Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry - A New Romantic revolution

One of the most innovative bands of the Seventies, inextricably linked - for better or worse - to the charismatic figure of their leader Bryan Ferry, Roxy Music left an indisputable legacy to at least two generations of musicians, becoming the emblem of so-called "glam rock" (or "decadent rock", as it was called in Italy), even though that label is extremely reductive in their case, given how many ideas emerge from listening to their music. Roxy Music left nothing untried in their relentless quest for a music that could break with the past while still digging its roots into it: electric rock, jazz, contemporary music, rock'n'roll, romanticism, electronics, in an unprecedented fusion that has had no equal in rock history.

Bryan Ferry was born on September 26, 1945 in Washington, County Durham, England. The son of farmers - Fred and Mary Ann Ferry, although his father was later passed off as a miner, perhaps to feed an image of a "son of the working class" that would contrast with his dandy, elegant image - Bryan began his musical career in local bands like the Banshees, as singer and pianist, until at Newcastle-upon-Tyne University he founded the R&B band Gas Board with his friends Graham Simpson and John Porter.

In the winter of 1970-71, while working as a ceramics teacher, Ferry placed an ad in Melody Maker looking for a keyboardist to join him and bassist Graham Simpson. Andy Mackay (Lostwithiel, Cornwall, UK), who at the time taught music at Holland Park Comprehensive, answered the ad - not as a keyboardist but as a saxophonist and oboist. Mackay, in turn, had met the eccentric Brian Eno (Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno, Woodbridge, UK, 15/05/1948), a student at Winchester College of Art, at some contemporary music performances, since both were interested in experimental composers such as John Cage, Morton Feldman and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

When they met again some time later, on the London Underground, Eno had started experimenting with new musical forms using a Revox tape recorder; Andy lent him the VCS3 synthesizer he had just bought and brought him in as electronic "supervisor" for the new band, but it wasn't long before Eno became a full member of the group. Dexter Lloyd, a classical percussionist, joined the group as drummer, but left just a few months later, and once again Ferry placed an ad looking - verbatim - for a "wonder drummer". In June 1971, Paul Thompson, drummer with Smokestack, joined the band. A guitarist was still missing, and after numerous sessions, Phil Manzanera (Philip Targett Adams, London, 31/01/1951), already active with Quiet Sun, answered yet another ad in Melody Maker, but failed the audition and was passed over in favor of David O'List, whom Ferry greatly admired for his work with the Nice.

Thus, in October 1971, the band was complete. It initially took the name Roxy, a name for which there are several accounts: some associate it with Ferry's love of theatre, but I personally recall an interview with Bryan from the early Seventies in which the singer said, more or less, that he wanted a name that combined "rock" with "sexy", the way he wanted his music to be: rock + sexy. Roxy, precisely. Feeling, however, that Roxy was a somewhat weak name - and since there was already a band with that name in the US - the band changed its official name to Roxy Music.

At this point the group still lacked a record deal, but events began falling into place in Roxy Music's favor: in December 1971, Richard Williams, an influential Melody Maker journalist, enthusiastically reviewed a demo by the new band, which shortly afterwards was also noticed by John Peel at a club, during a support slot for Genesis. Roxy Music were booked for four nights on the important Sound of the Seventies Show in early 1972.

After the first night, however, David O'List was asked to leave the band because his guitar style, too traditionally rock, was deemed unsuited to the music the group was shaping up to make. Phil Manzanera, evidently determined to be part of the band, came back for another try and, after three days of auditions, was finally accepted as O'List's replacement. The group still wasn't making any money, though: Ferry and Mackay were still working as teachers and Thompson was employed at a construction firm, so Ferry asked Robert Fripp (King Crimson) for help, and, backed by the guitarist, went to E.G. Management in search of a record deal. The band's audition hit the mark: sensing Roxy's commercial potential as well, E.G. Management arranged a meeting with Chris Blackwell of Island Records, who decided to sign the band. The considerable advance they received was spent entirely by Roxy Music on flashy, flamboyant stage outfits. The concert sets were designed by Antony Price and Jim O'Connor, while Carol McNichol designed Eno's memorably outlandish costumes.

