Bryan Ferry/Roxy Music - Street Life: 20 Great Hits (1989)

I absolutely love the 1982 Roxy Music album, Avalon, but I've never really ventured into the band's back catalog. A few years back, I found this compilation for $1 and couldn't pass it up. What this CD taught me is that I prefer the band's later stuff to their earlier stuff. That's not to say the early stuff is bad - the modified Bo Diddley beat of Pyjamarama is irresistible, for example - but I dig the smoother tunes that followed. And I should probably find copies of the Manifesto and Flesh + Blood albums.

Compilation released 1986 in the UK, 1989 in the US.

Smash Hits magazine

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #100
• Billboard Top CDs: #23
• Rolling Stone: #48

Tracks:

Song	Artist	Year	UK	US
Virginia Plain	RM	1972	4	-
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall	BF	1973	10	-
Pyjamarama	RM	1973	10	-
Do The Strand	RM	1973	-	-
These Foolish Things	BF	1973	-	-
Street Life	RM	1973	9	-
Let's Stick Together	BF	1976	4	-
Smoke Gets In Your Eyes	BF	1974	17	-
Love Is The Drug	RM	1975	2	30
Sign Of The Times	BF	1978	37	-
Dance Away	RM	1979	2	44
Angel Eyes	RM	1979	4	-
Oh Yeah	RM	1980	5	102
Over You	RM	1980	5	80
Same Old Scene	RM	1980	12	-
In The Midnight Hour	RM	1980	-	106
More Than This	RM	1982	6	102
Avalon	RM	1982	13	-
Slave To Love	BF	1985	10	109
Jealous Guy	RM	1981	1	-

While I like Pyjamarama and Street Life, I usually just start this CD on either track 9 or 11.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Avalon (1982)

Roxy Music - Avalon (1982)

Note: this release was received as a gift as an LP, later replaced by a CD. This CD released using HDCD encoding.

Roxy Music was decidedly a more popular group in the UK than in the US, so it's not surprising that I hadn't heard of the group before my friend Jim gave me this album. The single was More Than This (it bubbled under the charts at 102 and the video received modest airplay on MTV), but the song that grabbed me immediately was the gorgeous title track. Initially, that track was the only one that got played at my place. After a few months, I ventured beyond the title track and found a lush album of rich, meticulously crafted tunes. There's not a weak track in the bunch. I never went back to discover the group's earlier catalog and I didn't keep up with Bryan Ferry's solo career; I just knew that nothing could measure up to this album.

I'm not alone in my admiration, this album is consistently found in lists of top albums of the '80s. A favorite line comes from a retro-review in the Spin Alternative Record Guide, where it received a 9 out 10 rating: "1982's Avalon remains one of the all-time great makeout infernos." Musical genius Nile Rodgers has often claimed that Roxy Music was the inspiration for Chic. If you need more of an endorsement than that, you're at the wrong blog, buddy.

Update: In its 2020 list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, Rolling Stone ranked Avalon at #336.

Press of the time:

• Trouser Press: "Avalon has the emotional brilliance of other Roxy Music LPS, and is even more chilling"
• Robert Christgau (A-): "minor triumph" 
• Smash Hits (8 out of 10): "Stately, sad and scrumptious all at the same time."
• Record Mirror: "More than 'Avalon' there is nothing."
• Stereo Review: "coolly intense"
• Rolling Stone (★★★½): "takes a long time to kick in, but it finally does, and it's a good one"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #53
• Billboard Rock: #41
• CashBox: #32
• CashBox CD: #18
• Rolling Stone: #15

Tracks:  The title track continues to be my favorite cut from this album and is one of my favorite songs of the '80s. Stunning, beautiful, and relaxing. Other top tracks include More Than This, The Main Thing, Take A Chance With Me, and To Turn You On.

For more information on the brief life of the CD longbox,
go visit The Legend of the Longbox.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None