The final of the 5 studio albums constituting Roxy Music’s outstanding first part, Siren was first issued by way of Island/Atco in October 1975. Its launch meant that the Bryan Ferry-fronted band had produced 5 full-length discs in little greater than three years.
Throughout this seminal first spell, Roxy Music’s output skilfully balanced sonic innovation with the industrial calls for of pop and Siren discovered them finding this candy spot as soon as once more. Produced with deftness and readability by Chris Thomas (The Beatles, John Cale, Badfinger), the report featured quirky, left field-inclined materials corresponding to “Could It Happen To Me?” and the marginally quixotic “She Sells,” but additionally the likes of the world-weary “End Of The Line” and the fantastic, six-minute “Sentimental Fool”: songs which hinted on the lusher musical pastures the band would discover on 1979’s Manifesto and past.
Crucially, Siren’s tracklist additionally discovered room for one in every of Roxy Music’s most enduring songs courtesy of the uneven, but subtle “Love Is The Drug.” Recalling that “it sounded like a hit” Andy Mackay later advised The Quietus how the track got here collectively. “Like most hit singles, ‘Love Is The Drug’ kind of selected itself and always sounded like something special,” he remembered. “The band collectively and Chris [Thomas] got the snappier feel. Johnny Gustafson came up with the bass pattern and Paul [Thompson] got that great tight snare sound. Bryan pulled one of his alchemical stunts and sang an almost complete vocal line with fantastic lyrics to general amazement and applause in [London’s] AIR Studio No. 1 late one night.”
The band’s intestine intuition proved sound because the dancefloor-friendly “Love Is The Drug” ripped up the charts on either side of the Atlantic in September 1975. Certainly, the track solely narrowly missed topping the U.Okay. charts (it peaked at No. 2) and it supplied the band with its solely Billboard Prime 30 success within the U.S.
Arriving in retailers simply weeks later, Siren got here housed in yet one more memorable sleeve, this time depicting Bryan Ferry’s then-girlfriend, Jerry Corridor, because the titular seductress. Impressed by a TV documentary Ferry had just lately seen about lava flows and rock formations on North Wales’ island of Anglesey, photographer Graham Hughes captured the picture of Corridor on the rocks close to South Stack on Anglesey’s north coast – with the ensuing album cowl remaining some of the placing in rock historical past ever since.
To Roxy Music’s credit score, Siren’s music was equally participating and it quickly discovered favor with followers and critics alike. With “Love Is The Drug” nonetheless making waves on the charts, the album went Prime 5 within the UK and nudged its approach into the Prime 50 in North America. Critiques had been extraordinarily optimistic, with revered U.S. rock critic Dave Marsh even referring to Siren as “Roxy’s masterpiece” – an opinion shared at that time by Bryan Ferry himself.
“I think that [Siren] is the best album we’ve done,” he said in an interview with Viva Roxy Music. “It has the energy of the first two and the professionalism of the last two. That’s the advantage of making a lot of albums. You acquire the expertise to make each new one sound more and more professional.”
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