In March 1972, the first album was ready, simply titled Roxy Music, produced by Pete Sinfield, already a lyricist and producer for King Crimson, one of Ferry's key reference bands. The album was immediately hailed by the authoritative Melody Maker as "album of the year", and the specialist press unanimously welcomed the arrival of a band that finally combined style and substance. Richard Williams, in Melody Maker of June 24, 1972, ended his review with the words "And they've only just begun!"

The album opens in grand style with "Re-make/Re-model", which immediately makes things clear: this is not run-of-the-mill music. There are obvious echoes of already established forms: the contemporary glam rock of figures like David Bowie or Marc Bolan, as well as echoes of King Crimson's schizophrenia, the experimentalism of Soft Machine, and even - in Ferry's peculiar singing style - a nod to the crooners of the Fifties. But the final result is entirely original and forcefully lays the groundwork for much of the music that would follow. Roxy Music built a sonic architecture based on broken rhythms, schizoid bursts of sax and synthesizer, distorted guitars and Ferry's fascinating, elastic voice, composing a sonic mosaic that, then as now, has no equal in the field of rock music.

The music of Ferry & co., born in that melting pot of cultural, musical and media ferment that was London in the early Seventies, absorbed its moods and colours, but gave back something entirely new, one that nonchalantly blended rock, jazz, cacophony and avant-garde, with a final effect not too far removed from what the Futurist movement had been in the 1920s: absorbing the past and metabolizing it to create something new and revolutionary. The album contains several tracks that aren't hard to consider masterpieces: "Ladytron", "Chance Meeting", "The Bob" (the most exquisitely avant-garde track on the record, dissonant, almost free-jazz, with Ferry's voice sounding hallucinated and distant), "Bitters End".

Immediately after the album's release, bassist Graham Simpson left the band, replaced by Rik Kenton for live shows, inaugurating a peculiar trend that would see Roxy Music's bassists come and go like a revolving door around the band's core over the years.

A series of concerts across England and the release of their debut single "Virginia Plain" (not included on the album) finally earn Roxy Music the broad popular success they'd been seeking. Audiences go wild for the band's revolutionary yet thoroughly accessible approach, while critics lavish praise on Ferry and co., indulging in the most far-fetched interpretations of their music.

1973 is a very busy year for Roxy Music: the release of their second album For Your Pleasure confirms them as one of the most important bands of the 70s. Surprisingly, the album is promoted by the single "Pyjamarama" (which, however, is left off the album's tracklist), which makes the Top 10. The new record confirms everything promised by the first, and although at first listen it may seem less experimental, it actually shows the band members reaching full maturity: where the debut was - as is often the case with first albums - a funnel channeling all the experiences accumulated over the years, For Your Pleasure instead comes across as a more compact and coherent work. Starting with the cover - which depicts a young Amanda Lear against a black background with a panther on a leash - everything about this record is perfect. It opens with the futuristic anthem "Do the Strand" (also released as a single), built on a massive, driving wall of sound, punctuated by Mackay's increasingly deranged sax and dominated by Ferry's voice, which here definitively establishes a singing style that - just like Bowie's - would prove massively influential, quickly making him the true standard-bearer of 70s decadence. The album is full of gems: the gorgeous "Grey Lagoons", which after an almost romantic opening turns into something else entirely, propelled by Ferry's hammering piano and Mackay's sax; "In Every Dream Home a Heartache", a desperate ballad that is the ideal battlefield for Ferry's voice; "Editions of You", a wild, futuristic rock'n'roll number that, alongside "Do the Strand", can be credited with inspiring much of the new wave to come (Ultravox above all); and above all the record's true masterpiece, "The Bogus Man", a nine-minute track built on a hypnotic bass-and-drums foundation, over which everything imaginable and more unfolds: Mackay's tortured, torturing sax (a key figure in the band, perhaps too underrated), Eno's electronic splashes, the distorted guitar of Manzanera, Ferry's whispering voice, quasi-tribal sounds, reverbs, assorted cacophonies, pseudo-solos, implausible choruses, and whatever else could possibly have crossed the musicians' minds. Nearly all the songs are written by Ferry, but it's abundantly clear that his bandmates' contribution is anything but negligible in the group's complex sonic architecture.

