Roxy Music - The Atlantic Years 1973 - 1980 (1983)

Mourning Roxy Music's departure to Warner Brothers for their final album, Avalon, The Atlantic Years is a very top-heavy compilation concentrating on the band's final last albums for Atco, then tracking back to radio faves "Do the Strand" and "Love Is the Drug" to justify its title. As such, it was placed perfectly to wrap up any wallflowers who'd fallen for the slick uber-disco stylings of the group's recent singles, not only reiterating the biggest hits ("Dance Away," "Angel Eyes," "Over You"), but also rounding up some deserving album tracks as well -- the calming sophistication of "Ain't That So" and "Still Falls the Rain," the exquisite rendering of "In the Midnight Hour" and so forth. In the larger scheme of things, The Atlantic Years offers nothing that so many other compilations cannot compete with, but anybody looking for a bite-sized souvenir of Manifesto and Flesh + Blood will not find much to complain about.