Stranded (album)
| Stranded | ||||
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| Studio album by Roxy Music | ||||
| Released | 1 November 1973 | |||
| Recorded | September 1973 | |||
| Studio | AIR Studios, London | |||
| Genre | Art rock, glam rock | |||
| Length | 41:06 | |||
| Label |
Island, Polydor (UK) Atco, Reprise (US) |
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| Producer | Chris Thomas | |||
| Roxy Music chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Stranded | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| Rolling Stone |  |
| Robert Christgau | B+ |
| Pitchfork Media | 9.2/10 |
Stranded is the third album by English rock band Roxy Music, released in late 1973. It reached number one on the UK album charts. The cover shows Bryan Ferry's then girlfriend and 1973 Playmate of the Year, Marilyn Cole. It was the first Roxy Music album on which Ferry was not the sole songwriter as multi-instrumentalist Andy Mackay and guitarist Phil Manzanera also contributed to the album. Though it was also the first without Brian Eno, who had left the group after For Your Pleasure, Eno nonetheless later rated it as Roxy Music's finest record. Despite this praise, the album only reached number 186 in the Top Pop Albums charts in the US.
The track "Street Life" was released as a single and reached number 9 on the UK charts.
Paul Gambaccini in a 1974 Rolling Stone review wrote: "Roxy Music can no longer be ignored by Americans. They may not achieve the commercial success they have in Britain, where Stranded reached Number One, but their artistic performance must be recognized. Stranded is an eloquent statement that there are still frontiers which American pop has not explored."
Retrospective review by AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine is also positive. He wrote of the album: "Under the direction of Bryan Ferry, Roxy moved toward[s] relatively straightforward territory, adding greater layers of piano and heavy guitars. Even without the washes of Eno's synthesizers, Roxy's music remains unsettling on occasion, yet in this new incarnation, they favor more measured material."
The gatefold cover photograph was taken by Karl Stoecker and styled by Antony Price, and shows the Playboy model Marilyn Cole. In an interview with the writer Tony Barrell in 2007, Cole recalled: "It was at a tiny studio, somewhere off the Edgware Road in London. I'd never even heard of Roxy Music. I very soon understood that I was in safe hands, among some very talented people. There was a red dress hanging up, and I thought, ‘Ooh, good, I'm going to get to wear a really nice dress'... whereupon, as I'm having my make-up done, Antony comes in and starts ripping the dress – a hole there, a slash there. I was thinking, ‘Oh no.' They stuck me on this big log and explained I was supposed to be stranded in a jungle, and then they started spraying me; they sprayed my hair gold, and there was a whole mist coming over me and the dress was getting wet in all the right places."
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Wikipedia