THE THRILL OF IT ALL*

"The Thrill Of It All" is a compilation album of Roxy Music that was released in 1995. It features songs from all every eight studio albums of the band. But, apart from that, this compilation album has also many other things like single B sides, various remixes and different versions. Thus we may say that it stands probably the most complete Roxy Music's retrospective compilation album that ranges all their history. So, this is the ultimate collection of Roxy Music, really.

"The Thrill Of It All" has sixty-seven tracks and is divided into four discs. Disc 1 and disc 2 have sixteen tracks, disk 3 has eighteen tracks and disc four has seventeen tracks. The first three discs only cover the tracks recorded on the original studio albums of the band. The fourth disc covers the single B sides, the remixes and the different versions.

Since we are in presence of a compilation album with so many tracks, I'm not going to analyze them individually, as I usually do, but to make only a global appreciation about the choice of them in its context, mentioning album by album.

The first CD has sixteen tracks: "Re-Make/Re-Model", "Ladytron", "If There Is Something", "2HB", "Chance Meeting" and "Sea Breezes" are all from their eponymous debut studio album which was released in 1972. "Do The Strand", "Beauty Queen", "Strictly Confidential", "Editions Of You", "In Every Dream Home A Heartache", "The Bogus Man" and "For Your Pleasure" are all from their second studio album "For Your Pleasure" which was released in 1973. "Street Life", "Just Like You" and "Amazona" are all from their third studio album "Stranded" which was released in 1973. About the tracks on this CD, they're all great. As we know, "Roxy Music" and "For Your Pleasure" are two excellent works, the two best, most innovative and progressive of the band. "Stranded" is another great album from the band, less innovative, but still a great album. In reality, all tracks that belong to all these albums could fit perfectly well here.

The second CD has also sixteen tracks: "A Song For Europe", "Mother Of Pearl" and "Sunset" are also from "Stranded". "The Thrill Of It All", "Three And Nine", "All I Want Is You", "Out Of The Blue", "Bitter Sweet", "Casanova", "A Really Good Time" and "Prairie Rose" are all from their fourth studio album "Country Life" which was released in 1974. "Love Is The Drug", "Sentimental Fool", "Could It Happen To Me?", "Both Ends Burning" and "Just Another High" are all from their fifth studio album "Siren" which was released in 1975. About the tracks on this CD, they're all great too. It has some more tracks from "Stranded" and tracks from "Country Life" and "Siren". The same I said about the first CD also applies perfectly well here. All tracks chosen are all great but if they had been others the final result would be equally good too. "Stranded", "Country Life" and "Siren" are three albums very similar in terms of quality.

The third CD has eighteen tracks: "Manifesto", "Trash", "Angel Eyes", "Stronger Through The Years", "Ain't That So" and "Dance Away" are all from their sixth studio album "Manifesto" which was released in 1979. "Oh Yeah", "Same Old Scene", "Flesh And Blood", "My Only Love", "Over You" and "No Strange Delight" are all from their seventh studio album "Flesh + Blood" which was released in 1980. "More Than This", "Avalon", "While My Heart Is Still Beating", "Take A Chance With Me", "To Turn You On" and "Tara" are all from their eighth studio album "Avalon" which was released in 1982. About the tracks on this CD, I can't say the same. If "Avalon" is another excellent album and all tracks are great, on "Manifesto" and "Flesh + Blood" isn't the same. As we know, despite the good quality of many tracks on both albums, they aren't properly progressive. We are talking about tracks more in the musical vein of pop and disco.

The fourth CD has seventeenth tracks: "India" is also from "Avalon", "Manifesto" is a remake of the title track of "Manifesto", "Trash 2" is a different version of the original track of "Manifesto", "Virginia Plain", "Pyjamarama", "Jealous Guy", "The Numberer", "The Pride And The Pain", "Hula Kula", "Your Application's Failed", "Lover", "Sultanesque", "South Downs" and "Always Unknowing" are non-albums' tracks that weren't originally released on any of their studio albums and "Dance Away", "Angel Eyes" and "The Main Thing" are extended remixed versions of the original tracks on "Manifesto" and "Avalon". About the tracks on this CD, they're almost all leftovers or alternative versions. They aren't really bad. Some are better than others, but I think we can highlight three of them, "Virginia Plain", "Pyjamarama" and "Jealous Guy". They usually appear on many other compilation albums released by Roxy Music.

Conclusion: Thus, due to all I wrote above, "The Thrill Of It All" is an excellent compilation album of Roxy Music. It covers the entire career of the band plus some rare material not usually available on the other releases from the band. As all we know, Roxy Music always was a very special band in the panorama of the progressive rock music and they always had a huge legion of prog fans, in which I include myself. So, "The Thrill Of It All" is an excellent addition to any collection of hard fans of the band, especially due to the rare material on it. This is, certainly, the main reason to buy it.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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