‘Siren’: Roxy Music’s Seductive Fifth Album
Innovative yet accessible, this mid-70s classic closed out the band’s first phase.
The last of the five studio albums constituting Roxy Music’s remarkable first phase, Siren was first issued through Island/Atco in October 1975. Its release meant that the Bryan Ferry-fronted band had produced five full-length discs in little more than three years.
During this seminal first spell, Roxy Music’s output skilfully balanced sonic innovation with the commercial demands of pop and Siren found them locating this sweet spot once again. Produced with deftness and clarity by Chris Thomas (The Beatles, John Cale, Badfinger), the record featured quirky, left field-inclined material such as “Could It Happen To Me?” and the slightly quixotic “She Sells,” but also the likes of the world-weary “End Of The Line” and the glorious, six-minute “Sentimental Fool”: songs which hinted at the lusher musical pastures the band would explore on 1979’s Manifesto and beyond.
Listen to Roxy Music’s Siren now.
Crucially, Siren’s tracklist also found room for one of Roxy Music’s most enduring songs courtesy of the choppy, yet sophisticated “Love Is The Drug.” Recalling that “it sounded like a hit” Andy Mackay later told The Quietus how the song came together. “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 gut instinct proved sound as the dancefloor-friendly “Love Is The Drug” ripped up the charts on both sides of the Atlantic in September 1975. Indeed, the song only narrowly missed topping the U.K. charts (it peaked at No. 2) and it provided the band with its only Billboard Top 30 success in the U.S.
Arriving in shops just weeks later, Siren came housed in yet another memorable sleeve, this time depicting Bryan Ferry’s then-girlfriend, Jerry Hall, as the titular seductress. Inspired by a TV documentary Ferry had recently seen about lava flows and rock formations on North Wales’ island of Anglesey, photographer Graham Hughes captured the image of Hall on the rocks near South Stack on Anglesey’s north coast – with the resulting album cover remaining one of the most striking in rock history ever since.
To Roxy Music’s credit, Siren’s music was equally engaging and it soon found favor with fans and critics alike. With “Love Is The Drug” still making waves on the charts, the album went Top 5 in the UK and nudged its way into the Top 50 in North America. Reviews were extremely positive, with respected U.S. rock critic Dave Marsh even referring to Siren as “Roxy’s masterpiece” – an opinion shared at that point by Bryan Ferry himself.
“I think that [Siren] is the best album we’ve done,” he stated 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.”
