7. Roxy MusicRoxy Music

Was it their first album? I don’t even know. This and Court And Spark were both records that my parents played when I was young, and I hated. But they didn’t play either album that much. My parents are really great but they didn’t play them obsessively; they would play favourite songs or pick selections. I listened to this properly when I was maybe 21. It was exciting and dramatic and glamorous. There were these moments, like oboe solos and stuff, that were almost hippy-ish, but they worked so well within the music. I don’t know if ‘hippy-ish’ is the word but I was really into this idea of the instruments going wild and going crazy. An oboe: so cool and weird and a unique combination of timbres. Then, of course, there’s the romantic quality of Bryan Ferry’s voice, which is why I also love his solo music. And the later Roxy Music, I love also, which everyone thinks is bad but – no, they don’t! A lot of people love it. It surprises me that he wrote all the songs on this album. I never knew that.