Just how big were Roxy?
Hi,
Watching 'The Roxy Music Story' you would think that Roxy were huge back in the 70's. I know they were highly succesful, but were certainly not stadium fillers and other acts were selling more albums and having more & bigger hit singles. In fact Roxy were like Marmite - it seemed you either loved them, or hated them. None of my friends liked them - Bryan's voice particularly was an acquired taste.
I did notice that many non-Roxy/Ferry fans liked 'Love is the Drug and especially 'Let's Stick Together' and their 'sound' became more and more accessible from Manifesto onwards. I would imagine the last 2 studio albums, (both platinum), outsold the others considerably.
Any thoughts, especially from those who can remember back that far!
PS - One thing that Roxy did have was success over a long period. Most groups were sucessful, even huge, for maybe a couple of albums and then faded away.
Watching 'The Roxy Music Story' you would think that Roxy were huge back in the 70's. I know they were highly succesful, but were certainly not stadium fillers and other acts were selling more albums and having more & bigger hit singles. In fact Roxy were like Marmite - it seemed you either loved them, or hated them. None of my friends liked them - Bryan's voice particularly was an acquired taste.
I did notice that many non-Roxy/Ferry fans liked 'Love is the Drug and especially 'Let's Stick Together' and their 'sound' became more and more accessible from Manifesto onwards. I would imagine the last 2 studio albums, (both platinum), outsold the others considerably.
Any thoughts, especially from those who can remember back that far!
PS - One thing that Roxy did have was success over a long period. Most groups were sucessful, even huge, for maybe a couple of albums and then faded away.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gerry on
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Does it really matter how commercially successful Roxy were? On a purely musical level I can barely count on 1 hand the number of bands who can match them; not one bad album, several masterpieces and numerous classic singles. The Beatles are not in the same league by the way.
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Permalink Reply by Terry 'O' on -
I might be right in remembering that they added afternoon shows in 1974 to cope with demand at the 2500 Odeon Birmingham?
Just checked out the gig guide on this wonderful site and they went from 3 nights at Hammersmith Odeon in '74 to 2 nights at Wembley Pool.
As for comparing them to Slade/Glitter et all. I think their success should be measured in the longevity of the back catalogue. All the Roxy albums still stand as fine recordings, many of which are outstanding. Not often said about Slade/Glitter or the ChiniChap stable.
Terry
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Permalink Reply by Alan on -
I'm not disputing how influential Roxy were/are, or how their work has stood the test of time compared to other acts. The point I was trying to make is that Roxy were not as successful in 1972-1975 as some documentaries would have us believe.
The most important thing though is that we loved them and still do!!!
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Permalink Reply by Cor Broersen on -
I am from 55 and was an able seaman from 73-77 and sailed europe but mainly UK and Italy/spain. Only in the UK you would find one roxy track, virginia plain, in jukeboxes that were still common in pubs in those days. In the early and mid seventies the musical border was drawn between 45pm single groups and 33pmALBUM groups.
All my crazy stoned longhaired and cool friends bought albums, and singles were for all the normal square stupid seventieshair beerdrinking others. (sorry!!) There was not much inbetween. And from all my friends I was the only one being a fan and having all the roxy albums.You would find one album here or there in my friends record collection. Mostly for reasons already mentioned here.
I remember Radio Caroline (album radio!!!) giving a lot of airplay to roxy as they did with a whole bunch of other great album groups.
Albums were THE thing as indeed all the huge bands played concerts for max 10000people except for about 4 or 5 HUGE concerts like they had in the 60ties. It was the blessing of the 70ties that you could enjoy all these new superstars-to-be in smallish rooms like you would see a local bands today. By 74 Roxy was maybe the "biggest" touring act in the UK with people dressed up for the occasion just like with bowiefans. But in the netherlands roxy was at its best Obscure, indeed for people that loved really "strange but cool" music.
and Alan RE; your question. Define please succesfull to get your answer.
If your as influential as roxy was, to get 1000s of people to try to make music in the way they did....
You can trace the influences from 72 up untill today's bands like The Killers.
And roxy being super influenced by king krimson, as we all know. Being an art canvas as Bryan calls it mixing all these cool parts of popular music from before the seventies into music paintings, collage's and thereby following the music concrete movement (eno's contribute) and mixing that up to THAT Roxy Music sound.... would this young freshman from artschool starting his musical carreer today with the same musical goals.... There would not be another roxy but he would paint his collages in a soft synt environment and sing in an acoustic band. (imho)
You know Alan its not so easy to see what makes roxy so succesfull (or not) album succes is measured over a career and can span decades that you can't pin down to a period of three years.
That leaves us to the record sale over only that periode. You know very well how succesfull they were without being there, the albums ARE huge, without mentioning salesfigures.
Some documentaries that you mention don't even come close in showing how VERY HUGE they were.
And im sorry, but you see the picture tru time distortion.
As I see it distorted by having seen so many highs and low's over the timespan of nearly fourty years.
The influential thing is what made them succesfull and that influence sinks in with musicians the moment you'll hear them first. its in your DNA and stays there.
But I fully agree with you...
"The most important thing though is that we loved them and still do!!!"
cheers!
