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Stranded

Certain Songs #2120: Roxy Music – “Mother of Pearl”

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Album: Stranded
Year: 1973

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I’ve mostly stayed away from the long artier cuts, mostly because I think Roxy Music as an all-time great singles band — at least partially because until the end, all of their singles were absolute bangers — and because most of the long artier cuts were also slow, which I just don’t think they pulled off as convincingly as the fast ones.

There were exceptions, of course: the spooky “In Every Dream Home a Heartache,” the trippy “For Your Pleasure” and the anthemic “A Song For Europe” all had their moments, but for me, the tie they well and truly nailed it was “Mother of Pearl,” which with 40+ years of hindsight seems like a fractal of their entire career, going from gloriously crazy to gloriously beautiful in the space of 6:53.

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Certain Songs #2119: Roxy Music – “Street Life”

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Album: Stranded
Year: 1973

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Even though Stranded was Roxy Music’s second album in 1973 and third in an eighteen month period, things had changed pretty radically in the Roxy camp since For Your Pleasure came out eight months prior. The main thing of course, was the sacking of ol’ sourpuss himself (or maybe given his reputation at the time, ol’ pussy hunter) Brian Eno, whose popularity was rivaling if not overshadowing that of Bryan Ferry.

And so in a classic act of passive-aggressiveness, Ferry had his manager do the actual firing, and poor Brian Eno was never heard from again.

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