Country Life (Roxy Music album)

Country Life is the fourth album by the English rock band Roxy Music, released in 1974 and reaching No. 3 in the UK charts. It also made No. 37 in the United States, their first record to crack the Top 40 there. The album is considered by many critics to be among the band's most sophisticated and consistent. Jim Miller in his review for Rolling Stone wrote "Stranded and Country Life together mark the zenith of contemporary British art rock."[9] Band leader Bryan Ferry took the album's title from the British rural lifestyle magazine Country Life.

Country Life
Studio album by
Roxy Music
Released15 November 1974 (1974-11-15)
RecordedJuly 1974 (1974-07) – August 1974 (1974-08)
StudioAIR Studios, London
Genre
Length41:42
LabelIsland, Polydor (UK)
Atco, Reprise (US)[1]
ProducerChris Thomas, John Punter, Roxy Music
Roxy Music chronology
Stranded
(1973)		 Country Life
(1974)		 Siren
(1975)
Singles from Country Life
  1. "Out of the Blue"
    Released: August 1974[1]
  2. "All I Want Is You"
    Released: October 1974[1]
  3. "The Thrill of It All"
    Released: November 1974[1]
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[2]
Pitchfork9.4/10[3]
Q[4]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide[5]
Spin Alternative Record Guide9/10[6]
Tom HullA[7]
The Village VoiceB+[8]

In 2003, the album was ranked number 387 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was one of four Roxy Music albums that made the list (For Your Pleasure, Siren and Avalon being the others).[10]

Style and themes

The opening track, "The Thrill of It All", was an up-tempo rocker that further developed the style of songs like "Virginia Plain" (1972) and "Do the Strand" (1973); it included a quote from Dorothy Parker's poem "Resume": "You might as well live". Eddie Jobson's violin dominated the heavily-flanged production of "Out of the Blue", which became a live favourite. Esoteric musical influences were betrayed by the German oom-pah band passages in "Bitter-Sweet", the Elizabethan flavour of "Triptych" and the lighthearted, boogie-blues, Southern rock edge to "If It Takes All Night".

”Three And Nine” was likened to the whimsical fare of Ray Davies, with Ferry looking back nostalgically to a time of watching the moving pictures in cinemas in his youth, for the pre-decimalization price of 3 shillings and ninepence.[11][12]

"Casanova" was singled out for praise by a number of critics as a more cynical and hard-rocking number than the usual Roxy Music fare. Like the earlier "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (1973), it was seen as a critique of the hollowness of the contemporary jet set, and contained further instances of Bryan Ferry's idiosyncratic word association ("Now you're nothing but / Second hand in glove / With second rate"). A re-recorded version, more mellow than the original, appeared on Ferry's 1976 solo album Let's Stick Together.

The final track, "Prairie Rose", was an ode to Texas and is sometimes mistakenly thought as a reference to Jerry Hall. However, Ferry would not meet Hall until 1975.[13]

Country Life included Roxy Music's fourth hit single, "All I Want Is You" b/w "Your Application's Failed", which reached No. 12 in the UK charts. An edited version of "The Thrill of It All", with the same B-side, was released in the United States. The album was released on Atco Records, a division of Atlantic Records.

Cover art

Shot by Eric Boman,[14] the cover features two scantily-clad models, Constanze Karoli (sister of Can's Michael Karoli[15]) and Eveline Grunwald (who was also Michael Karoli's girlfriend). Bryan Ferry met them in Portugal and persuaded them to do the photo shoot as well as to help him with the words to the song "Bitter-Sweet". Although not credited for appearing on the cover, they are credited on the lyric sheet for their German translation work.

The cover image was controversial in some countries such as the United States, Spain, and the Netherlands, where it was censored for release. As a result, early releases in the US were packaged in opaque shrink wrap; a later American LP release of Country Life (available during the years 1975–80) featured a different cover shot. Instead of Karoli and Grunwald posed in front of some trees, the reissue used a photo from the album's back cover that featured only the trees.[16] Author Michael Ochs has described the result as the "most complete cover-up in rock history".[17]

Track listing

All songs written by Bryan Ferry except where noted.

Side one
No.TitleLength
1."The Thrill of It All"6:24
2."Three and Nine" (Ferry, Andy Mackay)4:04
3."All I Want Is You"2:53
4."Out of the Blue" (Ferry, Phil Manzanera)4:46
5."If It Takes All Night"3:12
Side two
No.TitleLength
1."Bitter-Sweet" (Ferry, Mackay)4:50
2."Triptych"3:09
3."Casanova"3:27
4."A Really Good Time"3:45
5."Prairie Rose" (Ferry, Manzanera)5:12

Personnel
Roxy Music

Note: On the 1999 CD reissue of Country Life, Paul Thompson is credited for playing guitar and Phil Manzanera is credited for playing drums, when in fact it's the opposite.

Charts

Album
Year Chart Position
1974 UK Albums Chart 3
Billboard Pop Albums 37

Single
Year Single Chart Position
1974 "All I Want Is You" UK Singles Chart 12

Certifications
Organization Level Date
BPI – UK Gold 1 March 1975
gollark: With IRC, it's generally caution about discord rate limits.
gollark: Do it correctly.
gollark: If you give me several tens of thousands of samples of GEORGEuous and nonGEORGEuous art I can make a GEORGEuosity classifier.
gollark: citrons: we could make even MORE art relating to GEORGE, such that art schools will be forced to teach students about GEORGE.
gollark: Idea: GEORGEart™?

References
  1. Strong, Martin C. (2006). The Essential Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. p. 930. ISBN 1-84195-860-3.
  2. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Country Life – Roxy Music". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
  3. Ewing, Tom (13 August 2012). "Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Records 1972–1982". Pitchfork. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  4. "Roxy Music: Country Life". Q (156): 122–23. September 1999.
  5. Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Roxy Music". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide (4th ed.). Simon & Schuster. pp. 705–06. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.
  6. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "Roxy Music". Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. p. 337. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
  7. Hull, Tom (April 1975). "The Rekord Report: Third Card". Overdose. Retrieved 26 June 2020 – via tomhull.com.
  8. Christgau, Robert (17 March 1975). "Christgau's Consumer Guide". The Village Voice. Retrieved 28 April 2013.
  9. Jim Miller (27 February 1975). "Roxy Music Country Life Album Review". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  10. Moss, Marissa. "Music News | Latest in Rock, Indie, Hip Hop and More". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  11. "Roxy Music - Songs - on VivaRoxyMusic.com". www.vivaroxymusic.com. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  12. "Roxy Music - Articles, Interviews and Reviews - on VivaRoxyMusic.com". www.vivaroxymusic.com. Retrieved 20 May 2020.
  13. "Fashion Shows: Fashion Week, Runway, Designer Collections - Vogue". Style.com. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  14. "Blog de Tintin TÔrncrantz | colette". Blogs.colette.fr. Archived from the original on 10 October 2010. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  15. Young, Rob, 1968- (2018). All gates open : the story of Can. Schmidt, Irmin. London. ISBN 9780571311491. OCLC 985082791.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  16. Michael Ochs (2002). 1000 Record Covers. Amazon.com. ISBN 9783822819784. Retrieved 8 March 2016.
  17. Michael Ochs (2002). 1000 Record Covers. Amazon.com. p. 545. ISBN 9783822819784. Retrieved 8 March 2016.

Bibliography
  • Rex Balfour (1976). The Bryan Ferry Story
  • David Buckley (2004). The Thrill of it All: The Story of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music
  • Todd Burns (2004). Stylus Magazine: "Under the Covers"
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