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Permalink Reply by newromantic on -
Mud, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Slade, Suzie Quatro, Bay City Rollers, I get sick of it! What a poorer youth life to look back upon compared to those who had their youth in the 60s! But when you mention Roxy, people take a step back. Yes, they were "special", they say. Of course this doesn`t neccesarily mean "especially good". -But they were different. -Appealing to "different people". Even lonely people. I have a feeling that they first 5 albums were full of musical clichês, mixed with avant garde sounds. How could you possibly win?
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Permalink Reply by sharon on -
Interesting how different perceptions are , the above sad and sorry list of'musical' 70's 'artist's was precisely why Roxy became so huge ( I'm looking at that not from filling stadiums but from life-syle influence on the young )...Lonely ?..it never felt that way standing in PiP's nightclub ,Manchester, being part of a Roxy crowd felt fantastic...and -forgive the foolishness of the young- but we really did feel in with the in crowd, I still get a buzz recalling that feeling today.. I also remember queing for hours in Leeds to get tickets for the Roxy concert ,the people looked amazing, one couple had an Afghan hound on a lead and looked like extra's from a 4o's film,..this was drab Leeds in the 70's and the experience of Roxy music was life-changing.
The albums at the time felt innovative, fresh and pure art compared to what else was on offer,
strange how personal perceptions differ.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Graham on -
Interesting question - for me, from the moment I heard them as a teenager in 1972, I was completely hooked because of the (then) completely unique sound. Up until then I'd been into prog rock - but Roxy really did carve themselves a unique niche.
Part of the appeal was that they were not mainstream - you felt as if you were 'in on it'. The 'it' being Bryan's fantasy world.
They certainly were not 'big' in the venue-filling sense when compared to some other bands, but as far as originality and influence are concerned, they were and are right up there.
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Permalink Reply by PM on -
In any documentary about such a band it concentrates on the band’s legacy which magnifies in time and the more mundane reality of where they were in the order of things back in the day is maybe lost in the years that pass.
To their fans Roxy were everything in 72,73,74 (as was Bowie) but realistically at the time sales wise they were just another successful band like say in 1974 Queen and Sparks were: hit singles, hit albums, TOTP appearances, sold out tours and lots of press coverage, some of it mocking. It is interesting to look at the output of these bands in relation to each other in 1974. Roxy certainly had two previous years of success and I am not trying to start a debate about the merits of the bands in relation to each other just provide an example of a sales context to put Roxy in for their era.
Queen and Sparks of course only broke through in 1974. Sparks released 2 albums and 3 singles that year, Queen released 2 albums and 2 singles, Roxy released 1 album and 1 single. Bryan Ferry released a solo album and 2 singles that year too. In 1974 Queen’s two singles both reached the top 10 as did the first two Sparks hits. The sole Roxy single and the two Ferry singles did not reach the top 10.
Queen released one single in early 75 (Now I’m Here) which didnt change their status at all, they were still just another successful chart act. But by the end of 75 with ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ at no.1 and ‘A Night At The Opera’ selling huge amounts and their previous 3 albums following it into the charts on the back of it’s success Queen were taken to another level of success. Sparks at the end of 75 were finished as a chart act for that era.
In late 75 ‘Love Is The Drug’ was a huge hit but I remember many people liking the song itself rather than many more people getting into Roxy. Remember ‘Both Ends Burning’ was a relative flop a couple of months later and Roxy split in 76 which may not have happened if they had become mega like Queen did at the end of 75. At that time Roxy possibly felt stranded somewhere in between floundering like Sparks but not moving to another level of success like Queen.
I think a major factor in how Roxy are seen now which maybe obscures the reality of sales is the fact that they influenced a generation of music makers that came after. ‘Punk’ bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees acknowledged their influence and huge 80s bands like Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet and ABC could not hide they debt they owed to Roxy.
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Permalink Reply by sharon on
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I think you make an interesting point about time distortion.
I remember two friends being fanatic Queen fans in the 70's,but to me and many Roxy followers they seemed more 'pina-colada' than 'champagne' in terms of style and music, although 'Bohemian Rhapsody' was deserving of respect. They lacked something ? less- is -more perhaps ?,sharpness ....
I also remember (shamefully) going to watch Abba the movie with a group of Roxyites just so we could scathingly take the mick at how cringy they were....I don't think we were in the minority with that opinion, at the time.
Of course now both Queen and Abba are held in high esteem and I can see -or have been influenced by hype perhaps- that their music is good ,or has grown to be good with the passing of time. I do have one grumpy mate who claims Abba was then ,and still is now..C***!
Roxy ,Bowie and Lou Reed seem to have retained the freshness from the 70's to now, playing 'Transformer ' today feels as if it could have been released just hours ago-timeless .
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Permalink Reply by PM on
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I think Queen (who I loved in 74/75) and Abba are a record company dream, a reference point for endless repackaging of back catalogue still always managing to reach new buyers time after time - greatest hits, musical, film. The endless compilations of Roxy or Ferry or Roxy/Ferry didnt/dont do the same, there is a definite limit to how many people they will interest.
I think that the Roxy/Bowie of the 70s always asked more of their audience than purely passive consumption of the ‘product’.
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Permalink Reply by sharon on
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excellent point which I think hones in on the essence of Roxy /Bowie. You are right, Roxy audiences did not just passively consume the product.
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