Country Life (Roxy Music album)

Country Life is the fourth album by the English rock band Roxy Music, released in 1974 and reaching No. 3 in the UK charts. It also made No. 37 in the United States, their first record to crack the Top 40 there. The album is considered by many critics to be among the band's most sophisticated and consistent. Jim Miller in his review for Rolling Stone wrote "Stranded and Country Life together mark the zenith of contemporary British art rock." Band leader Bryan Ferry took the album's title from the British rural lifestyle magazine Country Life.

In 2003, the album was ranked number 387 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It was one of four Roxy Music albums that made the list (For Your Pleasure, Siren and Avalon being the others).

Style and themes

The opening track, "The Thrill of It All", was an up-tempo rocker that further developed the style of songs like "Virginia Plain" (1972) and "Do the Strand" (1973); it included a quote from Dorothy Parker's poem "Resume": "You might as well live". Edwin Jobson's violin dominated the heavily-flanged production of "Out of the Blue", which became a live favourite. Esoteric musical influences were betrayed by the German oom-pah band passages in "Bitter-Sweet", the Elizabethan flavour of "Triptych" and the lighthearted, boogie-blues, Southern rock edge to "If It Takes All Night".

Country Life

Country Life may refer to:

Music

Movies

Literature

Video games

Food

Country Life (books)

Country Life books are publications, mostly on English country houses and gardens, compiled from the articles and photographic archives of Country Life magazine, usually published in the UK by Aurum Press and in the USA by Rizzoli.

Books (in reverse chronology)

From the Archives of Country Life:

Country Life (film)

Country Life is a 1994 Australian drama film, adapted from the play Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov. The film was directed by Michael Blakemore. The cast included Sam Neill, Greta Scacchi and Googie Withers. It was entered into the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.

Plot

It is just after the end of World War I in an Australia that is beginning to question the value of continuing as an outpost of the British Empire. Jack Dickens' sister had married Alexander Voysey, but died years ago. After the death of his wife, Voysey took off for the bright lights of the city, abandoning his daughter, Sally, who has since been raised by her Uncle Jack and the sharp-tongued maid, Hannah. Jack and Sally have sacrificed all their own hopes and dreams to run the farm while Voysey has been disporting himself in the city, ostensibly making a name for himself as a literary critic and writer in London. However, the truth is that Voysey is a self-centered, self-aggrandizing, pompous windbag who has no visible means of support other than leeching off his brother-in-law's labor on the farm.