Flesh and Blood (Roxy Music album)
| Flesh + Blood | ||||
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| Studio album by Roxy Music | ||||
| Released | 23 May 1980 | |||
| Recorded | 1980 | |||
| Studio | Basing Street Studios, Gallery Studios | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:56 | |||
| Label |
E.G. Atco/Reprise (US) |
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| Producer | Rhett Davies and Roxy Music | |||
| Roxy Music chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Flesh + Blood | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| Robert Christgau | (B) |
| Pitchfork Media | (6.6/10) |
| Smash Hits | 6½/10 |
Flesh and Blood (stylized as Flesh + Blood) is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music. Released in late May 1980, it was an immediate commercial success peaking at No. 1 in the UK for one week in June and then returned to the summit in August for another three weeks, in total spending 60 weeks on the albums chart in the United Kingdom. The album also peaked at No. 35 in the United States and No. 10 in Australia.
The album was preceded by the single "Over You", a No. 5 UK hit that also provided the band with a rare US chart entry at No. 80. Two more hit singles followed: "Oh Yeah" (UK #5) and "Same Old Scene" (UK No. 12, AUS #35). Flesh + Blood also included two cover versions: The Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour". The latter was released as a single in some territories. In addition, the album's title track along with the aforementioned "Over You" and "Eight Miles High" peaked at number forty-six on the Billboard dance charts.
The album was made after their drummer Paul Thompson had left the band, essentially making Roxy Music a three-piece band consisting of Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Phil Manzanera.
The album cover was conceived by Peter Saville and photographed by Neil Kirk. It features three young women holding javelins (the third one being on the back cover). Saville worked with no input from Ferry, continuing the tradition for Roxy Music albums to feature images of women on the cover artwork. The front cover models are Aimee Stephenson (at the front) and Shelley Mann; the model on the back cover is Roslyn Bolton (her modelling name was Ashley). Stephenson can also be seen in a Levi's Route 66 commercial of 1976.
Roxy Music's seventh studio album has received mixed reviews from rock critics. Ken Tucker panned it in his Rolling Stone review, "Flesh + Blood is such a shockingly bad Roxy Music record that it provokes a certain fascination. The line on early Roxy (when Eno was a member) was that the band radiated high-tech decadence, and Flesh + Blood connects with this historical interpretation by confirming the decadent part: e.g., what could be more outré right now than an art-rock disco album?." The New Rolling Stone Record Guide gave it three stars and said "Manifesto and Flesh + Blood, released after the band split up between 1976 and 1978, were good of their kind, but they lacked the spark that made some of the earlier albums so grand."Stephen Thomas Erlewine states "even the handful of undeniably strong moments can't erase the feeling that Roxy Music were beginning to run out of ideas."Pitchfork rated the record a 6.6 (the lowest of any of the studio Roxy Music albums) complaining "But the later material isn't always worthwhile. There are moments on 1980's Flesh + Blood, in particular, where the band stop sounding tired and start sounding bored, a fatal difference."David Hepworth, writing in Smash Hits, said, "Original followers [of the band] may find it low on character and surprise while lovers of the mighty "Over You" should be suckers for its mature, silky charms."Greil Marcus praised the album "This record, all graceful lust and wistful regret, is pure romance; it’s also the best summer music anyone’s made since oil spills began undermining the concept ... Flesh + Blood floats; it drifts; it fades away; it soars back. It captures the easy, endless promises of summer, and it captures the summer you’ve never gotten over; it works as soothing, mindless background music, and it can break your heart. Like a perfect July day, it makes no demands on a listener, yet it can give a listener everything."
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