Bryan Ferry performing with Roxy Music at the O2 (Image: Getty)
Bryan Ferry. Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023
Like most 70s teenagers, my introduction to Bryan Ferry came when Roxy Music debuted on Top Of The Pops with Virginia Plain in 1972. Part-prog, part-glam, the thrilling song broke pop’s golden rules – it had no chorus and Ferry didn’t even mention the title until the very end – but still went Top 5.
His distinctive voice – once likened to “an extraterrestrial Sinatra” – swept along propelled by psychedelic guitar, oboe, and Brian Eno’s synth.
This huge anthology packs in 81 tracks drawn from the parallel solo career Ferry launched in 1973, notching up a Top Ten hit straight off the bat when he applied his stylish, anguished croon to Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall.
Apparent throughout is his broad love of popular music in all its many forms.
At the start, Ferry largely revamped blues and soul standards – Wilbert Harrison’s Let’s Stick Together, Billy Page’s The ‘In’ Crowd, Sam Cooke’s (What A) Wonderful World.
But he also tackled teeny-pop songs like It’s My Party and The Paris Sisters’ I Love How You Love Me.
By the mid-80s, the savvy farm labourer’s son from Tyne & Wear had reinvented himself as the melancholic nabob of pop sophistication.
Later, on 2012’s The Jazz Age, he reinterpreting his own songs in jazz band style with the Bryan Ferry Orchestra beathing new life into numbers like Do The Strand. Slave To Love manages to be simultaneously sad and swinging.
The deluxe comp comes with 16 rare and unreleased tracks including new song, Star, a slightly ominous post-techno outing featuring artist Amelia Barratt.
Many box sets are just an excuse to cash in and lazily recycle previous compilations. This lovingly assembled 5xCD collection explores the breadth of Ferry’s talent, as a writer, a performer, and an interpreter.
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