Bryan Ferry, 1979-1999: What Happened? What Was He Going For?

Drifting through a world that´s torn and tattered
Every thought I have don´t mean a thing

I think I was stealing a phrase from something I once read about Andre Gide.

Good thread, and I also asked this from myself a few times. Am I the only one who thinks Ferry should've made a kind of chamber pop-records with Tindersticks-like melancholy and lush orchestral parts instead of this plastic-R&B dullness?

He has:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Q7Y2VMVHL._SS500_.jpg

... and it wasn't as good as the plastic-R&B.

i still think he should have made an entire album of stuff like 'Sultanesque'.

No, this was swing/big band music revival, not that thing that critics usually call chamber pop.

I'm not gonna go off on too big of a tangent here, but I like As Time Goes By way more than most critics, in part because I think it was his way out of his 80s-90s vocal malaise (not that I don't gravitate to that style sometimes as well--I mean, I love Avalon, absolutely). His version of "The Way You Look Tonight" is totally glam rock--the singing, anyway. Way more bite than ANYthing he'd recorded the 18 or so years previous.

Putting it into a wider context, a lot of the glam/art rock people of the 70s kind of blanded out in the 80s, ie Bowie, Reed etc.

I don't think the 80s records are r&b in that you can dance to them, but maybe he's aiming for the sheen or the elegance of post-disco/post-Chic r&b?

That's a nice line. It's certainly more true of "Angel Eyes," "Ain't That So," "Same Old Scene," and the other club-leaning tracks on Manifesto and F+B.

Here's my take on Ferry in the eighties.

Scott will disagree, but I started hearing aggressive singing again as far back as Taxi. Maybe Robin Trower encouraged it? He's even enunciating again on Mamouna's better tracks.

"Putting it into a wider context, a lot of the glam/art rock people of the 70s kind of blanded out in the 80s, ie Bowie, Reed etc."

Don't forget Eno.

Lou Reed eighties = far better than Lou Reed seventies.

You really think so? Personally I can take or leave most stuff he did after the title track of The Bells...

I like The Bells, but there's no way that any of the seventies albums compare with The Blue Mask, Legendary Hearts, and New Sensations, crap production and everything. But that's for another thread....

Scott will disagree, but I started hearing aggressive singing again as far back as Taxi.

No, I'm guessing you've probably just listened a little closer than I have. I trust your judgment! Maybe part of the point is you really have to listen hard to get it--I could see that.

I love this line from Alfred's Stylus piece:

"These albums raise the idea of Bryan Ferry into an abstraction too remote to quantify, removed from mortal thought—our own Holy Spirit of Sophisticate Melancholy."

Fantastic!

Nice article but I don't get/remember the rerefence in the last paragraph on Sade, who incidently rivals Ferry in the "atmospheric refined-nearly-out-of-existence direction" (esp. on Love Deluxe).

xp indeed, that's a great line.

as flawed as Boys & Girls and Bete Noir are, their sound and ethos seems unique to me. Has any other artist worked so hard to distance himself from his own music?

sw00ds OTM and may simply say it better than I have.

The key word upthread is "reconcile" -- discerning a thread of continuity between his 70's and 80's work, and it's something I think all too often simply gets dismissed. Even on this thread, people are just kind of casually making claims (Let's Stick Together refines the Roxy tracks out of existence!" "I can hear Boys and Girls in 'This Island Earth'!" "'Psalm' is a proto-'Dance Away'!!") that are either so wrongheaded, dubious or intellectually tenuous that one can understand why this "theory" has persisted.

Getting back to blowing a hole in it...

First, there's the difference in the music itself. sw00ds' point about the drums is something I thought a lot about this weekend ("These Foolish Things" has a reggae beat for chrissakes!) The departure of Paul Thompson was obviously a major catalyst for Ferry -- once he leaves, you can literally count on one hand the number of rock numbers he records. Everything he does from thereon out is either pop or funk.

But that doesn't account for the utter lack of irony in his 1980's music. In Ferry's earlier work, sincerity is strategically deployed -- in "Just Another High," it's the release for five albums' worth of deceptions. By the 1980's, it's all release, no tension -- and yes, maybe a bit of an Eno-esque ambient moment in that so many of the tracks from that era ("Which Way To Turn," for instance) are just one elongated sentiment.