Roxy keep grinding out show after show across England and America until Brian Eno, due to internal friction within the band, leaves to launch a solo career that will see him lay the foundations of ambient music with a series of landmark albums, and collaborate as a producer with some of the most important artists on the international scene. His place on keyboards is taken by ex-Curved Air member Eddie Jobson (also a violinist), and at the end of that same year the third album, Stranded, is released. The new recruit and Eno's departure give the band a new shape, less experimental and avant-garde and more focused on the song format, albeit still reaching very high peaks of creativity. The single "Street Life" quickly becomes a fixture on English radio and the album climbs the charts. But it's a mistake - one that too many "enlightened" critics make - to dismiss Roxy Music's output from this album onward as "minor" compared to their first two records. Probably influenced by what Eno would go on to do after Roxy, many critics forget that Bryan Ferry was the mastermind and architect of the group, a refined pianist, as well as the author of the vast majority of their songs - without taking anything away from the creative contribution of the other members, Eno first and foremost.

Stranded opens once again with an electric ballad, "Street Life", yet another futuristic, electronic reworking of rock'n'roll. But the best of the album comes with the poignant "Just Like You", where Ferry's singing is as seductive and sensual as ever; with the hypnotic "Amazona", a cold, alienating ballad; with "Serenade", another dive into rock, albeit in Roxy fashion; and above all with the album's absolute masterpiece, and probably one of the compositional high points of Ferry's career, "A Song for Europe", a decadent, despairing anthem that mourns a past that will never return, a past full of wonder and grandeur, a true love letter to a Europe now long gone (and even more so today). The song boasts a precious arrangement with prominent piano and orchestra and lyrics in English, French and Latin (even if Ferry's pronunciation isn't always impeccable...), which helps create a decadent, irresistibly romantic atmosphere.

The following album, Country Life, released in 1974, caused a stir with its cover - quite risqué for the time - showing two semi-nude women. The album, from which the single "All I Want Is You" was pulled and reached number 12 on the English charts, was positively reviewed by the two leading British music magazines, Melody Maker and Record Mirror. Indeed, despite the clear shift in perspective compared to Roxy Music's first two albums, Country Life still remains at more than acceptable levels. The opening ballad "The Thrill of It All" still contains all the elements that marked the band's irresistible rise, as does the intense "Bitter Sweet" and, above all, "Casanova", probably the track that most reveals the band's subtle experimental streak. Bryan Ferry consolidates his image as a refined, vaguely bored dandy, finally abandoning glitter, sequins and retro hairstyles to quickly become the most elegant rocker around.

It's true, Roxy Music's sound has changed, but so has the world around them: music, fashion, art. And besides, it would have been sterile to keep endlessly recycling the formula of their early days. Now experimentation no longer needs to be expressed through long, dissonant tracks, but can run underground, running through songs that - beyond appearances, and beyond the blinkered view of certain critics - are anything but simple.

The band embarks on a long tour that takes them to Europe, America and Australia, before returning to the studio in 1975 to release the massively successful single "Love Is the Drug". From this point on, Roxy Music's sound moves definitively away from its early stylistic hallmarks and closer to Ferry's solo output, a cultured, refined easy-listening that anticipates the dandyism of the 80s.

The album that follows shortly after, Siren, with the then-unknown (but already stunning) Texan model Jerry Hall on the cover, is one of the band's biggest successes and the first to produce more than one single, with the release of "Both Ends Burning". The band tours in support of the new album until spring 1976, when the members decide to take a break and focus on their respective solo projects. A live album, Viva! Roxy Music, is released in 1976, along with a compilation, Roxy Music's Greatest Hits, and a reissue of the single "Virginia Plain" - which had never appeared on an album.

In 1979 the band reunites with only four of its original members: Bryan Ferry, Phil Manzanera, Andy Mackay and Paul Thompson, joined by Dave Skinner on keyboards and Gary Tibbs on bass. The new single, "Trash", stalls at number 40 on the charts, while the following single, "Dance Away", reaches as high as number two, soon followed by the new album, Manifesto, from which a third single, "Angel Eyes", is drawn - the first-ever 12" mix of a Roxy Music song, marking a definitive break from the band's earlier output. The album sells extremely well, but the band's "old" fanbase turns up its nose, desperately - and largely fruitlessly - searching through the lavish production for traces of Ferry & co.'s past identity (and genius).

