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Roxy Music: Siren

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Virgin Records
Released: 1975
Time:
 42:32
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): See Artists...
Rating: *********. (9/10)
Media type: CD
Web address: www.roxyrama.com
Appears with: Bryan Ferry
Purchase date: 2010.01.28
Price in €: 2,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Love Is the Drug (B.Ferry/A.Mackay) - 4:11
[2] End of the Line (B.Ferry) - 5:14
[3] Sentimental Fool (B.Ferry/A.Mackay) - 6:14
[4] Whirlwind (B.Ferry/Ph.Manzanera) - 3:38
[5] She Sells (B.Ferry/E.Jobson) - 3:39
[6] Could It Happen to Me? (B.Ferry) - 3:36
[7] Both Ends Burning (B.Ferry) - 5:16
[8] Nightingale (B.Ferry/Ph.Manzanera) - 4:11
[9] Just Another High (B.Ferry) - 6:31

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Bryan Ferry - Keyboards, Vocals, Voices, Artwork, Cover Art
John Gustafson - Bass
Eddie Jobson - Synthesizer, Strings, Violin, Keyboards
Andy Mackay - Oboe, Saxophone
Phil Manzanera - Guitar
Paul Thompson - Drums

Chris E. Thomas - Producer
Steve Nye - Engineer
Barry Sage - Assistant Engineer
Michael Sellers - Assistant Engineer, Assistant
Ross Cullum - Assistant Engineer, Assistant
Bob Ludwig - Remastering, Digital Remastering
Bob Bowkett - Artwork, Cover Art
Nicholas Deville - Artwork, Cover Art
Jerry Hall - Artwork, Cover Art
Graham Hughes - Artwork, Cover Art
Anthony Price - Artwork, Cover Art
Celine - Cover Art
 

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


1975 LP Virgin 47455
1987 CD EG Records 20
1989 CD Reprise 2-26043
2000 CD Virgin 47455
2001 CD EMI Music Distribution 65826
2007 CD EMI Music Distribution 68825
2008 CD Caroline Distribution 16912
2000 CD EMI Music Distribution 847456

Recorded at Air Studios, London, England in 1975.

Roxy Music's fifth album, SIREN, is a return to the form oftheir first couple of records--that is, it mixes astonishing material with some that, well, isn't quite as good. This is not to say that the band abandoned sophistication, however. If anything, they turned the suaveness up a notch--tracks like "Sentimental Fool" and the brilliant "Just Another High" both, albeit in different ways, suggest the path the band would follow before arriving at their masterpiece, AVALON. For those keeping track of these things, the cover model on this album is Jerry Hall. "Love Is The Drug", the album's first track, is a classic. A story-song that could describe the beginning of the relationship that dissolves in "Dance Away" (from MANIFESTO, the band's next studio album), it is built on solid rhythm grooves with added flourishes of brightguitar. Bryan Ferry's vocals are more expressive than usualon "Both Ends Burning", a fairly sedate, but insistent dance groove with synthesizers weaving in and out of the propulsive bass line. SIREN, as the middle album in the band's studio career, includes pointers to both their past and future and is an excellent introduction to the worlds of Roxy Music.



Abandoning the intoxicating blend of art rock and glam-pop that distinguished Stranded and Country Life, Roxy Music concentrates on Bryan Ferry's suave, charming crooner persona for the elegantly modern Siren. As the disco-fied opener "Love Is the Drug" makes clear, Roxy embraces dance and unabashed pop on Siren, weaving them into their sleek, arty sound. It does come at the expense of their artier inclinations, which is part of what distinguished Roxy, but the end result is captivating. Lacking the consistently amazing songs of its predecessor, Siren has a thematic consistency that works in its favor, and helps elevate its best songs — "Sentimental Fool," "Both Ends Burning," "Just Another High" — as well as the album itself into the realm of classics.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Released before Roxy Music became a de facto Bryan Ferry project, but after their Brian Eno-influenced art-rock stage, Siren is a snapshot of a band in flux, and loving it. There's little of the boundary-pushing primitivism that marked their self-titled debut. Still, Ferry's youthful edge and the band's rough-hewn melodicism will shock those expecting to hear the adult-contemporary silkiness found on 1982's massive-selling Avalon. Both camps should nevertheless admire this record for so recklessly and beautifully straddling that massive stylistic gap. Featuring their first modest hit in the U.S., "Love Is the Drug," the record overflows with choruses that reveal their hooks slowly while drawing on sunny, spare instrumentation and Ferry's loopy, still-developing croon. As the band wrestles between glam-pop, sleek dance tunes, and shiny, Moody Blues-esque rock & roll, they don't sound at all like a band running from its past. Ferry and his cohorts are just taking back the reins, revealing the brisk melodies and strong songwriting that were the one constant in Roxy Music's lifespan.

