I've been into Roxy Music for much of my adult life. I got their seminal album For Your Pleasure on CD in my early twenties and figured that was enough until it very much wasn't. I gradually picked up the early albums and loved all of them - my personal favourite being third release Stranded — which made my eventually acquisition of 1975's Siren a no brainer. It's the one that Americans swear by and since when were the people of the United States wrong about anything?
The American music mag Vibe considers it to be a seamless blend of their early experimental art rock with their eventual re-emergence as a classy romantic pop-rock group and I kind of agree. The only trouble is, it's too much of a compromise. Predecessor Country Life had been a mostly successful move away from the daring and complex sound of their first three albums but Siren sounds like an unconvincing attempt to claw some of their edge back while also leaning more towards the middle-of-the-road. While I'm indifferent to much of latter-period Roxy, I find too much of Siren to be bothersome and no song on it irks me more than "Both Ends Burning". Yet, I can't give a rational reason why. The playing is energetic and Bryan Ferry is his typical louche self. The only thing I can truly rationalize is that it sounds underwritten and as a result is highly repetitive.
I feel much the same about Music Explosion's one major hit. Each time I listen to "Little Bit O' Soul" I feel distinctly unimpressed but afterwards I wonder if it's not really so bad. And it isn't bad, it just doesn't land with me. It doesn't get on my nerves the way that "Both Ends Burning" does, rather it gnaws at me that this Ohio five piece is lecturing me about 'soul'. A good way to ensure that everyone knows you're lacking in the soulfulness department is to hector listeners with your supposed soul bona fides. I've never liked Bob Seeger's "Old Time Rock and Roll" but I'd never question the song's sincerity. That said, "today's music ain't got the same soul" is a deplorable line which makes me wonder what the hell a geezer like Seeger knows about soul. The same goes for these guys: if you have to tell everyone how soulful you are then you probably aren't very soulful.
To be as fair as possible, Music Explosion didn't write it and weren't even the first group to give it a go — and they didn't even muck it up as badly. A version by Coventry's The Little Darlings had come out in Britain in 1965 and it's very much the product of the era of shouty vocalists trying to outdo Mick Jagger (yeah, good luck with that) with the pounding percussion of The Dave Clark Five. This was really the closest thing the UK music scene had to garage rock and it isn't any wonder they never did much with it — and not just because the British are low on garages. It's poor so it's a credit to Music Explosion that they were able to make it somewhat enjoyable.
But only somewhat. This sort of poppy garage rock was really starting to get old by 1967 and there's still some more to go. Sure, they played it as well as they could have and with plenty of spirit but it's almost as if I'm being subjected to an early run through of tired old power pop. Doing a blog such as this, I'm examining some of the biggest hits spanning several decades over a relatively compressed period of time. Thus, I can easily tire of the same old "soulful" pop singles that had been in the charts when listeners at the time could experience them in a more spread out fashion. More of the same may well have delighted Canadian teenagers while I find it an exercise in monotony. Bring on the harder stuff, I say.
(FYI: I won't be writing about Roxy Music in a review and this is likely the closest I'll ever come to discussing them in much detail in this space. Therefore, I have finally found a reason to be appreciative of "Both Ends Burning" — I just won't be listening to it again any time soon)
Score: 4
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