1980 finds the band reduced to three original members, following the departure of Paul Thompson as well. The single "Over You" offers a taste of what's to come on the new album, Flesh + Blood, a highly polished record that reaches the top of the charts on four separate occasions that year, helped by the release of the singles "Oh Yeah (On the Radio)" and the little gem "The Same Old Scene". By now Ferry's solo output and Roxy's run in perfect parallel and total symbiosis, save for certain - by now increasingly rare - solo flourishes from Mackay and Manzanera, who try to cast Bryan Ferry's songs and ballads in a different light.

A world tour in 1981 sees Roxy Music perform "Jealous Guy" as a tribute to John Lennon, killed that same year. The song, recorded at Phil's Gallery Studios, is released as a single and reaches, for the first time in the band's career, number one on the sales charts.

In March 1982 the new single "More Than This" - with a rhythm and melody of the kind that stays in your head all day - becomes a huge hit in Europe and Japan, paving the way for the album Avalon, released in May of that same year.

Avalon quickly climbs the charts and stays on the album charts for sixty weeks, becoming Roxy Music's best-selling album ever. The title track "Avalon" is released as a single and reaches number 12. On this album, which will be the band's last, also worth noting are "India", "Tara" and "The Space Between", songs that move ever further away from the wild experiments of "Bogus Man" or "Ladytron", but which, taken and judged on their own terms, still reveal far-from-ordinary harmonies and refined arrangements, always enriched by those clever touches that make the difference between a mere "tune" and true class.

The "Avalon Tour" takes Roxy Music on the road until 26 May 1983. At the end of the tour, the band's breakup is officially announced. The compilation The Atlantic Years and the live mini-album The High Road (recorded in Glasgow in 1982), which includes a beautiful, poignant version of Lennon's "Jealous Guy", are released in 1983, marking the end of Roxy Music.

In 1986 the first compilation to also include tracks from Ferry's solo career, Street Life 20 Great Hits, is released, charting very well and proving that Roxy Music have not yet been forgotten. A similar anthology album, mixing Roxy tracks and Ferry solo material, The Ultimate Collection, comes out in 1988. In 1990 the posthumous live album Heart Still Beating is released, recorded in France eight years earlier, from which the single "Love Is The drug" is taken — a commercial move by the record label intent on squeezing as much as possible out of the Roxy Music name, which meets firm opposition from Ferry. A compilation drawing on their first three LPs, simply titled The Early Years, comes out in 2000.

In February 2001 Roxy Music announce a temporary reunion and a world tour, which kicks off in Dublin on 9 June 2001 and wraps up at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on 2 October of the same year, drawing enthusiastic audiences everywhere and featuring a setlist packed with tracks from their early albums. A DVD taken from the tour is released on 6 May 2002. But it's just an episode, born of the desire to play the old songs together again for a multi-generational audience of parents and children. No new album. Roxy Music no longer exist.

To mark the fortieth anniversary of the release of their debut album and of "Virginia Plain", the box set The Complete Studio Recordings is released: every studio album, from "Roxy Music" to "Avalon", is reissued here in a vinyl-replica package reproducing the original LP artwork. Back in 1999 the band's catalogue had already been remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering Studios, but this time the aim is to restore the original sound, without the re-equalization and dynamic-range compression found on the reissues that had been on the market for years. On Manifesto the song "Dance Away" finally appears in its original mix rather than the single version mistakenly included on Ludwig's remaster, and there are also two additional compact discs featuring alternate versions (the American single mix of "Do The Strand", the extended versions of "Angel Eyes" and "Dance Away", the dance mix of "The Main Thing"), some of which appear on a digital format for the first time, non-album singles ("Virginia Plain", "Pijamarama" and the cover of "Jealous Guy") and b-sides that are now hard to come by ("The Numberer", "The Pride And The Pain", "Hula Kula", "Sultanesque", "Trash 2", "South Downs", "Lover", "Always Unknowing").

