Okay, it's Sunday morning again, and I have had a coppola days to de-shit my brain. Not through with all of it, though. In professional circles it's called "mental hygiene", implying that it's not your own shit, of course not, but the shit that other folks successfully got rid of themselves, leaving it on your doorstep to take good care of it, or work through it, like a sewage plant, coz they rather not look at it themselves. Anyways.
Now, lemme quickly say some words about this Roxy Music album.
That's a half speed mastered reissue of "For Your Pleasure", as you might have noticed, from 2017 on the Virgin label. It comes in one of those very sturdy, oversized and heavyweight, tight gatefold covers, resembling a dinner tray, or, more apt in this case, an uncomfortable and murderous stiletto shoe. The corners of the jacket are so sharp, you can kill somebody with it, which back in the 1970s must have been considered to be the epitome of titilating and hard-core sexiness, I assume, the ultimate vagina dentata in black, which, for all your (male) pleasure, is gonna snatch off ya lil dicky, makin' ya yowl in frenzied pain, leavin' behind a murderous mess, before swiftly dashing off into the nearby jungle again, where them other vaginas and blacks live.
I know that Mozzer once called this album the best British album of all times, or something of that sort, most likely refering to the music and not so much to Karl Stoecker's glam photographical art work, which, in some circles, is considered "iconic" nowadays. Probably you have to add a historical perspective to become more aware of its significance. After all them lousy hippies growing old and wrinkly, this imagery must have been something newly and dangerously titillating to arouse the inside of them olden pants, a male menopausal thing, dreaming of spanking juicy buttocks while clad in leather, I guess.
Musically the album has survived the decades nicely, I would say, and as you know, I am not one of those "everything that was great back then, naturally has to be great nowadays too"- kind of person. There is a test of time, which many formerly considered exceptional albums simply do not pass. It is completely subjective, of course, but not putting these old albums through some test of this sort, comes across as utter senility, naiviety, and an attempt to relive a past that has never been that way anyway.
So, here we go. I can still find pleasure in Roxy Music without having to attach a historical hue to it. Brian Eno's synthesizer playing sticks out most, I would say. My favs are "Editions of You" and "Every Dream Home a heartache" on the A-Side. With regard to the half speed mastering, I have to say that I cannot detect any difference to other recordings. But could be a turntable thing.