For Your Pleasure

Editors’ Notes A sister album to Roxy Music’s dazzling debut, For Your Pleasure marks the last stand of the band’s original lineup: Brian Eno would leave shortly after its release. This album shows Roxy's early chemistry at its bubbling best. Shades of Cole Porter’s craftsmanship collide with screaming guitars and gurgling keyboards. “Do the Strand” and “Editions of You” are two of the band’s most aggressive performances, showing that Roxy was tapping into the sensations of punk long before the genre blossomed. But this was a group that was never content to merely rock out. “The Bogus Man” is indicative of Roxy's unusual creativity: it sounds like ZZ Top jamming with the Miles Davis band circa In a Silent Way. And how to describe “In Every Dream Home a Heartache”? Black Sabbath meets Funkadelic? Ultimately, Roxy’s best look was its stately mid-tempo ballads. “Beauty Queen,” “Grey Lagoons," and “For Your Pleasure” hit the perfect mixture of Phil Manzanera’s guitar majesty, Bryan Ferry’s lascivious funk, and Eno’s unearthly atmospherics.