Danny McElhinney, music journalist with the Irish Mail, joined Lunchtime Live to celebrate the timeless glamorous and innovative approach of Roxy Music. 

Roxy Music emerged in 1972 with a look no one had seen before; their avant-garde, high fashion costume and theatrical glamor initially scared Mr McElhinney back in 1970.

“Brian Ferry [lead singer] was done up in glittering makeup, and Brian Eno wore these glitter gauntlets, and it terrified the life out of me. I think the drummer was wearing a leopard skin leotard. It was quite the iconic appearance on Top of the Pops,” he said.

The bands' appearance isn’t just what made them stand out; it was their cross-generational inspiration and use of different mediums that created their individualistic, messy yet curated sound. 

“Brian Ferry was a huge Cole Porter fan. He juxtaposed cultural icons from the 30s and 40s like Nijinsky and Lolita and dances like the fandango and the Beguine,” Mr McElhinney said. 

“They stood apart within a scene which dominated the British church,” he said.

Off-stage Brian Ferry developed a “lonesome personality, with a little pencil moustache, wearing white tuxedos.” They didn’t just have a commitment to their music; they had a devotion to their aesthetics which, as most art is, a reflection of their current political climate. 

McElhinney said Britain at the time was “so austere. You had Tories and the Labour Party swapping governments. They swapped around in the middle of the 70s, and you had power outages in Britain and in Ireland.” 

The music journalist discussed how glam rock was a reaction to the political climate: “it was noisy, it was stomping and it was extroverted”.

Punk was more political, Mc McElhinney conceded, while noting punk wouldn’t have happened without glam.

“The big storming around and in the midst of all this terror or horribleness going on in the 70s in Britain,” he said.

Roxy Music had an expansive sonic palette.  ‘Dance Away’ sounds completely different to ‘Do The Strand ’, yet their sound has remained timeless.

“Such an individual voice, you had saxophone, guitar, Brian Eno’s weird electronic sounds. It’s timeless. Even in the 80s when they had that lush sheen 80s sound, it stands up well because it was so brilliantly produced,” he finished.