Still, it don't jibe...

Ok, thinking about the idea that maybe he started singing with bite again around Taxi -- I've always thought he did, at least with "You gotta stop the things you doooooo..." line on "I Put A Spell On You" which has that old vampiric vibrato.

It makes me think: is it possible Ferry explicitly rejected his old aesthetic come 1980 or so?

(This thread is turning out great! The "atmospheric refined-nearly-out-of-existence direction" part alone = yay.)

and "Girl of My Best Friend" is sung with lots of the old irony. He's accepting his loucheness with a sly shrug.

You're on to something re the departure of Thompson. I don't discount autobiographical influences too: Manzanera and Mckay have admmitted that there were more drugs in the studio in 1980-1982. Also: remember Occam's razor. Sometimes the simplest answers are the best. Ironists almost always become sentimentalists; it's evolution, baby, especially when you're getting great married poon.

Great thoughts, Naive, and your mention of "tension" reminds me of something I wrote some time back about Taxi--not sure if any of this relates, but here goes:

"The dominant Bryan Ferry image in most people's minds, I suspect, is less about the Bryan Ferry who made records like These Foolish Things and Another Time, Another Place than it is about the guy who made records like Taxi and Bête Noire. The eighties and nineties Ferry, much like the gentleman pictured above, is all about sheen, languor, suavity, finesse, "class." (It seems everytime I see reader comments about Ferry in Amazon or YouTube, someone pipes in with a comment about what a "class" act he is.) The seventies Ferry suggested and portended to all of those things, of course, but there's a tension and a brazenness and even, I would argue, an awkwardness in his seventies music (the result of a goofy white guy trying to attain the musical elegance of Billie Holiday and Sam Cooke?) which disappeared altogether in the eighties. After 1978's In Your Mind, the rough edges in his music were glossed over, and his voice was no longer unsettled but, rather, contemplative. (Though there's an interesting return to his earlier mode of performance at the end of the '90s; don't worry, sports fans, we aren't finished with Ferry just yet.)"

(One error--tthe '78 album is TBSB of course.)

Damn--gotta get back to work. Keep the thoughts coming!

we need to read Ned's thoughts he reviewed most of these for AMG.

My thoughts are probably mostly very dry and lame.

If you must, though, work your way through:

http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=FERRY,|BRYAN&sql=11:hifrxqe5ldje~T2

Well, that's ugly. A direct link.

as flawed as Boys & Girls and Bete Noir are, their sound and ethos seems unique to me.

Boys and Girls just sounds like the next logical step after Avalon to me. So if you take that stance, I think you should wrap Avalon in there as well, because that album really sounds different from any other Roxy record.

Ned's reviews are, as usual, quite good -- Bete Noir in particular is a pretty fresh take.

As for Trower reinvigorating him: I don't think so. I saw Ferry on the Mamouna tour and it was interesting: he played "In Every Dream Home..." and clearly was in a nostalgic mood in contemporaneous interviews, talking a lot about the records with Eno (who, lest we forget, co-write the menace-by-numbers track on Mamouna, "Wildcat Days," which someone here is bound to say is sheer genius despite any evidence indicating so). Based on stuff he's said, how some French writer made him feel bad about "making Avalon over and over," etc., I think it maybe had more to do with a bit of self-realization and didn't really know where his career was heading. Mamouna is interesting in that it has several notable guests on it -- and not ONE of them is mixed in any way where you'd recognize them. It seems to indicate he wanted to reconnect with his old muse -- but didn't know how.

And if folks doubt that this was some binary choice of his, I should say that the only song he's done that SOUNDS like "old Bryan Ferry" in the last twenty-five years is "Cruel" off of Frantic -- what's great about it is that the melody isn't even that interesting, but the way he embellishes it is, with that trademark "Tokyo Joe" phrasing of his. I can't say what a rush it was to hear him sing like that again after so long. So, clearly the guy can turn it on again at will.

It seems to indicate he wanted to reconnect with his old muse -- but didn't know how.

Yeah, and the results on that album were mixed. One of the very few of his where I look at the cover and struggle to remember what even one song on it sounds like beyond a vague impression of synths.

No, this was swing/big band music revival, not that thing that critics usually call chamber pop.

I made out to 'Boys and Girls' more than any other single album when I was in high school and I see it as the natural progression from 'Avalon' like akm. 'Bête Noire' had it's moments, too.

