For Your Pleasure (1973)

For Your Pleasure is the second studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music, released on 23 March 1973 by Island Records. It was their last to feature synthesiser player Brian Eno. The album expanded on the experimental nature of their self-titled debut, featuring a more elaborate production and experimentation.

The album was commercially more successful than their debut, peaking at number four in the UK Album Charts and eventually attaining certified gold status from the British Phonographic Industry. It also yielded one single, "Do the Strand", released outside of the UK in July 1973. The album received positive reviews from critics, who place it as Roxy Music's best album and regard it as one of the greatest glam rock albums of all time.

Background

Bryan Ferry studied under pop art painter and theorist Richard Hamilton at Newcastle University. Hamilton saw a painting as a mood board, pinning his inspirations and goals "that could as easily clash as blend together", which were adapted by Ferry on For Your Pleasure, thematically taking him from the past and into his representation of the future. Hamilton's work Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing? got its mark on "In Every Dream Home a Heartache", a song about illusions of modern sophistication and the horrors behind them.

In the wake of the For Your Pleasure sessions, Roxy Music sharpened their technique while touring their debut album. They lost some of the "freewheeling wildness", and in return gained a more concentrated, hearty and less experimental sound, which were the qualities that Ferry most yearned for. Ferry wrote the better part of the album within a two-week writing spree in early 1973, while "Grey Lagoons" and "For Your Pleasure" had already been conceived during the 1971 recording sessions, stockpiled for their debut album, and later developed for the release of their second album. In a way, Ferry was focused on writing a follow-up to the band's debut.

Production

Roxy Music recorded For Your Pleasure in February 1973, at London's AIR Studios in Oxford Circus. Bassist Rik Kenton left the band shortly before the sessions. John Porter agreed to play bass temporarily, working on the album and the subsequent tour, but turned down an offer to join permanently. On the album gatefold, he is credited as a "guest artiste". At first, the band wanted to be the sole producers, but the label convinced them otherwise. Ultimately, Roxy Music produced the album themselves with the aid of Chris Thomas, while John Middleton and John Punter worked on the audio engineering side. Thomas recalled that, following the release of their debut, Roxy Music asked John Cale to produce them, letting him choose the recording studio, and Cale chose AIR Studios. However, the project with Cale did not come to fruition, and instead Ferry asked Thomas, whom Ferry met while visiting AIR Studios, to help with production.

The group spent more studio time on this album than on their debut, combining song material by Ferry with more elaborate production treatments. For example, the song "In Every Dream Home a Heartache" (Ferry's sinister ode to a blow-up doll) fades out in its closing section, only to fade in again with all the instruments subjected to a pronounced phasing treatment. The title track fades out in an elaborate blend of tape loop effects.

Thomas, commenting on the recording of "In Every Dream Home a Heartache", said that the band had not known the song's lyrics when they put the instrumental parts on tape. It was performed as a soundtrack, backing track for the future lyrics, and Ferry asked them to record a psychedelic epilogue. Just before the album's release, Ferry told Melody Maker that, initially, some of the lyrics were twice as long and focused more on reciting ideas than forming a cohesive song, so he had to cut them in half.

Artwork

The cover photo was taken by Karl Stoecker. It features Bryan Ferry's girlfriend at the time, the model Amanda Lear, who was also the confidante, protégée, and close friend of the surrealist artist Salvador Dalí. Lear was depicted posing in a skintight leather dress leading a black panther on a leash. The full record sleeve art features a limousine parked on the left side from Lear, with a waiting Ferry acting as a chauffeur.

The cover art is ranked by Rolling Stone and Billboard among the "100 Best Album Covers of All Time". Rob Tannenbaum's Pitchfork put the feeling captured by the sleeve art as an alluring, modern image of appeal, danger, sexual gratification, and luxury lifestyle. Similar to other rock bands, the cover promises "adolescents a misleading fantasy of what adult life is like". Brian Eno disliked the choice for the album's cover art, feeling it was too stereotyped and pretentious.

Music and lyrics

For Your Pleasure has been categorised by critics as an art rock and glam rock record, additionally featuring American R&B and European avant-garde music.