It's quite strange that what brought Roxy Music into a more mainstream audience - their excellent album "Avalon" - would be their swan song, with members
turning into other projects or in the case of master Bryan Ferry into a high-profile career as a solo artist. "More than This" was the most successful song of
their reinvented path and sound in the early 1980's after years of a more heavy and glam period of the 1970's, slightly obscure to a majority, must be a fan
to get to know them in that era. And with this song they were to introduced to a new audience who found a perfect song for its time turning into a big hit of
all sorts - it is without doubt the song they end up being mostly associated with. For that, I'm grateful for such, even though "Avalon" had better and more
inspired flights of immagination and vivacity like the title track (which has a video directed by Ridley Scott) and the instrumental "India", just to name a
few.
As for the video, however, it isn't all that much a marvelous creation of that decade. It's simple, slightly safe, quite dated but somehow managed to become memorable. It consists of Ferry dancing and performing the song in extreme close-up shots while the other band members are obscured in the shadows, while in this small sound stage that his some fire mechanism throwing flames in front of them. And some shots of Ferry seated on a cinema watching himself and the group performing in this big screen, a way that like the song seems to evoke the distance between past and present, some nostalgic feeling. I guess in a way, for this song and clip I wanted more than this - no pun intended. A more conceptual video or some avant-garde or surrealistic video would fit the lyrics better - but those artistic renditions weren't that common back in the primtive years of music videos. It would take Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones and similars to make such visual experience in the following years.
Heart of the matter is the song, the song and the song. It never gets old, it's always reflexive and it's there for us to imagine and think about life and other things. Videos aren't all that important in such notion and that's why I can suggest a view on "More than This". The song and Ferry's act, always classy and refined. 7/10
As for the video, however, it isn't all that much a marvelous creation of that decade. It's simple, slightly safe, quite dated but somehow managed to become memorable. It consists of Ferry dancing and performing the song in extreme close-up shots while the other band members are obscured in the shadows, while in this small sound stage that his some fire mechanism throwing flames in front of them. And some shots of Ferry seated on a cinema watching himself and the group performing in this big screen, a way that like the song seems to evoke the distance between past and present, some nostalgic feeling. I guess in a way, for this song and clip I wanted more than this - no pun intended. A more conceptual video or some avant-garde or surrealistic video would fit the lyrics better - but those artistic renditions weren't that common back in the primtive years of music videos. It would take Peter Gabriel, Grace Jones and similars to make such visual experience in the following years.
Heart of the matter is the song, the song and the song. It never gets old, it's always reflexive and it's there for us to imagine and think about life and other things. Videos aren't all that important in such notion and that's why I can suggest a view on "More than This". The song and Ferry's act, always classy and refined. 7/10