'As Time Goes By' was amazing to see live, btw, and considering that he'd been doing covers of classics all along and blatantly mined a 20's - 50's kind of nostalgia aesthetically, I was neither surprised nor disappointed by it by I don't see it as part of the swing thing in the 90's. It's older music and far more in tune with his sophisticated melancholy. It's not dance music per se and it wasn't a huge band behind him, and some of the songs were done in a very contemporary (for BF, at least) style.

As for Trower reinvigorating him: I don't think so.

We must agree to disagree; as you know, I'm a Mamouna fan, despite "Gemini Moon" and the Eno collab. The arrangements are tougher, more defined; you can hear instruments, and Ferry's not swallowing consonants like they were cherries. Clearly it represented an end: he's since renounced this sound, as ATGB and Frantic have shown ("I Thought" on the latter is to these ears the post-Avalon track/sound he's been trying to write for 20 years.

the Mamouna tour was very disappointing: big points for Bryan playing a keytar, bad points for arhythmic arm flaying, more consonant swallowing, and Trower acting as if he were in a different movie entirely.

i think mamouna is pretty good, that eno collab was the most disappointing thing on it, def. and yes, Cruel on frantic is where it's at...now, where is that new Roxy Music album they've been allegedly working on for three years? I hope it sounds more like Cruel and less like Wildcat Days.

For me Mamouna was a big disappointment, I haven't been able to listen it for ten years or so. I also felt betrayed by Avalon, but at least there are a few good songs, and the same goes for the first two Ferry solo albums. (I haven't tried Taxi.) I'm wondering now that maybe now, in Christ age I'm more receptive for this kind of music...

Good songs on Mamouna: "Mamouna," "The 39 Steps," "Which Way To Turn," "Chain Reaction."

GREAT THREAD. We should be in Bryan Ferry's band!

inspired by listening to Bete Noir for the first time in ages. I hope someone -- anyone -- who support my affection for "The Name of the Game," which David Buckley, as he rightly says in his Roxy bio, is a ringer for Madonna's "Live to Tell" (co-written by Ferry's producer Pat Leonard, mais oui). The chorus is ghastly, I guess, but everything leading up to it is moving in a tremulous way; the refined-out-of-existence line uttered a few times here fits this song to a T, and it's all the more moving for it. The synthesized percussion, the clanging synths, the slap bass shimmer. When he sings/whispers/mutters "No religion can save me now," it's devastating, and more so because he sounds like he's singing from behind the studio speakers, munching on a croissant. How else could you sing a line like that?

* will support

wow, he only lived 20 years?

wakka wakka

Great thread - the kind I came to ILM for.

I don't remember why I did it know, but earlier this year, I listened to Dylanesque. I am not a fan of Ferry's covermania, nor a Dylan devotee, but I found this abut the most interesting (=vital) thing he's done in about 20 years.

I fear the Roxy album, if it ever comes out, is just going to sound like everything else Ferry's done since 1986 (ie. not as good as Bete Noire).

am i the only person who thinks his best song is 'slave to love'? probs.

It is touching and interesting to see such dedicated attention to the work of Bryan Ferry.

What about Morley's sleeve notes for Dylanesque? Does he seem to have understood Ferryism, or not?

The only thing I find puzzling is that, once there was an 80s revival really getting into the mainstream, Ferry stopped reviving the 80s. He had that sleek new romantic style, originally more or less "invented" on "Both Ends Burning", from the "Dance Away" single through the "Mamouna" album. And then, with "Frantic" he did something completely different, sort of returning to his 70s style all of a sudden.

Great thread. Also this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWexyXpLKOY

Ned's reviews are, as usual, quite good -- Bete Noir in particular is a pretty fresh take.

I had to reread that review just now because I'd forgotten it completely -- would definitely change a lot of the style but I'm actually surprised by my conclusions, in a good way. I need to listen to that one again!

I love "As Time Goes By". One of his finest records.

I spend much more time listening to Billie Holiday than any "rock" vocalists these days, so I've always shied away from it the same way I have, say, Rod Stewart's Great American Songbooks records. It was Ferry who introduced me to "These Foolish Things" as a teen though, still one of my favorite songs of all time, so I should probably give "ATGB" a shot.

ugh bete noire is just fucking killing me with goodness rn

am i the only person who thinks his best song is 'slave to love'? probs.