Matthew Cooke - Amazon.com



Die anfänglich musikalische Aufregung und Gefühlshysterie von Roxy Music hatte sich 1975 auf dem fünften Album Siren gelegt, die bewährten Zutaten Weltschmerz, Dekadenz, Manierismus und Ironie waren für den Massengeschmack kultiviert, aber immer noch sehr raffiniert in Szene gesetzt. Der britische Nummer eins Hit "Love Is A Drug" erweist sich als würdiger Roxy Music-Rocker, "Both Ends Burning" als das typische, erotisch-knisternde Ferry-Melodram mit wehmutsvoller Oboe von Andy Mackay. Die ist, wie auch Phil Manzaneras delikate Gitarre zugunsten einer dominanten und geschlossenen Rhythmussektion in den Hintergrund gerückt. Mit lässigem Groove nehmen damit Schlagzeuger Paul Thompson und Bassist Johnny Gustafson, umgarnt von den Keyboard-Klängen Eddie Jobsons, den kommenden Disco-Boom vorweg. Und damit hatten die Engländer wieder einmal die Trend-Nase vorn - auch mit dem Cover, das Ferrys damals neue Freundin Jerry Hall ziert.

Ingeborg Schober - Amazon.de



There used to be this ad (in the Fifties, I suppose) for a cigarette: You're Never Alone with a Strand! A guy alone in the street; belted raincoat, turned down hat brim; fog, drizzle, blurred neon lighting; three in the morning and he'd just left a party or come to the end of an affair or arrived off a train; down but cool (cigarette cool) and romantic, weary--a private eye at the end of a case. I always thought it was Frank Sinatra. That was one role Bryan Ferry had figured out for himself. Something else there used to be was two artists called Gilbert and George whose work of art was themselves. They exhibited daily in a classy gallery. Elegant, suited, disdainful, they'd stand there all day while people paid to look. Later on a little song and dance act became part of the picture. That was something else Bryan Ferry wanted to be--a work of art. The cover of the new Roxy Music album is credited to eight people, two more than made the music. It shows a siren on the rocks, perfectly posed down to her last blue fingernail, but the lurid lighting gives the game away--it's another Fifties ad. "Come hither," she's saying, "and buy Johnson's gin." The song about her isn't the sea drama, "Whirlwind," but "She Sells": "Your lingerie's a gift wrap--slip it to me."

By all my usual criteria Roxy Music is decadent. Ferry deals with images of emotions rather than with emotions themselves. Music is only a means to his end, and only one means among many (who else gives their hairdresser equal billing?). For a Pete Townshend or a Bruce Springsteen, the expression of their imagery is their imagery; for Bryan Ferry, the act of making music is as uninteresting as the act of combing his hair -- it's the product that matters. And the reduction of rock to a means of achieving quite other entertainment end is the hallmark of decadence. No doubt about it, and Roxy Music goes into the back drawer, alongside Alice Cooper and David Bowie and Bette Midler. Well, some doubt about it, because every time I play Siren, the first track is "Love Is the Drug," which has all Ferry's calculations, all his cool, and it's in the Top 20 here in England and a wonderful record to dance to. The story is an old one:

Late at night I park my car
Stake my place in the singles bar
Face to face, toe to toe
Heart to heart as we hit the floor
Lumbered up, limbo down
The locked embrace, the stumble round
I say go, she says yes
Dim the lights, you can guess the rest
Oh--catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of.

The rhythm is the military stomp. Ferry barks out the words like some demented sergeant major; the atmosphere is tense, the band excited, the audience frenzied--and these aren't the usual poseurs, these are rock & roll kids, dancers all. Not so decadent after all. Two things redeem Roxy. The first is that the image Bryan Ferry is after is a part of rock culture even if he got it from advertising posters and the movies. The romantic loner, world-weary, is one of the self-images of every rock fan--Philip Marlowe, in the Seventies, would be playing the dial with the rest of us. And Ferry's so sincere about his disillusion. The man who walks by himself, regretting lost love. The siren keeps calling, tempting, "Try again!" and he always does and she's always faking--the heart in the billboard is empty:

Though it's all in vain
I'd do it all again
Just to believe one minute.
("Sentimental Fool")

Let us sing of the tortured heart.
And the lonely soul in his world apart
As he plays the field--takes a little pain
Then move our separate ways again.
("Could It Happen to Me?")

