Roxy Music

After a four-year hiatus, the band regrouped to cut this fluid meeting of art pop and disco-fied rock. "Dance Away" was a deserved pop hit, while the title track and "Stronger Through the Years" influenced the Post-Punk and the Neuro movements even as the band was "selling out." Roxy Music were always about selling out; this is just when the concept caught up with them.

Roxy Music has not gone disco. Roxy Music has not particularly gone anywhere else either.
Manifesto is the band's first release since it broke up after the obligatory lousy live LP in
1976. Though far more interesting than most such sets (Who can forget the Byrds' numbing
1973 reunion album? Who can remember a thing that was on it?), it offers only
embellishments on the Roxy sound and story. The new record is a lovely footno... More >

This isn't Roxy at its most innovative, just its most listenable--the entire "West Side" sustains the relaxed, pleasantly funky groove it intends, and the difficulties of the "East Side" are hardly prohibitive. At last Ferry's vision seems firsthand even in its distancing--he's paid enough dues to deserve to keep his distance. And the title track is well-named, apparent contradictions and all. (Grade - A-)