On 29 March 2019 the band make their triumphant entrance into the Hall of Fame, complete with a full-band performance that thrills the audience.

DURING AND AFTER

PHIL MANZANERA

During Roxy Music's "breather", Phil Manzanera re-forms his old band, Quiet Sun, with whom he records the album Maninstream (1975), steeped in jazz-rock and full of cross-pollinations — much like his entire solo output as this refined and quirkily brilliant guitarist, though not an equally gifted songwriter. The albums with the "open" supergroup 801 — among the musicians involved: Eno, Simon Phillips and others — remain probably the best work Manzanera has produced on his own: 801 Live (1976) and Listen Now (1977). With fellow ex-Roxy member Andy Mackay, Manzanera also forms Explorers, with whom he records a self-titled album in 1985. He would go on to collaborate with the saxophonist on three more forgettable albums: Crack the Whip (1988), Up In Smoke (1988) and Manzanera MacKay (1990), interspersed with a solo output that is nothing if not eclectic, with Manzanera's guitar ranging from rock to jazz, from South American rhythms to rhythm & blues to electronic experimentation, though never fully winning over either critics or audiences.

ANDY MACKAY

Andy Mackay, after contributing to Eno's debut album Here Come the Warm Jets (1973), records his first solo work in 1974, In Search of Eddie Riff, a kind of musical autobiography in which he explores the roots of his musical upbringing, from Schubert to rock'n'roll.

In 1975 he collaborates with Howard Schuman on an ambitious project, a sort of musical TV serial centred on three girls in a rock band; the result is Rock Follies, which wins the award for best television drama in 1976 and spawns a soundtrack album that reaches number 1 on the UK charts. In 1978 a trip to China inspires a new, entirely instrumental album, Resolving Contradictions, on which he collaborates with two more former Roxy members, Phil Manzanera on guitar and Paul Thompson on drums. After Roxy Music's definitive split, Andy turns to experimentation and in 1983 publishes the book "Electronic Music". Having moved with his family to Ireland, he grows close to traditional Irish music and collaborates with Manzanera on the aforementioned albums. A complex personality and a true explorer, Mackay never turns down a collaboration, and so we find his unmistakable sax lending itself to records by the Pet Shop Boys, Arcadia, Masami Tsuchiya and Yukihiro Takahashi, and even Italy's own Enrico Ruggeri.

Far removed from commercial and market logic, for years Mackay has quietly continued his career in research and electronic experimentation, collaborating with some of the most fertile minds in contemporary music (worth mentioning at least his work with Thom Yorke of Radiohead).

BRYAN FERRY

Alongside his work with Roxy Music, Ferry launches his solo career in 1973 with the album These Foolish Things, a collection of covers of his favourite songs, reinterpreted and personalised by him (among others, a Roxy-flavoured version of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall"), effectively paving the way for similar projects like Bowie's "Pin Ups" and Lennon's "Rock'n'Roll".

Ferry's second solo album, Another Time Another Place (1974), is again a collection of classics reinvented by Ferry with class and originality. Three singles are drawn from the album, including the irresistible "The In Crowd", which cracks the UK Top 20. Let's Stick Together (1976) rounds off what amounts to a trilogy dedicated by Ferry to his "inspirations", veering decisively towards rhythm and blues. Among the album's tracks worth mentioning are the Everly Brothers' "The Price of Love" and Frank Sinatra's "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To". However, the album and the singles taken from it receive a lukewarm reception, and so, finally, in 1977 Bryan Ferry decides to release an album of original songs: In Your Mind, a collection of uninspired electric, rock-leaning ballads that is met with a fairly cool response from both audiences and critics.

The new album, The Bride Stripped Bare (1978), presents itself as a hybrid: half original Ferry songs (certainly more inspired than on the previous record) and half covers. The first single is Lou Reed's "What Goes On", followed by the splendid "Sign of the Times" (finally penned by Ferry himself), and then "Carrickfergus", a traditional English song interpreted with great sensitivity by a Ferry at the height of his powers. Although the record is one of the finest in Ferry's solo output, the three singles enjoy fairly limited success, proving that the former Roxy Music frontman's popularity as a solo artist is on the wane. It's also worth remembering that these are the years in which punk explodes onto the scene — a movement that rebels against precisely everything Ferry represents.

