Roxy Music: “Love is the Drug” and “Street Life”

Roxy Music was an influential English band formed in 1971 by Bryan Ferry and Graham Simpson. Wikipedia positions their importance as a mix of glam, early punk and new wave. A look at video confirms that assessment.

The band was active from its founding until last year, with intermittent breaks. AllMusic’s Thomas Erlewine sums up the Roxy Music style and dynamic in this way:

Evolving from the late-’60s art-rock movement, Roxy Music had a fascination with fashion, glamour, cinema, pop art, and the avant-garde, which separated the band from their contemporaries. Dressed in bizarre, stylish costumes, the group played a defiantly experimental variation of art rock which vacillated between avant-rock and sleek pop hooks. During the early ’70s, the group was driven by the creative tension between Bryan Ferry and Brian Eno, who each pulled the band in separate directions: Ferry had a fondness for American soul and Beatlesque art-pop, while Eno was intrigued by deconstructing rock with amateurish experimentalism inspired by the Velvet Underground.

Above is the band’s best known song, “Love is the Drug.” Below is “Street Life.”

Wikipedia and AllMusic were used in this post. Homepage photo: AVRO.