I like looking at stuff in threes when they are tied to the same artist. I love a story and strong sense of continuity and evolution. A beginning and a middle and an end. If I pulled an example from my record bins it would be these three albums right here.
Avalon was a very cool trick for Roxy Music. It’s the greatest swan song a band of critical darlings who never got much commercial love would have ever hoped to pull off. But they did it!
It is a sad album but it also has a strong sense of relief that they were able to pull off one more change of direction in their style and a distinctly pulled together sound that went on frankly to define a ton of eighties and nineties music acts.
Bryan Ferry the lead singer was not about to give up a sound that went so well with his crooning style of singing. So he grabs Rhett Davies who produced Avalon and away they go.
So here we are with his solo album Boys And Girls basically pulling an Avalon “part 2″. And it works! The peak Bryan Ferry experience all nicely fleshed out and realized.
He defines the sound and makes it his own and he gets several soundtrack hits off the album by being totally original with his shtick. A trick he never pulled off doing covers of other people’s songs which were his bread and butter for years as a solo artist.
On the final of the three Bryan Ferry dumps Rhett Davies and pulls in Madonna’s producer for a much faster dance oriented sound using the same tried and true style of course.
It’s a neat trick and again he rocks the soundtracks of several more movies with his work so there are some high points here. BUT… the cracks are showing there seems to be less direction in the frantic beats and less depth or memorable content to be enjoyed. It becomes more of a mood piece than a further exploration of the possibilities.
Bryan Ferry would go away for a few years and come back to cover albums and Bob Dylan… (He wanted to be Europe’s answer to Bruce Springsteen?) after this but what a ride this group of albums turned out to be smack dab in the middle of the eighties no less. There are some great smoky jazz soaked electronic tunes to listen to amongst these three albums. All of them are well worth tracking down in the remastered version.
You’re running with me
Don’t touch the ground
We’re the restless hearted
Not the chained and bound
The sky is burning
A sea of flame
Though your world is changing
I will be the same
Bryan Ferry ~ Slave To Love
Tags: Music
Merrian wrote,
Bryan Ferry is always doggie shift music to me. It was all cassettes and I remember when we grouped our dollars and bought a cd player. The music would be heard over the factory heavy clatter of the kleinschmidt keys. It was a weird mix not as country as I would have thought eg. Mental as Anything, Splint Enz, Crowded House, The Models, The Pretenders, Spandau Ballet mixed up with The Captain & Teneille & John Cougar/Mellancamp & more Neil Diamond than I ever want to hear again. That is what sticks in my mind on recollection.
Link | February 22nd, 2012 at 9:52 pm