Stranded (album)

Stranded is the third album by English rock band Roxy Music, released in late 1973. It reached number one on the UK album charts. The cover shows Bryan Ferry's then girlfriend and 1973 Playmate of the Year, Marilyn Cole. It was the first Roxy Music album on which Ferry was not the sole songwriter as multi-instrumentalist Andy Mackay and guitarist Phil Manzanera also contributed to the album. Though it was also the first without Brian Eno, who had left the group after For Your Pleasure, Eno nonetheless later rated it as Roxy Music's finest record. Despite this praise, the album only reached number 186 in the Top Pop Albums charts in the US.

Stranded
Studio album by Roxy Music
Released	1 November 1973 (1973-11-01)
Recorded	September 1973 (1973-09)
Studio	AIR Studios, London
Genre	Art rock, glam rock
Length	41:06
Label	Island, Polydor (UK) Atco, Reprise (US) [1]
Producer	Chris Thomas
Roxy Music chronology
For Your Pleasure (1973) Stranded (1973) Country Life (1974)
Singles from Stranded
"Street Life" Released: November 1973 [1]

The track "Street Life" was released as a single and reached number 9 on the UK charts.

Critical reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[2]
Christgau's Record Guide	B+[3]
Pitchfork	9.2/10[4]
Q	[5]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[6]
Select	4/5[7]
Spin Alternative Record Guide	9/10[8]
Tom Hull	A+[9]

Reviewing for Rolling Stone in 1974, Paul Gambaccini wrote: "Roxy Music can no longer be ignored by Americans. They may not achieve the commercial success they have in Britain, where Stranded reached Number One, but their artistic performance must be recognized. Stranded is an eloquent statement that there are still frontiers which American pop has not explored."[10]

Reviewing for Creem in 1974, Robert Christgau found Ferry to be an "ambitious" but "oblique" artist and quoted New York artist Sidney Tillem's 1969 thesis on figurative art, "Aspects and Prospects", to conclude his review of the album: "By moral in the context of art I mean a style which executes the deeper social and psychological function of form, as opposed to a particular aspect of vanity called taste. Pop sensibility, pop consciousness, pop sentimentality have been invaluable in clarifying the provincialism and nostalgia that actually permeate a culture that has come to pride itself on sophistication. But they have not resulted in a new art simply because the requisite idealism has been lacking."[11]

In a positive retrospective review, AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote of the album: "Under the direction of Bryan Ferry, Roxy moved toward[s] relatively straightforward territory, adding greater layers of piano and heavy guitars. Even without the washes of Eno's synthesizers, Roxy's music remains unsettling on occasion, yet in this new incarnation, they favor more measured material."[2]

Artwork

The gatefold cover photograph was taken by Karl Stoecker and styled by Antony Price, and shows the Playboy model Marilyn Cole. In an interview with the writer Tony Barrell in 2007, Cole recalled: "It was at a tiny studio, somewhere off the Edgware Road in London. I'd never even heard of Roxy Music. I very soon understood that I was in safe hands, among some very talented people. There was a red dress hanging up, and I thought, ‘Ooh, good, I'm going to get to wear a really nice dress'... whereupon, as I'm having my make-up done, Antony comes in and starts ripping the dress – a hole there, a slash there. I was thinking, ‘Oh no.' They stuck me on this big log and explained I was supposed to be stranded in a jungle, and then they started spraying me; they sprayed my hair gold, and there was a whole mist coming over me and the dress was getting wet in all the right places." [12]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Bryan Ferry except where noted.

Side one

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Street Life"	3:29
2.	"Just Like You"	3:36
3.	"Amazona" (Ferry, Phil Manzanera)	4:16
4.	"Psalm"	8:04

Side two

No.	Title	Length
1.	"Serenade"	2:59
2.	"A Song for Europe" (Ferry, Andy Mackay)	5:46
3.	"Mother of Pearl"	6:52
4.	"Sunset"	6:04

Personnel

Roxy Music

• Bryan Ferry – vocals, piano, electric piano, harmonica
• John Gustafson – bass guitar
• Eddie Jobson – synthesizers, keyboards, electric violin
• Andy Mackay (as Andrew Mackay) – oboe, saxophone, treatments
• Phil Manzanera – guitar, treatments
• Paul Thompson – drums, timpani

Additional personnel

• Chris Laurence – string bass on "Sunset"
• The London Welsh Male Choir – chorus on "Psalm"
• Chris Thomas – production, bass on "Street Life"[13] (uncredited)
• Nicolas de Ville – cover design
• Karl Stoecker – photography

Covers

The bass guitarist John Taylor, during his solo period after leaving Duran Duran in 1997, organized a Roxy Music tribute album called Dream Home Heartaches: Remaking/Remodeling Roxy Music (released 1999). On it, Ferry and Mackay's "A Song for Europe" was covered by Dave Gahan and "Street Life" was performed by Phantom 5 (a.k.a. Gerry Laffy and Simon Laffy).[14]

Notes

1. Strong, Martin C. (2006). The Essential Rock Discography. Edinburgh: Canongate Books. p. 930. ISBN 1-84195-860-3.
2. Erlewine, Stephen Thomas. "Stranded – Roxy Music". AllMusic. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
3. Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: R". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 12, 2019 – via robertchristgau.com.
4. Ewing, Tom (13 August 2012). "Roxy Music: The Complete Studio Records 1972–1982". Pitchfork. Retrieved 16 August 2012.
5. "Roxy Music: Stranded". Q (156): 122–23. September 1999.
6. 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.
7. "Roxy Music: Roxy Music / For Your Pleasure / Stranded". Select (112). October 1999.
8. Weisbard, Eric; Marks, Craig, eds. (1995). "Roxy Music". Spin Alternative Record Guide. Vintage Books. p. 337. ISBN 0-679-75574-8.
9. Hull, Tom (April 1975). "The Rekord Report: Second Card". Overdose. Retrieved June 26, 2020 – via tomhull.com.
10. Gambaccini, Paul (23 May 1974). "Stranded". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
11. Christgau, Robert (September 1974). "The Christgau Consumer Guide". Creem. Retrieved 17 March 2010.
12. Tony Barrell (2007-11-11). "Cover Stories". The Sunday Times. Retrieved 2014-09-06.
13. title= The Making of Roxy Music's 'Street Life'
14. John Taylor's Trust The Process website Archived 2006-08-22 at the Wayback Machine

External links

• Super seventies review on the album