As its opening cut "The Thrill of It All" announces, 1974's Country Life rocks far harder than its predecessor, Stranded. That album's addition to the lineup — keyboardist/violinist Eddie Jobson and sideman bassist John Gustafson — come to the fore: Jobson's shrieking electric violin and Gustafson's intricate yet aggressive basslines are all over Roxy Music's fourth album. There's a new straightforwardness to the band that transcends not just art-rock but also glam, which in the United States had yet to generate many hits. Although the group still goes off on stylistic tangents, such excursions, like the Elizabethan "Triptych," are now compartmentalized into separate songs. Both self-consciously elegant yet critical of the upper class and far more mainstream accessible, Country Life was the first Roxy album to garner universal critical acclaim and impact the U.S. market.

The song to snag Roxy's first significant FM play wasn't "All I Want Is You," the last of Roxy's stomping glam anthems and a U.K. smash, or even the American single "The Thrill of It All," but "Out of the Blue," which showcases both Jobson's violin and a stinging guitar solo from co-writer Manzanera. It's among the least Ferry-esque tracks in the Roxy catalog, one that… read more »