On Roxy Music's debut, the tensions between Brian Eno and Bryan Ferry propelled their music to great, unexpected heights, and for most of the group's second album, For Your Pleasure, the band equals, if not surpasses, those expectations. However, there are a handful of moments where those tensions become unbearable, as when Eno wants to move toward texture and Ferry wants to stay in more conventional rock territory; the nine-minute "The Bogus Man" captures such creative tensions perfectly, and it's easy to see why Eno left the group after the album was completed. Still, those differences result in yet another extraordinary record from Roxy Music, one that demonstrates even more clearly than the debut how avant-garde ideas can flourish in a pop setting. This is especially evident in the driving singles "Do the Strand" and "Editions of You," which pulsate with raw energy and jarring melodic structures. Roxy also illuminate the slower numbers, such as the eerie "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," with atonal, shimmering synthesizers, textures that were unexpected and innovative at the time of its release. Similarly, all of For Your Pleasure walks the tightrope between the experimental and the accessible, creating a new vocabulary for rock bands, and one that was exploited heavily in the ensuing decade. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

With FOR YOUR PLEASURE, the second Roxy Music album, the band began to explore a little more of the "dark side" of the glamorous world that had become their lyrical and musical playground. Even the cover art suggests this division: a preposterously posed women walking a snarling panther is watched by singer Bryan Ferry, decked out in chauffeur's livery and removed from the action, merely observing. Musically, this decay is examined most clearly in "In Every Dream Home a Heartache," a disturbing tale about an inflatable sex doll that, at times, suggests some of the creepier moments from the Doors catalogue--"The End" in particular.

Opening with the spectacular debauch of "Do the Strand," the album pulls no punches--"It burns your blue jeans, you know what I mean" indeed! Together with "Editions of You," it shows the band moving through the similar territory inhabited by "Virginia Plain" (from ROXY MUSIC), quasi-rock shot through with squalling saxophones. The nine-minute slow burn of "The Bogus Man" displays Paul Thompson's solid drumming to great effect, while the rest of the band fleshes things out with a not exactly scary, but decidedly "off" atmosphere. Another classic.

Rolling Stone (4/11/02, p.107) - Ranked #30 in Rolling Stone's "50 Coolest Records" - "...Ferry's most pathetic erotic idolatries...it sounds good..."

Q (6/00, p.75) - Ranked #33 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums"

Q (9/99, pp.122-3) - 4 stars (out of 5) - "...a more consistent, together album, by definition less weird than the first, but Ferry's world of high-class ladies...is always couched in screeching guitar and atmospherics....sophisticated rock songs..."

NME (Magazine) (9/18/93, p.19) - Ranked #27 among The Greatest Albums Of The '70s.