Roxy Music - Country Life

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Country Life was released in 1974. The album is considered by many critics to be among the band’s most sophisticated and consistent. Ferry took the album’s title from the British rural lifestyle magazine Country Life.

The cover features two scantily-clad models, Constanze Karoli (reportedly the sister of Can’s Michael Karoli) and Eveline Grunwald. Bryan Ferry met them in Portugal and persuaded them to do the photo shoot as well as to help him with the words to the song “Bitter-Sweet”. Although not credited for their photos they are credited on the lyric sheet for their German translation work.

The cover image was considered controversial in some countries such as the United States, Spain, and the Netherlands, where it was censored for release. As a result, a later American LP release of Country Life (available during the years 1975-80) featured a different cover shot. Instead of Karoli and Grunwald posed in front of some trees, the reissue used a photo from the album’s back cover that featured only the trees.  Author Michael Ochs has described the result as the “most complete cover-up in rock history”.

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