Album Review: Bryan Ferry - Boys & Girls (1985)

Not all great songs come from great albums - the band Journey is perhaps one of the better examples of this.  Their best album is by far their Greatest Hits album from 1988, simply because it contains ALL of their best songs, and I do mean ALL. Their studio albums were nothing to rave about, they had the singles and that's all they had to go on.  If it weren't for the (great) singles the albums would be nothing.  Some great, great songs come from very average albums, and "Slave to Love" by Bryan Ferry is a good example of this.  It is one of those songs I would consider to be "perfect", a lavishly constructed love ballad completely devoid of the sloppy, pretentious proclivities endemic to many a love song.  It is art, through and through. But the album it comes from, Boys & Girls, is 45 percent great singles (OK, one of the songs is admittedly a prelude) and 55 percent filler material.  Not rubbish, but not great either.  I may some day come to appreciate "Stone Woman", but if I do listen to this album, it is of course, for the likes of "Slave to Love" and "Windswept."  It's certainly not one of my favorite Ferry albums, even if it does contain some of my favorite Ferry solo recordings. I was a bit disappointed after first listening to this album many years ago, and I'm still at best lukewarm about it.  Stay for "Slave to Love", "Don't Stop the Dance", "Windswept" and its prelude, "Wasteland."  That being said, don't let this album stop you from checking out his other material, both from his solo career and with Roxy Music, because there is many a great song, and indeed many a great album, for your listening pleasure.  B

Album Review: Bryan Ferry - Avonmore (2014)

Bryan Ferry almost seems to get better with age.  Boys and Girls from 1985, for instance, is overall an average album, but it does contain in my opinion the greatest love song ever written, "Slave to Love."  1993's Taxi was a surprise - it's common for long established artists to wane musically as time moves on.  But Bryan Ferry never stagnates - he matures.  Olympia again reinforced this, and once more, having listened to Avonmore, the album which I am writing about here, I am more convinced of this than ever.  And whilst Olympia was perhaps a spiritual successor to Roxy Music's Avalon in many ways, this new album is not a spiritual successor to any other album as such, but a contemporary rendition of Ferry at his best.  Much better than Boys and Girls, but it is nonetheless rich in that musical finesse that makes "Slave to Love" the ultimate love song that it was, and of course, still is.  Starting off great with "Loop de Li" and "Midnight Train", it slips a bit on "Soldier of Fortune", but picks up again from then on.  "Lost", "One Night Stand" and "Johnny & Mary" are my favorites for the second half of the album.  I can only hope Bryan maintains the momentum and keeps knocking out brilliant albums like this for many more years to come.  A

Album Review: Bryan Ferry - Taxi (1993)

By the 1990s, most singers who had been in the game since the late 60s or early 70s had begun to lose their musical mojo.  Garnering at best two star reviews for studio albums and only ever achieving significant sales by pumping out ‘best of’ and ‘greatest hits’ compilations, whilst throwing in an awful live album or two to spoil the relative success of the latter two, it is obvious such artists have burnt out and subsequently run out of ideas.  Not if you’re Bryan Ferry, however.   The unexpectedly cool Ferry and his carefully crafted brand of romanticism as a musical form survived well into the 1990s and even today, with his 1993 work, Taxi, proving there’s always exceptions to the rule.  Giving his rendition of “Amazing Grace” a miss, the record still has that upbeat moody aura to it that sends shivers up my spine and is characteristic of much of his greatest work, both solo and especially with the latter Roxy Music albums.  “Just One Look”, “Rescue Me” and “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” are tops – the rest, however, shouldn’t be overlooked either, except of course, for the aforementioned “Amazing Grace.”  Stick to the original for that one.  A-

Album Review: Bryan Ferry - Olympia (2010)

Roxy Music is well known for projecting a distinct artistic aura that separates it from other mainstream bands - it makes music with artistic motives in mind, not to appeal to common perceptions and expectations of rock and roll as it was and still is, but to bring the visual to the aural senses, and to incite or invoke a sensation of sensory appreciation that transgresses typical musical norms.  Most notable was their final 1982 album Avalon, an album that redressed romantic emotionalism in an auditory experience beyond what most musicians seemingly sought not to achieve for the most part.

Bryan Ferry's 2010 work, Olympia, is in spirit a continuation of Avalon.  A Ferry album by name, but a Roxy Music record in character, it's brilliance is justified on a number of fronts - firstly, its correlation to 80s Ferry and Roxy, notably Avalon and Ferry's solo Boys and Girls; secondly, its proficiency in reproducing everything that the aforementioned records stood for.  Analyzing the tracks, "You Can Dance" starts off reminiscent of "True to Life", "Shameless" is self-explanatory, and my personal favorite, "Song to the Siren", a cover song that Ferry, despite his advancing years, shows that he still has the magic when it comes to formulating those powerful and melodic ballads that made his 80s material so ethereal.  Loving it.  A

Creating the Ultimate Love Song - Do It Right and Forget about Love

The first ever love song I ever heard was Chris de Burgh's "The Lady in Red", way back around '86-87 or so. And despite being able to pick out several prominent flaws, what a brilliant love song it was, certainly from a musical perspective anyhow. The lyrics, I thought, were a bit too soft and mellowed out for my liking. And I must admit they still are. However, it did help open the door to a lifetime passion for the art of popular music, despite the words being a bit too lovey-dovey for a wee kid like myself. Never before had I heard a song so passionate and so serious, and that is probably what sent the shivers up my spine for all the wrong reasons. The paced, going-the-grope on your secretary tempo was forgivable, and I much prefer a fast song to a slow one, but toward the end you hear Chris whispering "I love you", which instantly invokes disturbing thoughts of a DJ from some Easy Listening radio station rambling away with a light, dulcet soft voice as he dedicates a song to a couple celebrating the husband getting it up for the first time in 37 years.

And since then I've heard all sorts of love songs from different artists spanning different genres. Bob Dylan wrote a few. So did Stevie Wonder. Bryan Adams wrote some appalling numbers, and the Bee Gees wrote some memorable tunes, even if they did sound all alike, no matter who happened to be singing them. And who could forget Barry White, bar most virgins and everyone in the third world? Dire Straits had their "Romeo and Juliet", Minnie Riperton blew out a few speakers with her glass-shattering, cacophonic ear-bleeder, "Loving You", and there was also the more acceptable, "Annie's Song" from the late John Denver.

But enough with the padding and rambling, and let's move on to a song that I genuinely believe is the greatest song that will EVER be written. Seriously. It is Bryan Ferry's "Slave to Love", and it is so good you'll marry the CD it comes on, in various ways effectively rendering the romantic intentions conveyed by the song redundant. And I bet Bryan was wearing a beret and oversized bowtie as he wrote it, because this is a masterpiece of epic proportions. This is one love song that doesn't make me shiver and go, "urgh." The Bossa Nova texturing, the very romantic aura, and the poetic precision of the lyrics all combined into one create a song that will make your eyes water as if you were sucking on a lemon. Top it off with the quietly cool Ferry's distinct vocals and you will have before you the most potent cure for depression that will ever be conceived.

When I first heard the song on the radio (possibly much, much earlier than what first comes to mind), I was blown away. You will be too if you listen to it. So here's some advice; forget about love, listen to this song and you'll be too busy basking in the aural succulence to be worrying where your next wild night will be coming from. Amongst all the praise, however, I must warn you that this song has been covered (in other words, destroyed) by other artists; my advice would be to not listen to them, as I have wisely done. Love songs just can't get any better than this.