Seven full years would pass before Bryan Ferry returned with a new album: Boys And Girls comes out in 1985 and is a record very similar to the final Roxy albums (or is it the other way round?), including the hit singles "Slave To Love", "Don't Stop The Dance" and "Windswept".

In 1987 the album Bête Noire is a huge commercial success and proves that Ferry's fame has returned to the heights of the past. "Kiss & Tell" is the first single by the former Roxy Music leader to top both the British and American charts simultaneously. The record offers a handful of classy synth-pop songs (the title track, "New Town"), beautifully played and recorded, that fit perfectly into 1980s pop.

After another long break, 1993 sees the release of the new album, Taxi, on which Ferry goes back to covering other people's songs. The album yields the hit singles "I Put A Spell On You", "Will You Love Tomorrow" and the Presley-esque "Girl Of My Best Friend".

In 1994 Ferry releases his new album, Mamouna, a work of great refinement and clean instrumental and vocal execution, not immediately accessible but certainly more mature than his previous records. Despite the album's poor commercial showing and that of the single "Your Painted Smile", Mamouna remains one of Bryan Ferry's finest solo works.

A new covers album sees the light in 1999, As Time Goes By, featuring standards from the music of the 1930s and 40s, and both the album and the title-track single enjoy flattering success. Ferry takes the record on tour and is amazed by the warm reception given to some old Roxy songs he performs during the shows, to the point of planning a reunion of the old band.

After the Roxy Music reunion tour, Ferry goes back to working on unreleased material shelved over the previous 10 years, songs recorded throughout the 90s featuring collaborations with Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), Bernard Butler, Bjork, Sinead O'Connor, Edwin Collins, Brian Eno and many others. This material sees the light on the album Frantic, released in April 2002, followed by the singles "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", "Goddess Of Love" and "Smoke Dreams Of You".

Did the world really need Dylanesque put into print? Are immense class and the irresistible appeal of a seasoned crooner enough to justify spending 20 euros on a covers album recorded in the space of a week? Honestly, no. And did Bob Dylan need the royalties from this album? And then there's the tracklist. They could have included, say, "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall", but Roxy Music themselves had already delivered a superb version of that apocalyptic song 35 years earlier, complete with a promotional video. So then, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", or "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right". Right, true, those were also done back in the Frantic days. So we have to settle, in a flash of originality, for "Knockin' On Heaven's Door".

It's uncharitable to think ill, but could this perhaps be some contractual obligation to get a tedious chore out of the way, maybe ahead of the imminent Roxy Music reunion album?

Having spent the last two decades under the radar, between minimal if not outright retro covers albums (Taxi, As Time Goes By and Dylanesque) and unresolved bouts of acute perfectionism (the albums of original material Mamouna and Frantic), here he is emerging from a bend in the road with a step you don't expect. We'd last left him in the studio months earlier with all the other Roxy Music members, Eno included, busy reviving a glorious name that had been gathering dust in the attic since 1982 (if we discount the thrilling onstage cameos); now we find him alone, with much of the shelved reunion sessions in his pocket, a couple of choice covers, and the fruits of a 1995 collaboration with Dave Stewart (the never-released "Alphaville Sessions"), serving up, with his trademark aplomb, his first collection of new material since 2002.

This alone would be news in itself, but the really good news is something else: Olympia is the languid crooner's best work since Boys And Girls. Bryan's solo career since the end of his golden decade (the Eighties) seems like an exact transposition of his onstage movements: that is, brazenly deliberate, composed beyond any limit — one album every seven or eight years (covers albums excluded), in which each rendez-vous becomes the pretext for fixing the state of the art of a maniacal pursuit of formal perfection, more often than not folded into aristocratic ups and downs. More often than not, indeed. Because this time the surprise is a big one, going beyond the now-customary lineup of top-notch session players deployed, surpassing our man's morphine-slow gait and sidestepping the congenital intimism that has always been his fixed companion and leitmotif.

