Hubbard and not playing on F&B. Mind you the same happened on Avalon - NH again and Phil not playing on TTYO (JG B side).
6 Covers. OK ITMH a good track, but a BF solo one.

Good things:
My Only Love, Over You and Running Wild. And of course F&B with Phil playing on it.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 10:56 am 
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Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:40 am
Posts: 623
Location: Merseyside
A really interesting thread - thanks for kicking it off Gardner!

F&B often feels like a much maligned and divisive Roxy album, from the line-up changes and covers to the marked change in musical direction: if East met West on Manifesto, F&B was like the Berlin wall coming down a full decade early.

Had this been an album by a band early in their recording careers, it would be revered as a classic & timeless example of 80s synth-rock. It's only the style and composition of the albums that preceded it that prompts its detractors.

Coming at the end of a year that had provided RM with their biggest hit to date, a successful top 10 album and supporting tour, their oeuvre was truly 'eight miles high' and the wholly unexpected, visually stunning performance of ITMH on Kenny Everett's NYE show tapped into that perfectly. Roxy were back, bigger than ever. By any measure, it's a brilliant take on the song and a perfect album opener.

The hits are pristine pop. I'd say 'Over You' is the best but feels surprisingly overlooked these days with much modern airplay going to the two follow ups. It's a brilliant juxtaposition of melancholic lyrics, upbeat, soaring melody and superb production. Hard to imagine anyone else carrying it off. Lovelorn Ferry and high production values are the trademark elsewhere too, no more so than on MOL and Running Wild - without question one of BF's strongest and mature lyrics. It closes the album as magnificently as SMR and JAH did on the albums that came immediately before it. In an age of downloaded songs and an emphasis on hits, it's tragic that a song of this calibre can wallow about generally under-appreciated.

As I recall, three spells at No.1 spanning 5 weeks in total. Three big hit singles. On that (admittedly narrow) criteria it was triumph, and one that even the much-lauded Avalon would not surpass.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 12:31 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 8:15 pm
Posts: 1025
Location: Inverness, Scotland
Flesh + Blood the album that most Roxy fans are polar about.

I became a music fan in 1979 with my first purchase of any album by any band was Manifesto. Between then and the release of Flesh + Blood I had more or less got the entire Roxy and solo catalogue to that point in time.

Flesh + Blood was the first ever new release to me, everything I had bought of theirs at that point was back catalogue and readily available. To get another Roxy or solo album then was just a case of save up the money I earned working on an ice cream van and go into a shop and buy one, simple as that.

Flesh + Blood was something I had to search the music section in news newspapers and the news section in the music press to see the words "forthcoming Roxy Music album" or variations on that.

Once I got that news it was countdown to the day when I would go into Lawrie TV shop in Kilsyth (my nearest record shop). I remember looking through the LPs on release date and all I was looking for was the words Roxy Music and a sleeve that I had never seen before. I will never forget that moment when I flicked an LP forward to find the next one had ROXY MUSIC FLESH + BLOOD up in the top right corner. I lifted it up to see what I think is one of their best sleeves.

My entry point to that album is very special and may blur my opinion on it but what I would say is that I have never played it and not enjoyed it.

This is a quality album and certainly one of the best of its time, the chart success of the album and singles shows how a lot of people thought the same at the time.

(See the chart info here http://vivaroxymusic.com/albums_11.php )

The song writing and performances by everyone are sublime. I don't like to pick favourite songs on an album as I never play 'songs' I play' albums' and that's 95% of the way I listen to music:- entire albums start to finish (not best ofs or various artists)

This album is of course a thousand miles from For Your Pleasure or Country Life but there isn't any room for 2 For Your Pleasures or 2 Country Lifes so Roxy had to evolve, and Roxy evolved so well over 8 albums. Roxy couldn't and shouldn't have made any of their albums 8 times over with different songs but the same approach, the same production, the same band line up etc. The early stuff is amazing but couldn't be done over and over again Siren is an example of a band, a formula dead on its feet.

When I listen to this album or any album by anyone I listen to it for what it is and not what it isn't.

J.O'B.

P.S. for the last 42 years I have been unable to join the words "Flesh" with "Blood" by using the word "and" or "&"


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 1:00 pm 
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Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:40 am
Posts: 623
Location: Merseyside
VivaRoxyMusic.com wrote:
P.S. for the last 42 years I have been unable to join the words "Flesh" with "Blood" by using the word "and" or "&"

Oops! Shines a light on my earlier faux pas! I'm aware of the correct album name but have never, until now, considered why the album name is written differently to the song title. Anyone have that insight or is it a piece of minutiae too far? :)


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 2:10 pm 
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Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 8:15 pm
Posts: 1025
Location: Inverness, Scotland
UKRichard wrote:
VivaRoxyMusic.com wrote:
Oops! Shines a light on my earlier faux pas! I'm aware of the correct album name but have never, until now, considered why the album name is written differently to the song title. Anyone have that insight or is it a piece of minutiae too far? :)


An interesting thing with this album and the titles of songs that Richard points to are:

Flesh + Blood [album title]
Flesh And Blood [song title]

Oh Yeah [album track)]
Oh Yeah (on the radio) [single label.]

Same Old Scene [album track]
The Same Old Scene [single title]

J.O'B.


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 Post subject: Re: Flesh and blood - 42nd anniversary .
PostPosted: Tue May 24, 2022 3:22 pm 
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Joined: Fri Jun 19, 2009 1:26 am
Posts: 1119
Although I'd been a fan since '73 (my first Roxy purchase was Pyjamarama) I couldn't easily afford LPs for several more years (from Country Life onwards I tended to ask for them as birthday presents, while buying cheaper used copies of the back catalogue by mail order*) and concerts remained a distant dream while I lived in a car-free home in Smalltown, Nowhere...

(*I think the LPs generally came from Reddingtons Rare Records in Birmingham and the 45s from Oldies Unlimited in Telford; same for others here perhaps?)

Thinks perked up when I left home and moved to London at the end of '79 and I finally got to experience Roxy live at Wembley Arena in August '80. It seems strange, looking back after around 100 Roxy and BF gigs, to discover that I wasn't the only late starter as a concert goer.

As for the album, I bought it just before I moved out of a young men's hostel into my first rented flat and I remember it being popular with my circle of friends there and even with my future flatmate, who existed on a diet of soul, reggae and jazz/funk. I guess quality will always shine through... :)


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