Roxy Music are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame at the end of the month (along with Def Leppard and Radiohead and Janet Jackson and Stevie Nicks, among others). And when they were announced a few months ago, I think I was more surprised by Roxy Music than any other induction in quite a while. They were first-time nominees, after being eligible for over 20 years, but mostly I just didn't think they were famous enough, at least not for the fairly America-centric Hall. I always knew of Roxy Music and heard things about them, but mainly as the band that briefly included Brian Eno, almost a footnote to the career of a legendary producer who's been an integral part of more famous records by Talking Heads, U2, Bowie, and others. I thought I didn't know any Roxy Music songs besides Bill Murray singing "More Than This" for a minute in Lost In Translation. But then recently I heard "Love Is The Drug" and realized I've been hearing that song on the radio for ages, but I'd just kind of think "is this 'Double Vision' by Foreigner? is this Robert Palmer? no...I wonder who this is" and then forget about it. So, as I sometimes do, I used this playlist as an excuse to give myself a crash course in an artist who I feel like I should know better.

Roxy Music deep album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. Nightingale
2. Editions of You
3. Ladytron
4. The Space Between
5. Out of the Blue
6. Cry, Cry, Cry
7. Amazona
8. If There Is Something
9. Flesh and Blood
10. Casanova
11. Running Wild
12. In Every Dream A Heartache
13. Re-Make/Re-Model
14. She Sells
15. Grey Lagoons
16. Still Falls The Rain
17. Tara
18. Mother of Pearl

Tracks 3, 8 and 13 from Roxy Music (1972)
Tracks 2, 12 and 15 from For Your Pleasure (1973)
Tracks 7 and 18 from Stranded (1973)
Tracks 5 and 10 from Country Life (1974)
Tracks 1 and 14 from Siren (1975)
Tracks 6 and 16 from Manifesto (1979)
Tracks 9 and 11 from Flesh And Blood (1980)
Tracks 4 and 17 from Avalon (1982)

Some of these songs have been released on compilations without ever being released as a single or charting, like "Out of the Blue," "Editions of You," and "Mother of Pearl," which appeared on Greatest Hits in 1977. It's kind of interesting to listen to a band like this and instantly recognize them as a missing link in a lot of stuff I already listen to. Certainly, there's whole huge strains of new wave, new romantic/synth pop, glam rock, and Britpop that owe a lot to Roxy Music, to say nothing of the band Ladytron. And Roxy Music themselves fuse so many things that came before them together that it almost annoys me when they actually do homages themselves, like the Wilson Pickett and Byrds covers on Flesh + Blood or the silly instrumental riffs on Wagner and The Beatles on "Re-Make/Re-Model."

But I have to admit, there are times when they took some getting used to, particularly on the early albums where Bryan Ferry's singing is a little rougher and more abrasive, closer to John Cale than the smoother delivery he wound up at on later albums. Musically I think a lot of the early stuff is their best (Paul Thompson is a fantastic drummer), but sometimes I just wish the vocals were better on a song like "If There Is Something" (and Bowie does a good job with that song on the cover that Tin Machine released in 1991). But even though I found myself kind of digging on the smoother later records more than I thought I would, it seemed more fun to mix things up chronologically, it all holds together pretty well jumping between eras. The ode to a blowup doll "In Every Dream Home A Heartache" is wonderfully creepy, and the harmonica on on "Grey Lagoons" always strikes me as a really great sounding, somewhat unexpected moment even with a band whose records were full of saxophone, oboe, and other instruments.

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