This Week's Forgotten Gem of the '80s: Roxy Music's "Oh Yeah"
Friday May 16, 2008
The nondescript title of this exhilarating track from 1980's Flesh & Blood gives absolutely no indication of the pure joy to be derived from its majestic chorus alone. In fact, come to think of it, it's amazing to me that as many times as pop music artists have conceived choruses over the years, they still have the ability to come up with melodies capable of bringing listeners back from the darkest depths no matter how suffocated and defeated they may have felt moments earlier. This transcendent Bryan Ferry composition, to me, projects such a light when it breaks into one of the loveliest choruses of the '80s: "There's a band playing on the radio, with a rhythm of rhyming guitars." It's a spine-tingling moment, one of those sublimely rare musical occasions that just happens to perfectly mirror one of the song's later lyrics, which spotlights music's uncanny knack at "drowning the sounds" of one's tears.
The timing of this entry turns out to be quite fortuitous, as just last night I went to see the Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova from the acclaimed film Once and their backing band) and, among other wonderful things, experienced this very same melodic genius in the group's passionate performances of tunes based on often remarkably simple melodies. I probably could have distilled this entry down to just a few words that pretty much say it all, but there is nobility in trying to express the inexpressible. Damn, I love music.
Comments
Steve: I have never heard Roxy Music or Bryan Ferry on the radio. It was 1986 when I first heard Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music on “Street Life” and Bryan Ferry’s “Boys and Girls” album. I had the albums recorded on cassette from a shop in Karachi. I immediately got hooked to their glamorous art rock. “Avalon” remains my favourite album to this day followed by “Flesh and Blood”. I feel like dancing whenever I listen to “Love is the Drug”. Besides, there is something extraordinary about this number that sends me in a trance. The same can be said about “Avalon”, “Dance Away”, “Angel Eyes”, “More Than This”, “Slave to Love”, “My Only Love”, “Over You”, “Oh Yeah”, “Same Old Scene” and “Eight Miles High”. However, this does not mean that the band’s or Ferry’s 70s stuff is not good as it has stood the test of time and I can still derive immeasurable pleasure listening to it. Stuff like “Do the Strand”, “Pyjamarama” and “Virginia Plains” sound fascinating to this day.