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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."[6] 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).[7]
Shot by Eric Boman,[9] the cover features two scantily-clad models, Constanze Karoli (cousin of Can's Michael Karoli[10]) and Eveline Grunwald (who was also Michael Karoli's girlfriend). 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 appearing on the cover, they are credited on the lyric sheet for their German translation work.
The cover image was 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.[11] Author Michael Ochs has described the result as the "most complete cover-up in rock history".[12]