Olympia, with Kate Moss's big eyes winking from the cover, is a compendium of guitars applied to soft-rock, of rhythm sections that are both substantial and ethereal, the triumph of the recording studio used as the principal instrument, sealing the Eno-ian gospel by which the studio is, in itself, the expression of a new art form. What lies before us is not the "usual" quest for some novel yet generic electronic sound, but the patient chiselling of a thousand instrumental fragments — mostly traditional ones — dismantled and reduced to single tiles that recombine into the mosaic of the songs. And what songs. With Bryan just self-referential enough, for instance, on "You Can Dance", where he forges a murky guitar charge starting from a sample of the Roxy-esque "True To Life", drawing on the simultaneous services of three guitarists (Nile Rodgers chief among them) and a trio of bassists of the calibre of Marcus Miller (a Miles Davis loyalist), Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers) and Gary 'Mani' Mounfield (Stone Roses): sheer madness.

And what to make of "Alphaville", where the guitarists swell to five (!) with the arrival of Dave Stewart and the veteran "Slave To Love" session man Neil Hubbard, to sketch out the most nocturnal and surreal of funk tracks with the blessing of Brian Eno's rarefied flanged synth?

Ferry's voice today is wrapped in a patina bestowed by time, which has darkened it, enriching it the way time enriches fine wood. "Heartache By Numbers", the fruit of a collaboration with Jake Shears and Babydaddy of Scissor Sisters, with Andy Mackay's oboe and Miller's sweetened slap bass laying down a "choral" passage that sounds like a glossy version of Arcade Fire, and "Me Oh My", pure and slow melancholy marked by the unmistakable wordplay of David Gilmour (him too), which revives the glories of the sadly underrated Roxy-era Flesh And Blood. And then there's the nervous, dreamlike uptempo "Shameless", a disguised reworking of a smooth dance version already heard on "Black Light" by Groove Armada.

Then comes a moment when Ferry needs to relax, to open the album of memories, with the turntable needle gliding over the notes of recollection. Legs crossed, a good brandy warming the room. It's always been this way; today the duty falls to the touching "Song To The Siren" by Tim Buckley and to "No Face, No Name, No Number", hushed and dramatic in their original form, plastic, elegant and sensual after the Ferry treatment. And while the version of the song written by Jeff's father comes across as somewhat didactic, though never vulgar, the epic by Winwood and co. is rejuvenated: faithful to the score, it sheds the trappings of nostalgia, loses some of its folk character but gains in rhythm, breaks free serenely only to be caught again by the typical inflections of the Newcastle crooner. It's a dance for two, under a starry sky, in a chiaroscuro ballroom, with Chris Spedding's flourishes inviting, inviting... But then, suddenly, Marcus Miller's funky "Tutu" bass, a fiery rhythm reined in with a little necktie by our man, whispering while She screams, writhes, gives in. And the star realises this is the right moment to deliver the decisive blow: "Reason Or Rhyme", a dry drumbeat that seems to herald something rash; nonsense, a couple of piano touches and it's a new cheek-to-cheek that seems to turn into one last plea — but that's only an impression, the would-be explorer never loses his composure, while the six-string's discreet wah-wah touches don't frighten, if anything they reassure. And night falls, and it is sweet. He's still here, Mister Elegance, elbowing his way through with the smile of someone who knows it all but doesn't flaunt it, letting you merely believe he does.

Once again enlisting Johnny Marr and Rhett Davies, his old desk-mate (at the mixing board), along with long-time regulars (Marcus Miller, Guy Pratt, Neil Hubbard and Nile Rodgers) and young talents (Oliver Thompson, the twenty-six-year-old lead guitarist who also joined Roxy Music on their reunion tour, and the promising son of such a father, Tara Ferry, who shares drumming duties with the dazzling Cherisse Osei), Bryan Ferry releases Avonmore (2014). A record that emphasizes those funky impulses which, in various guises, have run alongside the former Roxy Music leader's output of new material, while underscoring its distinctive psych-rock traits, which become the dominant key to the record, together with the wall of sound raised by digital mixing guru Craig Silvey.

