Wish everybody would leave me alone

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

23/12/73 : Stranded - Roxy Music

We've had two previous visits with Roxy Music - one of which was a bit weird and one of which was a bit bland.  So, who knows where we'd be with this one?!?

"Street Life" is a fine opening track and it pretty much continues in the same quirky vein - with some upbeat and some downbeat numbers utilising some very peculiar sounds and rhythms.  I particularly liked "Serenade", "Mother Of Pearl" and "Sunset" but I actually found the whole album enjoyable and definitely think it would benefit from a re-listen (which, of course, I'll never give it).  Yes, it's very pretentious - but it's consistently and interestingly pretentious, so I can forgive it that.  It also doesn't hang around at a pleasingly zippy 41 minutes.

We're at #2 this week on the charts, on their fifth week of a 17 week run, having peaked at #1 in its second week.  The rest of the top five are Elton John, David Bowie, David Cassidy and Donny Osmond - once again a slightly male dominated chart, although there is at least one woman in the top ten this week (Linda with Wings at #9).  The highest new entry was - well, there's no new entry according to the records because every album is in the same place as last week.  Either there's something weird Xmas thing going on or they just lost the data - we'll never know!

Wikipedia doesn't have a lot on the album other than noting it was their first one without Eno - which surprised me because it still sounded pretty Eno-ish in a lot of places and Brian himself considers it one of their best albums.  The critics mostly liked it but, whilst it did well over here, it didn't really set the world alight, getting to #186 in the US.

There is, however, a fascinating Wikipedia rabbit hole on Marilyn Cole, the woman on the cover.  She was Playboy's first nude centrefold in 1972, is the only British holder of the "coveted" Playmate Of The Year, married Victor Lownes, Hugh Hefner's right hand man (and I was somewhat surprised to see it lasted for 32 years) and now works as a journalist, writing about boxing.  And if you think she's probably had an interesting life, wait until you read Victor's entry which includes the following - "Angrily, he returned a cherished gift to Polanski, the life-sized gold penis Polanski had modeled for during happier days. Lownes wrote that "I'm sure you'll have no difficulty finding some friend you can shove it up"".  

Back to Roxy Music, "customers also listened to" Bryan Ferry and Phil Manzanera, but no Brian Eno - he's obviously still viewed as a traitor by fans from this era.  I enjoyed this album and will be tempted to check out other early Roxy Music albums.  I also have to say that 1973 is doing well so far which is a very different start to the year than 1996 gave us (I'm sure it'll all go wrong soon enough though)

16/12/73 - I don't really see the point
30/12/73 - Very much of its time