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

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'm listening to it now. "The Name of the Game" = wow. It's like Ferry heard "Live to Tell" and wanted to record a vocal as naked as Madonna's until his ethos got in the way -- he sounds like he's singing from Mons Venus across endlessly cavernous slap bass and synth tracks.

Writers think like writers, musicians like musicians.

The Occam's razor element here comes courtesy friends who played on some of these records.

At this point, Ferry had enough money to indulge his obsessive ideas about instrument sounds leading to some truly crazy frittering of studio time to get one beat of a percussion sound nobody would really hear. (I don't know how much drugs did or did not play into matters.)

So I don't think there's an art theory Macguffin here. And I think this helps explain the loopy disconnect between "Kiss and Tell"'s succinct dance pop and blurry whoosh of "The Right's Stuff". Without Roxy and his art school pals, he had nobody to bounce those sort of notions off (I forget when Simon Puxley passed on, but it seems Ferry spent much time just trying to keep him alive.)

Anyway--he DID have musicians. Anyone he wanted. And all the studio time in the world.

I mean, I saw him at Radio City in '88 and he had The Best Band Money Could Buy and it was literally the most godawful show I've ever seen, one Sisters of Mercy atrocity to the side.

I think his recent inclinations towards Manzanara and Eno show, perhaps, a humbling sense of needing reflective sources.

And then there's the facts that BOYS AND GIRLS made him a shitload of money, which would lend validation to whatever aesthetic caused that to happen.

The only thing I find puzzling is that, once there was an 80s revival really getting into the mainstream, Ferry stopped reviving the 80s....
― Geir Hongro, Monday, 24 March 2008 16:21 (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Not really, when all around you are doing the same thing, it should be more implicit for the 'artist' to do something different...

I mean, I saw him at Radio City in '88 and he had The Best Band Money Could Buy and it was literally the most godawful show I've ever seen, one Sisters of Mercy atrocity to the side.

Like this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2EqR89MpiQ&feature=related

Please check out the lead guitarist's hair.

/I mean, I saw him at Radio City in '88 and he had The Best Band Money Could Buy and it was literally the most godawful show I've ever seen, one Sisters of Mercy atrocity to the side./

Like this?



Please check out the lead guitarist's hair.
--Hell is other people. In an ILE film forum. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

"Frantic" definitely had some more muscle to it, didn't it? Good Eno collab on that one, too. (Though to be fair, if memory serves, Eno is all over "Mamouna," which every much sounds like something he might have produced circa then).

What I've always found most odd about Ferry's shift to full-on smooth mode is how raw and invigorating all the prime Roxy stuff is. I mean, they had enough money to sound like Steely Dan, if they wanted to, but for some reason they kept it rough. I dunno. Maybe blame Manzanera as failing to fulfill his role as studio foil?

Also, unlike Sade, Ferry is just too inherently arch to pull off ennui sans irony. Also, the difference between "cool" and "cold," etc.

(xpost)
Ha. Saw a god-awful show at Radio City in the early nineties. Then a few weeks later ran into a friend of a friend musician, complained about the show I saw and she told me that she had been rehearsing with Ferry, but he fired everybody in the version of the band she was in, which she claimed was much better, and replaced them with the jokers that I saw.

As good as Manzanera, Mackay, et al were as musicians, they weren't Steve Gadd or Skunk Baxter, so on Manifesto, the closest they ever came to Katy Lied-Royal Scam era Dan (check out "Ain't That So"), they still sound like punks.

Well, yeah. But they could have *afforded* to replace them in the studio with session dudes. And indeed ultimately did, with Andy Newmark, Rick Marotta, their rotating cast of bassists, et al. The question is, why didn't they go whole hog with the session smooth earlier? I suppose there are some parallels to the Beatles as a touring unit vs. the Beatles as studio bound. When Roxy got back together for "Manifesto," they were a fundamentally different band in a different place, and I doubt they would have gotten to that place naturally, sans a disruptive hiatus.

No question but that Ferry would have replaced them ALL if he could. He tossed out Paul Thompson because he was too much of a "basher."

I thought Paul offered an easy opening by breaking his hand or something? Curiously, Thompson was back for the reunion tour but barely billed.

Can't wait for the next round of Alfred's and Scott's Roxy/Ferry podcast - the 80s are next
http://rockcriticsarchives.com/audiovisual/index-roxy.html

GQ linked to us!

Hey Alfred, when is the next podcast going up--I am loving these!

as soon as Scott edits the last three broadcasts.

I'll happily accept criticism, by the way. Relistening, I'm aware that I overuse "interesting."

The "post-enunciation" phase of Bryan Ferry's career:

http://rockcritics.com/2010/01/22/roxymania-1973/

This whole podcast series has been a v. inspiring idea on a number of fronts.

Revive to note that after two records of reconnecting with his earlier, rockier sound (Frantic and Dylanesque), Ferry has quietly slid right back into uber-session-y smoothie funk with the last two records (Olympia and Avonmore). It's like Lucifer caught him reneging on their deal.

with which I have no problem because the songwriting is often rather good

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?