The single “Loop De Li”, which features no fewer than six guitarists (!) including Marr and Rodgers, moves convincingly in the territory of “The Right Stuff”, the track that launched Bête Noire in 1987, co-written by the former Smiths man himself, who returns in this same role 27 years later on the ballad “Soldier Of Fortune”. Metronomic hypnotic grooves are the leitmotif of the more upbeat tracks, now airy and lightly dusted with keyboard touches on “Midnight Train” (though the number of guitarists involved rises to an unbelievable eight), now dreamy (“Driving Me Wild”), now caressed menacingly by female backing vocals, bolstered by a sax as dry as it gets (“One Night Stand”, whose intro winks at the Roxy-esque “The Main Thing”), and even hypnotic and obsessive on the title track, a kind of techno-house without sequencers or drum machines, yet with a rhythm section precise enough that you never miss them.

There's no shortage of either the killer slow number (“Lost”) or the languid midtempo (“A Special Kind Of Guy”), which has been a house trademark ever since the days of “Slave To Love”. Nor are covers missing: this time they pay tribute to Stephen Sondheim's Broadway with the musical-theatre interlude “Send In The Clowns” (also tackled by Frank Sinatra) and to Robert Palmer's classic “Johnny And Mary”, in an admirable nocturnal-electro version reworked together with Todd Terje and already featured on the latter's new album “It's Album Time”. How can a nearly voiceless singer, now on the threshold of his seventies, still radiate so much freshness? The answer lies in his elegance, which is something one wears, but which has nothing to do with being well dressed.

With Bitter-Sweet (2018), Bryan Ferry offers a fascinating new sonic exploration that blends the decadent glamour of his classic style with a sophisticated homage to the jazz age of the Twenties and Thirties. The album grew out of an extension of the work he did on the soundtrack for the splendid series “Babylon Berlin”, in which the English dandy, backed by the Bryan Ferry Orchestra, revisits his own repertoire and a few Roxy Music gems through a retro lens.

The album moves through territory rich in nostalgia and experimentation. The production, handled by Ferry and Rhett Davies, is extremely careful in recreating the sound of jazz's golden age, employing refined orchestral arrangements that transport the listener to a smoky Berlin club of the 1930s. Yet it's not a mere stylistic exercise: Ferry's vocal performance retains a strong emotional connection to the present, blending the elegance of his unmistakable voice with the vintage sound. The result is a work that sits halfway between a historical tribute and a conceptual piece, managing to remain personal despite the re-imagining at play.

The tracklist comprises 13 tracks, many of which are reworkings of songs already familiar from the catalogues of Ferry and Roxy Music. Among the most successful examples are “Sign Of The Times”, transformed into a languid jazz waltz, and “While My Heart Is Still Beating”, where the soft orchestral swing heightens the introspection of the lyrics.

“Love Is The Drug”, one of Roxy Music's most celebrated classics, appears here in a completely transfigured version: the original's driving rhythm gives way to a nocturnal ballad pace, where the sensuality is sublimated into melancholy. The title track, “Bitter-Sweet”, shines through its dramatic arrangement, which amplifies the inherent theatricality of the original piece.

There are also more experimental moments, such as “Dance Away”, pared down to its essentials in an elegant combination of piano and strings, or “Zamba”, enriched with Latin shadings and jazz timbres.

Bitter-Sweet is therefore not merely a nostalgic exercise, but an operation that reaffirms Bryan Ferry's role as an artist capable of continual reinvention, always guided by the same north star of decadent elegance and melancholic romanticism that have always defined his music.

Six years later, Ferry celebrates his solo career with the definitive compendium Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 (2024), a colossal 5-CD box set containing no fewer than 81 songs. The anthology includes favourite tracks from the Roxy Music frontman's catalogue, numerous covers, rarities, a new track titled “Star” (in collaboration with Trent Reznor) and more.

What stands out is the creativity – as well as the obsessive perfectionism – of the Roxy Music frontman even outside his band, despite the foolish condescension with which his solo career has often been regarded. A path that began just a year after Roxy Music's debut, with These Foolish Things (1973), and has continued right up to today.

Contributions by Marco Bercella (“Dylanesque”, “Olympia”, “Avonmore”), Gianfranco Marmoro (“Loose Talk” with Amelia Barratt)

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