I'm just another crazy guy
Playing at love was another high
Just another high.
("Just Another High")

This theme runs through the album from beginning to end and it's all a fake, every word. Ferry's going steady like the rest of us but, boy, don't we wish we could do it--play the field, take a little pain, move our separate ways again. The second thing is that Ferry's just the singer in his band and he may be using Roxy Music, but they've got their own gig going. With the single exchange of Eddie Jobson for Eno (on synthesizer, keyboards, strings) the band has been together for five albums and numerous tours, and there's a limit to how long you can be part of someone else's dream. So, while Ferry keeps the words and the tuxedo, the band has written half the music and they do enjoy playing it. The essence of Roxy's music is the tension between the band's drive (Paul Thompson must be singled out as an extra fine drummer) and Ferry's restraint. The songs are built around short, sharp, lyrical bursts; the music consists of repeated riffs rather than melodies and one of Roxy's skills is tension building, more and more insistent, while Ferry drones on about his lonely nights.

Siren is the simplest album Roxy has put down. Ferry's imagery is focused--"Jump up, bubble up--what's in store,/Love is the drug and I need to score"--and there's less synthesized clutter, fewer sound effects, more straight solo trading. It's make-your-mind-up time. In England, Roxy is a major group and people buy them or they don't--this album's going to make no difference, just a must for all Roxy fans. With you lot in the States I dunno, but I doubt it. You've never really gone for seedily good-looking Englishmen, even with a good rhythm section, and Ferry's great achievement has been to frame Roxy's unique sound round just one obsession--himself. He's made it as a work of art, he's made it as a product, but I guess he won't make it as an export statistic--you've got enough fetishes of your own.

SIMON FRITH - Jan 1, 1976
RollingStone.com
  

 L y r i c s


Love Is The Drug

Ain't no big thing
To wait for the bell to ring
Ain't no big thing
The toll of the bell
Aggravated - spare for days
I troll downtown the red light place
Jump up bubble up - what's in store
Love is the drug and I need to score
Showing out, showing out, hit and run
Boy meets girl as beat goes on
Stitched up tight, can't break free
Love is the drug, got a hook on me

Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me

Late that night I park my car
Stake my place in the singles bar
Face to face, toe to toe
Heart to heart as we hit the floor
Lumber up, limbo down
The locked embrace, the stumble round
I say go, she say yes
Dim the lights, you can guess the rest

Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug, got a hook in me
Oh oh catch that buzz
Love is the drug I'm thinking of
Oh oh can't you see
Love is the drug for me


End Of The Line

Think 'll walk out in the rain
Called you time and time again
I got no reply
You've gone
Reached the point of no return
The more I see the more I stand alone
I see the end of the line
Were you ever lonely?
Mystified and blue?
Realising only
Your number's up
You're through
Done my share of winning
Now's my turn to lose
After a fair beginning
The game's up
I'm through
Think I'll walk out in the storm
There no love to keep me warm inside
Hope it's fine at the end of the line
Now's the time to take a dive
Try a magic carpet ride
Everything is wrong
You've gone
If you ever miss me
If I should cross your mind
You know where to find me
I'll be waiting at the end of the line


Sentimental Fool

Surely you cannot be leading me on?
Well if that's so, however can I love again?
How could I believe again?
How can I hold on?
Sentimental fool
Knowing that fate is cruel,
You ought to forget it.
Yes, I know it's true,
I've seen what love can do,
But I don't regret it.
Oh, you silly thing--
Don't you see what's happening?
You're better without it.
No, that's not the case--
If you were in my place,
You never would doubt it.
Sentimental fool
Who broke the golden rule,
You couldn't resist it.
Though it's all in vain,
I'd do it all again
Just to relive a minute.
A woman in love
Can make you feel good--
You know what you're living for.
She'll give you so much
And keep you in touch
With all that's worth living for.
Oh once she gets in
Through thick and through thin
She'll show you what living's for.
The rhythm of love
It must go on
Can't stop.
The beat of your heart
Is like a drum
Will it stop?


Whirlwind

May Day
Cut down to size again
What then
When less is more my friend
I'll change
Let me start again
Disguise
It's too weird to explain
Why I'll
Always call your name
Adieu; with you
I could be anything
That I want to be
Whirlwind
Wildfire and driving rain
Wheels spin
Bowl me over hurricane
Whirlwind
Crack your cheeks and blow
Me Far
So far
How far
Is Shangri-la from here
And is it this way?
There she blows
Tear me down tornado
Whirlpool
Drag me to the deeps below
Whirlwind
Will a wildcat strike be tame?
Earthquake
Shake me to my feet again
It's crosswords go you near
A fatal clue I fear
This case is closed
Elementally, my dear.
Beware
Whirlwind


