Roxy Music were a powerful force in 1970s pop, with their art-school roots an important aspect of their influential style. It is with a background of British Pop artists such as Richard Hamilton and David Hockney in mind that writer Michael Bracewell attempts to tell the story behind Roxy Music's formation.
At first, singer Bryan Ferry comes across as a rather anonymous figure, peripheral to the stories of his art-school friends as they absorb themselves in photographing coffee adverts and hanging out with Andy Warhol. Here, "Re-make/Re-model" is at its weakest, with Bracewell's background as a writer of artists' catalog texts overwhelming his attempts to tell a story — the first 150 pages are little more than a repetitive series of art analyses peppered with dry, academic terminology. Worse are the interviewees, who talk tediously about shirt cuffs and the famous people they once met.
In contrast, Brian Eno's early life, surrounded by a menagerie of typically English eccentrics, is by far the most interesting part of the book. His interviews are peppered with witty observations and a sense of the absurd — at one point he explains how he taught himself to spontaneously vomit in order to avoid eating school meals, and as a result feels his life-forming memories were confined to the post-lunch period.