No.

He's coming to Vancouver tomorrow night. I'm pretty strapped for cash but Ferry is one of my all-time favourites - is it a big mistake not to go?

Yes.

Yeah, I mean, it'll be very close to the album versions of songs you know, but he won't live forever.

I saw him last year…good show, but his voice is destroyed…

His voice is reduced a whisper of desires of past. The song selection is striking, though, and the band is first-rate.

So what DID happen?? I have theories.

No love for the Bête Noir title track, Alfred? It's the song that would top my list.
And from BN, definitely 'The Right Stuff' too, 'New Town' as well.
I'd also put 'The Only Face' from Mamouna in there.
And I am pretty fond of his As Time Goes By album, 'The Way You Look Tonight and 'Where or When' are highlights for me there.
'Reason or Rhyme' is a strong one from Olympia.

(But you can count me in with the 'few' mentioned in the OP who would say Boys And Girls and Bête Noir are his best solo albums, don't know what that says about me.)

I can't belive I omitted "Reason or Rhyme."

(But you can count me in with the 'few' mentioned in the OP who would say Boys And Girls and Bête Noir are his best solo albums

Ten years later, me too, surprisingly, on Boys and Girls at least. To the point that I even did a re-edit of "Sensation" a few years ago:

https://soundcloud.com/the-me/sensation-the-me-re-edit-1

Excellent writing as usual, Alfred.

Which way to turn and San Simeon are underrated imo

those are all good songs. nice list! I'm at peace with ferry as he turned out. I think he's done what he needed to do. and I still don't like Bete Noir that much.

Does anyone have a copy of Eno's 39 Steps mix? I am a big fan but can't find it anywhere.

same!

I have a different version, from The Horoscope Demos, but I have no idea if it's the Eno mix. Eno is all over that album in a supporting role.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aP6HoCNQtlU

I'll still defend Robin Trower's co-productions on this album and Taxi: he insisted on a few tracks per song at most, which put renewed interest on Ferry's vocals and keyboards for the first time since Avalon.

Dunno if this was ever posted but it's excellent. Bracewell's knowledge and respect for Ferry/Roxy makes him a keen interviewer.
Have only read his "Remake:Remodel" and "Souvenir" - both excellent. Would like to read more of his stuff.

err...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpwXiIvS7g0

That was enjoyable, thanks for sharing. Ferry’s breezy, devil-may-care detachment there is actually a great contrast to something I just stumbled back upon.

The Mamouna deluxe release has gotten me thinking about how few times in his career Ferry seemed to be unsure of himself. Another was The Bride Stripped Bare which also luxuriates in uncertainty and insecurity but in a very different way.

I was fairly thunderstruck re-reading this interview with Allen Jones in 1978 which oscillates between crushing self-doubt and chest-beating braggadocio that it is striking for an artist that Alfred correctly notes is almost famously unreflective in his interviews. The image of Ferry wandering around parties in Bel Air imagining himself to be an observational writer and “social explorer” but being received instead as a getting-on celebrity who’s just been dumped by his model girlfriend is one of many memorable images here. There’s also his admission at a time when he was estranged from his Roxy bandmates that he gets depressed and unmotivated absent “enthusiasm from other people.”

As for the Bride record itself, I still find it to be a grab bag of decent-to-very good originals—“Sign of the Times” is a classic—oddly straightforward soul covers and a handful of one-off experiments, performed by session musicians who don’t challenge Ferry here so much as indulge him.

But the hurt, loneliness and wounded pride are more audible in the context of the Jones interview – as Ferry waxes nostalgic about the “emotion” and closeness he felt to a bunch of guys he was paying to play for him in a remote Swiss studio while also admitting to the tremendous pressure he felt from Atlantic Records to break America. There is also the sense of immense frustration he felt with “Sign of the Times” flopping as a single at the height of a movement he felt some ownership for having helped create.

Where did that leave Ferry? Stripped of the credibility to offer ironic social commentary, firmly entrenched as a celebrity but with waning commercial draw as a solo act. That Ferry would return to Roxy a year later with session musos in tow to record the likes of “Dance Away” is perhaps not merely unsurprising but likely inevitable.

Mystery solved?