She Sells

Now you're talking in headlines
Up to the minute and free
Stop press, hold the front page
Up as a mirror
Are you reading me?
Watch you walking in waltz time
A jigsaw puzzle in tune
Or are you faking a straight line
To suit yourself too soon
Rather nouveau than never
Contemporary ideal
Some natural kind of poet might slow it
But she sells more my speed
She sells country and modern
Ancient western song
Of oriental confusion
You so right, me so wrong
Now you're fixing to fly me-
Auto-erotic, please,
On the break that you're gliding.
Your lingerie's a gift-wrap
Slip it to me
Nine till five
The daily grind
Made-up lies
Make up my mind
Same machine consuming you
Consuming you
Oh why
She sells
I need
Oh why love why
She sells
I need.


Could It Happen To Me?

Do you know what it means to me
To delight in your company
Could it happen to me
Do you know what I´m certain of?
I would love to fall in love
Could it happened to me?
Hey won´t you look at me
Now I'm cracked wide open I can't conceal
My all-over trembling, I'm acting strange
And while you're out of reach, I never change
God knows I'm beside myself
If a tear's a crime, then I must confess
My guilty secret, I'm not ashamed
Take me as I am, an average man
Oh boy is it getting rough
When my old world charm isn't quite enough
I'd throw you cantos, I'd jazz 'em up
When I lay me down, you don't pick up
What's more, it's a crying shame
Only this time no one but myself to blame
All I touch turns to dust
It's right there in my cards, I ought to cut
Let us sing of the tortured heart
And a lonely soul in this world apart
As he plays a fear, takes a little pain
And move our separate ways again
Is it easy to say 'I do'?
At this moment I love you
See beyond me, it's true
Now that evening is closing in
Should I light that fire again?
Could it happen to me?
Did it happen to you?


Both Ends Burning

Please don't ever let me down
'Cause you know I'm not so sure
Do I have the speed to carry on
Burn you out of my mind, I know
You're a flame that never fades
Jungle red's a deadly shade
Both ends burning, will the fires keep
Somewhere deep in my soul tonight
Both ends burning
Burning
Burn
Now my course is plain as day
Running bold across to play
Both ends burning with a strange desire
That feeds the fire in my soul tonight
I will dance the night away
Living only for today
Both ends burning while you're counting sheep
Hell-- who can sleep in this heat this night?
Tell me will I ever learn?
It's too late, the rush is on
Both ends burning and I can't control
The fires raging in my soul tonight
Oh will it never end?
Put your foot around the bend
Drive me crazy to an early grave
Tell me what is there to save tonight
Both ends burning
Burning
Burn
Keep on burning till the end, until the end
Keep on burning till the end, the very end


Nightingale

Before the morning comes, will I hear your song
Come little nightingale, I won't be here for long
When you're up there flying, do you care
If there's no one else around?
When your lover leaves you in the air
Do you waver, do you fall?
Now while the moon is high
Shall we, nightingale,
Duet all through the night
A pair of souls for sale
Stars cluster glistening
Captive till the dawn
Patiently listening
They've heard it all before
Should I stay here or should I go?
I couldn't bear to be alone
Was it really love I saw?
Oh, now I'll never know
What is this I hear?
I recognise that song
Sweet little nightingale I knew you'd come along
Soon when the morning comes.
We will both be gone
So sing pretty nightingale
Lead, I'll follow on.


Just Another High

Maybe your heart is aching
I wouldn't know, now would I?
Maybe your spirit's breaking up
I shouldn't care, now should I?
Maybe you're thinking of me
Well I don´t know, now do I?
If you only knew how I feel
Wish I could die, now don´t I?
I´m just another crazy guy
Playing at love was another high
Just another high
Couldn't believe in my eyes
You drifted into my life
But marriages made in heaven
Can they survive in this life?
Surely it came as no surprise
Love was too hot to handle
Well I really blew my cool and you
You just blew out the candle
Didn't you just try just another high?
Didn't you sign as you waved goodbye?
Just another high
I'm just another crazy guy
Playing at love was another high
Such a crazy high
Lately it seems so empty here
But I suppose I'm alright
Maybe tomorrow's not so clear
Still I remember that night
Singing to you like this is
My only way to reach you
Though I´m too proud to say it
Oh how I long too see you
Shattered by dreams, by your goodbye
As shattered my goodbye, as filled the sky
Desolate am I
Just another crazy guy
Playing at love was another high
Such a crazy high
Maybe I should start anew
And maybe I should find someone who
Will maybe love me like I love you
Maybe I´m too stuck on you
Maybe I got stuck on you
 

 M P 3   S a m p l e s


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