For Your Pleasure is the second studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music, released on 23 March 1973 by Island Records. It was their last to feature synthesiser and sound specialist Brian Eno. The album expanded on the experimental nature of their self-titled debut, featuring more elaborate production and experiments with phasing and tape loops.
The album proved to be even more commercially successful than their debut, peaking at number 4 in the UK Album Charts, eventually being certified gold by the BPI. It also yielded one single released outside of the UK, "Do the Strand". The album received positive reviews from critics, and is today regarded as Roxy Music's best album, and one of the greatest Glam Rock albums of all time.
Production
The group spent more studio time on this album than on their debut, combining song material by Bryan Ferry with more elaborate production treatments. For example, the song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (Ferry's sinister ode to a blow-up doll) fades out in its closing section, only to fade in again with all the instruments subjected to a pronounced phasing treatment. The title track fades out in an elaborate blend of tape loop effects. Brian Eno remarked that the eerie "The Bogus Man", with lyrics about a sexual stalker, displayed similarities with contemporary material by the krautrock group Can.[3]
Of the more upbeat numbers on the album, "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You" are both based around rhythms in the tradition of the band's first single "Virginia Plain". "Do the Strand" has been called the archetypal Roxy Music anthem[by whom?], whilst "Editions of You" is notable for a series of solos by Andy Mackay (saxophone), Eno (VCS3), and Phil Manzanera (guitar).
Eno is prominent in the final song "For Your Pleasure" from the album, making it unlike any other song on the album. The song ends with the voice of Judi Dench saying "You don't ask. You don't ask why"[4] amid tapes of the opening vocals ('Well, how are you?') from "Chance Meeting" from the first Roxy Music album. A live recording of the song was used in 1975 as a B-side to "Both Ends Burning".
The original UK LP cover credits "Produced by Chris Thomas and Roxy Music" for the entire album, but only the side one label repeats that; the side two label credits "Produced by John Anthony and Roxy Music". Various foreign editions and reissues have confused the matter with random variations.
As with the debut Roxy Music album, no UK singles were lifted from For Your Pleasure upon its initial release. The non-album single "Pyjamarama", backed with "The Pride and the Pain", was issued in advance of the album in Britain, peaking at number 10 on the UK Singles Chart. "Do the Strand", backed with "Editions of You", was released as a single in the US and Europe; it was finally issued as a UK single in 1978 to promote Roxy Music's Greatest Hits album, released in December the previous year.
Artwork
The cover photo, taken by Karl Stoecker, featured Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, model Amanda Lear, who was also the confidante, protégée and closest friend of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí.[5] Lear was depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash.[6] The image has been described as "as famous as the album itself".[7] Original pressings of the album featured a gatefold sleeve picturing the band members, except bassist John Porter, posing with guitars. Porter was credited as a "Guest artiste" in the credits, but joined the band for the subsequent tour.
For Your Pleasure made No. 4 on UK Albums Chart in 1973. In 1973, Paul Gambaccini of Rolling Stone gave it a mixed review, and wrote that "the bulk of For Your Pleasure is either above us, beneath us, or on another plane altogether."[17]Robert Christgau also reviewed the album, giving it a B rating and saying, "These guys make no secret of having a strange idea of a good time, but this isn't decadent, it's ridiculous."[citation needed]
Over time, critical reception of the album would improve. In 2000, Q magazine placed For Your Pleasure at number 33 on its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever".[18] It placed at number 87 on Pitchfork's 2004 list of the top 100 albums of the 1970s.[19] The citation notes that Morrissey told the British press that "he could 'only think of one truly great British album'... For Your Pleasure."[19] In 2003, For Your Pleasure was ranked number 394 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time,[20] with the album's ranking dropping to number 396 in the 2012 update of the list, and climbing to number 351 in the 2020 update.[21][22]NME ranked For Your Pleasure at number 88 on its 2013 list of 500 greatest albums of all time and called it "the pinnacle of English art rock."[23]Classic Rock named it as one of 10 "essential" glam rock albums.[24]Happy Mag included the album in its list of "10 records to introduce you to the world of art-rock" and called it "an art-pop, glam-rock masterpiece."[25]
^Dolan, Joe; Martoccio, Angie; Sheffield, Rob (20 November 2024). "The 74 Best Albums of 1974". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 30 November 2024. In their first four years as a band, Roxy Music went off on a tear that produced five of the Seventies' most influential art-rock albums.
