October 4th 1975

“Work, as usual, a grin. Played Love is the Drug (new Roxy Single) 17 times and bought it. Holly came around in evening”

Since I last wrote about Roxy Music, they lost one of their major band members (Brian Eno – whatever happened to him eh?) and released a surprisingly top notch post-Eno album entitled “Stranded”

Their sound became a little more ‘traditional’, but thanks to some superior songwriting succeeded in maintaining their credibility. (As soon as Bryan Ferry discovered a need to appeal more to a ‘coffee table’ mentality, the group went completely tits-up IMHO).

“Love is the Drug” was the single that took them from being a fringe pop act to genuine superstar status. It gave them their first real exposure in the USA (the single reaching #30 on the Billboard charts) and cemented their appeal to the rest of the world.

It’s such a jaunty ‘strutting’ song – no wonder I could play it umpteen times in a row without tiring of it?! – which (trivia fans, take note) contains an early example of sampling. The now-familiar footsteps on gravel at the beginning were allegedly nicked from the opening segment of Steven Spielberg’s made-for-TV movie “Duel” where Dennis Weaver’s character walks from his home to his car (The prelude to an exciting chase movie which kickstarted Spielberg’s not inconsiderable career!)

I think “Love is the drug and I need to score” may be one of my very favourite lyrics of all time, although “Dim the lights, you can guess the rest” comes a close second, especially given how Ferry sings the latter with a real filthy smirk in his voice.

In case you can’t remember what it sounds like (or maybe had forgotten Ferry’s “American GI with fake eye patch” fashion faux-pas)…

Every so often I have to stand back from everything that went on in my music retailing career and respect the fact that on many MANY occasions I was responsible for turning the public onto slices of (what subsequently became)  real music history. Today in 1975 was one such time – helping sustain the pop enigma of a band who remain one of Britain’s very finest and most creative … well for those first 4 albums at least.

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