Not really a biography on the the great British band , but more of a cultural history surrounding Roxy Music. Very detailed information regarding the visual art world, the boutiques, and the fashion stylists/designers of that period (mid to late 60's) who knew Bryan Ferry, Eno & company. The book stops right after the recording of the first album - so it's unusual that it's totally focus on the 'idea' of Roxy Music with everyone in the band participating in the interviews that are in the book.Fe...

I'm involved in promoting Heutagogy, or the pedagogy of creativity, in education and the first 200 pages of this book are the best description of practical Heutagogy in UK Art Schools of the fifties which were a key factor in the explosion of British pop music with bands like The Beatles, Stones, The Kinks and notably The Who working out their approaches in Art College. Roxy Music are a seventies band and consequently had a much longer genesis in Art COllege, Bryan Ferry, Andy Mackay and Brian E...

Great cultural history of art schools in Britain in the 60s and how Pop and conceptual art of the 60s contributed to the creation of what would become Roxy Music.

Warning! This book isn't about Roxy Music but rather the emergence of the band's pop art aesthetic in the British art schools of the late ’50s and early ’60s. If you are interested in a book about music or people making music, you'll be very annoyed.

This book was not entirely what it appears to be. It is a book mostly about the aspects that brought about the creation of Roxy Music and less of a book about the group's adventures as a band. There are a few accounts near the end of the book about the band and some of their gigs, but mostly this book focuses on the influences that went into forming the group, it's art school background, and the elements gained from these experiences, with vast discussions of the Pop Art scene in England, and th...

Didn’t finish. Too dry.

This book is an in-depth look at the art and music scenes of the UK back in the 50s and 60s. I would have liked it to have gone into a bit more into the stories behind select tracks of the entire catalog of Roxy Music, but getting full histories of the key members of the band (Ferry, Eno and Mackay) made for an interesting read. There are plenty of photos throughout, unfortunately the quality is a bit murky on most.

Exceedingly thorough. Reading some of those interviews was pure joy.

One's appreciation for this book depends on whether or not one thinks Bryan Ferry is a genius. Basically a really well done 33 1/3-type book about a given album -- in this case Roxy Music's self-titled debut -- Bracewell explores Ferry's influences in the form of his art school teachers. If one's interest in Roxy Music is limited to the participation of Brian Eno, then a solid bookstore browse of chapters 17-19, plus bits & bobs later on, should suffice.

A book about a band where the band doesn’t appear until the very end. Still, it’s a great introduction to Roxy Music. Bracewell describes the milieu out of which Bryan Ferry created his group: a mix of Pop Art, Glam before Glam fashion, and rock ‘n’ roll. The prose may seem overwritten, but it’s apropos to its subject.

Let me start by saying I love Roxy Music, but clearly nobody loves Roxy Music like Michael Bracewell. This book is certainly informative, but the obsession for detail gets to be a bit much. And why say something once when you can say it twice? Or 3 times? I started out enjoying the book, then started to find it irritating, then finally gave in and got a lot of laughs reading passages aloud and counting the number of embedded clauses in each sentence. The main focus of the story is Bryan Ferry, b...

***1/2. Thoughtful, well written, and exhaustive look at cultural scene and influences that led to creation of Roxy Music. If you're not an Anglophile, maybe more than you wanted to know about British Art Schools etc, but it does an excellent job highlighting the varied art and musical strains Bryan Ferry drew upon creating this most unusual band. Great chapters on Brian Eno, too.

Now, this is pretty dreadful if you are looking for a conventional band biography, but still proves to be interesting and more ambitious than one - by being a bit of a primer on sixties art education, fashion, retail...and underground London. In fact, it's a quaint reminder of how West London was once cool - much of the action happening in Ladbroke Grove, Chelsea and Kensington. To be clear, at times - especially early on - I was starting to find it insufferable, feeling that here was a writer w...

"The most gifted writer of his generation" - good grief. I'm a fan of the first Roxy album and a huge fan of Eno. I plowed through this thing to impress my ex-boyfriend, who had a tendency to be entertained by boring things. This reads like a bad college thesis paper and says "Roxy music was the act of glam, putting on another face" ad nauseam. The only interesting part was when Brian Eno was at the Ipswich school. It will be years before I cleanse my mind of this brick and read a music book aga...

I was disappointed to find once I started reading that this book is about the early years leading up to the forming of the band Roxy Music and ends just as the band releases their first album. A good half of it covers Bryan Ferry growing up and the influences of art school and the artist Richard Hamilton in particular. The next large section covers Andy MacKay and Brian Eno and their art school experiences which I found a little more interesting. Who knew saxophonist MacKay was hanging out with

"...Roxy Music is a glamorisation. And I didn't think my own name was terribly glamorous; and I suppose, all those years ago, I changed my name to Roxy Music." -Bryan Ferry This quote helps close out Remake/Remodel and I think it summarizes the idea behind the book and what Roxy Music really is. It's more than just a band or musical act that puts out records. Roxy is a living art installation that was the vision of one man and became fully realized with the help of several like minded artists

The book focuses on the background to the band. While I enjoyed reading it and found out some interesting things, I was a bit lost in some of the Pop Art-focused chapters (it wasn't a subject I knew much about) and I sometimes found it difficult to remember the names of all the people involved. I'm relatively new to Roxy Music (but keen to find out everything I can) so perhaps I should have started with another book, but I don't regret reading it.

Roxy Music appeared to arrive out of nowhere or, possibly, outer space. Their electrifying 1972 debut album presented a fully formed vision which offered a new form of art pop. Or, if you prefer, a new form of pop art.This books ends with the release of that classic record and is an exploration of the artistic and cultural milieu the band were shaped by and emerged from - art school, pop art, conceptual art, avant-garde music and high fashion. The prime movers in Roxy were two fine arts graduate...

The book has the title Roxy - The band that created an era. Since the book ends with their first record and all of the first 340 or so pages has nothing at all to do with the band itself but what led up to its creation I think it would be more correct to call it Roxy - and the era that created the band. But if you get over that this is an excellent book.Through tons of interviews with those who were around (not just the band members, but the people around them) and an eye for details the writer

Saying a book changed your life is often quite a statement to make, and it's not a statement I'm about to make, however "Re-Make/Re-Model..." certainly enriched my life, as well as rekindling an interest in one of my favourite bands of all time, helping me (as an art student) to view Roxy as an art project, perhaps even a movement, and not just a bunch of musicians. The book focuses not on the biography of the band so much as assesses and tells the respective stories of the formative years of th...