Best Bryan Ferry solo album?

and he played keytar!

Your experiences are startlingly close to mine except I bought Taxi at the time of release, thanks to hearing "I Put a Spell on You" on my college station.

(I think we are very close to the same age.)

Woah, mine as well. Down to the glitter.

How about those covers?

diappointed mamouna didn't get any votes, I think that's the one I listen to the most these days.

Yes, and Taxi is really good. I remember this just getting slammed when it was released; baffling to me.

Agree about yr #1

As Alfred already knows, I would rank "These Foolish Things" a lot higher than it's placed but am satisfied with the rest of the rankings; also, that first song is no longer a Dylan song but a Ferry one, such is the cover's greatness (which seems to be the case with most Dylan covers).

Also, Boys + Girls and Bete Noire are equally awesome albums. <3

Mamouna is by a long shot my favourite but I wasn't around here to vote for it. Which Way To Turn is my favourite solo Ferry song mostly for the way he sings "I can't control my feelings if I tried" in the manner of a man who, at his wildest, loosens his tie, undoes three buttons and lets a forelock dangle onto his brow.

I'm not sure which is more visibly uncomfortable for Bryan Ferry: playing guitar or growing a beard

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOnYGdGgqs4

I keep expecting warring factions of an Italian crime drama to bust into this video and destroy the place.

Tad
12 years ago
it's great how he sometimes just gets it all wrong!

Wasn’t this a bad time for Ferry because of a particularly difficult romantic breakup? I always associate the beard with that - it brings to mind Luke Wilson and how he believed growing a beard was a good fit for his lovelorn character in The Royal Tenenbaums.

Yeah - sez Wikipedia:

It was recorded after his girlfriend Jerry Hall left him for Mick Jagger in 1977, and appears to contain references to their break-up.

The answers to the original question:

These Foolish Things
The Bride Stripped Bare
Bête Noire

Wasn’t this a bad time for Ferry because of a particularly difficult romantic breakup?

There was also a madness in his soul, and he'd go to L.A. laundromats to watch clothes tumble over and over.

Best: The Bride Stripped Bare, then Frantic
Worst: Dylanesque or Avonmore
Overrated: These Foolish Things
Underrated: In Your Mind or Olympia

Ecstatic over this Mamouna reissue. I can believe it includes songs from Horoscope, which is the original iteration of the project

http://www.vivaroxymusic.com/albums_129.php

What's weird is that Avonmore had several of those Horoscope songs, and you can tell: his voice is richer, thicker.

The cover model seems dejected seeing the pillage of Ferry's tape vaults.

i wish the vinyl reissue had the Horoscope tracks; if not it should retain the original cover, I think. I'm sure they'll slip those out on vinyl for RSD or something

NVM me I misread that whole thing, looks like the vinyl does have those tracks, just not the other outtakes

What's weird is that _Avonmore_ had several of those _Horoscope_ songs, and you can tell: his voice is richer, thicker.

i've been doing a roxy music + ferry runthrough, i'm very familiar with every roxy album but ferry beyond boys & girls is totally unknown to me, both before and after. really loved the cover records, really enjoy bride stripped bare transitioning into the reunited roxy music material, but last night i had insomnia and i ended up listening to mamouna over and over again and am totally under its spell and adore its hungover-at-nighttime atmosphere

Great wisdom indeed.

yeah it's one of his best albums, I'm continually surprised that not everyone agrees with that.

Hi!

These are long basks. "Which Way to Turn," "Chain Reaction," the title track, "The 39 Steps" -- classic Ferry. When I saw him in '95, he and the band extended the latter to a 12-minute jam.

Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XPLB3lGFOo

yeah well I expect to agree with you on everything other than Press to Play.

Finally official release date for Mamouna/Horoscope: November 17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1FsWsme3pU

Deets, per Amazon:

Description
Bryan Ferry’s ninth solo studio album ‘Mamouna’ is being reissued for the first time since 1994 and is being released on two deluxe formats. It was Bryan Ferry’s first studio album in seven years to feature original recordings, having worked on the album for six years under the working title of ‘Horoscope’. The previously unreleased alternate recordings to the final ‘Mamouna’ versions are collected for the first time on these deluxe reissues as the ‘Horoscope’ album. The 2LP audiophile heavyweight vinyl was half-speed cut at Abbey Road Studios, London, by master engineer Miles Showell. The 3CD version also includes the ‘Horoscope’ album, with an additional disc of previously unreleased demos or “Sketches” from both the ‘Mamouna’ and ‘Horoscope’ albums. The artwork direction for the updated reissue was overseen by Bryan Ferry himself. The album features a stellar cast of supporting musicians including Nile Rodgers, Guy Pratt and Steve Ferrone, as well as contributions from his Roxy Music bandmates Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Brian Eno. The album peaked at Number 11 on the UK Official Album Chart and includes the singles ‘Don’t Want To Know’, ‘Your Painted Smile’ and title track ‘Mamouna’.
Track Listings
Disc: 1
1 Don't Want To Know (1999 Digital Remaster)
2 N.Y.C. (1999 Digital Remaster)
3 Your Painted Smile (1999 Digital Remaster)
4 Mamouna (1999 Digital Remaster)
5 The Only Face (1999 Digital Remaster)
6 The 39 Steps (1999 Digital Remaster)
7 Which Way To Turn (1999 Digital Remaster)
8 Wildcat Days (1999 Digital Remaster)
9 Gemini Moon (1999 Digital Remaster)
10 Chain Reaction (1999 Digital Remaster)
Disc: 2
1 Where Do We Go From Here (The 39 Steps)
2 The Only Face (Horoscope Version)
3 Desdemona (N.Y.C.)
4 S&M (Midnight Train)
5 Loop De Li (Horoscope Version)
6 Gemini Moon (Horoscope Version)
7 Raga
8 Mother of Pearl (Horoscope Version)
Disc: 3
1 Mamouna (Instrumental Edit '89 / '94)
2 Your Painted Smile (Instrumental First Draft '89)
3 Your Painted Smile (Later version with guide vocals '89)
4 Your Painted Smile (Piano and Vocal '93)
5 N.Y.C. / Desdemona (Instrumental '91)
6 Robot (Instrumental First Draft '89)
7 The Only Face (Instrumental First Draft '89)
8 The Only Face (Piano and Vocal '93)
9 Loop De Li (Instrumental First Draft '89)
10 Horoscope (Instrumental '90)

Oh darn

So was Horoscope actually a finished eight-song album, ready to be released in this form, or just the name of a project that became Mamouna?

depends on how you look at it. it wasn't really done and ready to be released, it turned into Mamouna, but it's fairly close to 'done'. You can find high quality versions of it online.

Many of the songs he cannibalized for future things. I prefer the "Loop de Li" on Avonmore.

agreed

I've argued for years that he kept the '94 vocals on several Avonmore tracks. You can hear the difference.

Here you go:

Eric Alterman – We Are Not One: A History of America’s Fight Over Israel

lol

I mean: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_28Ja-xXn7c

He's singing the melody line from "Mamouna."

this is a 94 recording with 89 guide vocals though, not an avonmore recording with 94 vocals.

Oh, I wasn't making that point again. I was posting the first track he released from the set.

oh, ha

My friend Andy Zax on FB:

Horoscope circulated internally at WBR at the time. (I still have my official in-house copy.) Everyone hated it, and for good reason. The version of “Mother Of Pearl” is an unspeakable horror.

Needless to say I'm interested in Ferry invoking Cthulhu here.

He's singing the melody line from "Mamouna."

Yes, it's the verse of "Mamouna" and the bridge of "Your Painted Smile". I imagine that, starting with these sessions, Ferry would do a lot of reconfiguration of parts of songs in the attempt to create finished masters.

i disagree that it's an unspeakable horror. It's interesting. Is it vital and necessary? no, but it's not a total embarrassment. On the whole horoscope feels unfinished, which it is; and Mamouna is an infinitely better finished product (my personal second favorite Ferry solo release)

I remember, when Mamouna first came out, my friend suggesting that the then-unknown Horoscope must have contained eleven other Zodiac songs in the vein of "Gemini Moon".

The version of “Mother Of Pearl” is an unspeakable horror.

I had no idea such a thing existed so it was the first thing I checked out. Of course it pales next to the original, almost everything does, so remake/remodeling it was rather pointless, but it's a sultry groove and fun to sing along with. I didn't hate it.

There are also very few examples of Ferry remaking/remodeling pre-1976 Roxy in the post-1979 style. I’ve written before how incongruous certain aspects of the transition seem – in that sense, the Horoscope “Mother of Pearl” is a bit of a missing puzzle piece.