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"Boys and Girls" is the sound of Bryan Ferry trying to grow old gracefully in an arena that doesn't usually allow its performers much dignity in middle-age. It's an immaculately crafted record, meticulously assembled, its every detail honed, every nuance chiseled to a fine degree of often chilling perfection.
Of course, one frequently yearns for the kind of vigorous impetuosity, the cavalier dash and keen, colourful wit that inspired the vintage Roxy Music repertoire. It would be surely fatuous, however, to expect Ferry, nearly 15 years on, to reproduce the sting and flurry, the artful, energetic eccentricities of a "Virginia Plain" or a "Street Life." "Boys and Girls" is very much the work of a mature craftsman, a cool, discreet collection whose glossy textures and aloof vocal performances lend it a detached, almost patrician air.
Ferry is now utterly removed from the vulgar hurly-burly world of current pop. "Boys and Girls" occupies a rarefied atmosphere, its insularity guaranteed, despite the variety of exotic locations in which it was produced. In this, it most closely resembles that formal designs of "Avalon", whose manufactured blandness it sometimes echoes. For sure, it lacks the intensity and sense of turmoil of Ferry's last solo excursion, the critically and commercially neglected "The Bride Stripped Bare". Nothing here, for instance, even begins to match the emotional punch of "Sign of the Times" or the lavishly poignant "When She Walks in the Room".
Over the nine songs here, Ferry presents himself in his familiar role of a soul in torment, buffered by the fates, confused by love and its demands, at the mercy of his own heightened sensations. Unfortunately, very little of any of this sounds very convincing. Brushed and scrubbed to within an inch of their lives, these performances actually have very little to say. For all their exquisite musical tailoring, the significance of songs like "Don't Stop the Dance" and "Windswept" remains vaguely defined. The ostensible concern and heartache of, say, "Valentine" is too refined, too neatly contrived to really move the listener. Ferry simply retains too much of a stiff upper-lip in the face of disaster.
Mostly, Ferry chooses to play our (sic) his vignettes against a rather predictable backdrop of high-tech funk and despite a cast list of 30-odd musicians, "Boys and Girls" remains oddly anonymous, with only the author's characteristic croon standing out from the cultured, but curiously unrewarding arrangements. It's almost as if Ferry, in pursuit of the most streamlined sound available to him, has drained the energy and intent from the music. Even the title track, whose sombre romanticism would have seemed a perfect vehicle for his astute sense of theatrical gesture, is strangely muted, its impact evaporating prematurely.
"Slave to Love" is probably the liveliest performance and certainly boasts the LP's most impeccable melody. It's an excellent piece of contemporary pop, in fact, superficially causal, but actually manufactured with mercenary precision. Like "More Than This" on "Avalon" it's cunning, insidious and really quite memorable, where most of "Boys and Girls" is merely suave. Whatever: Ferry surely knows his market and no doubt "Boys and Girls" is perfectly pitched to its demands. Roxy Music's original audience may no longer be quite so young, but is very probably still upwardly mobile. This LP, then, will very likely tug at more than a few nostalgic heartstrings, recall more reckless days, and finally fit quite snugly into their dream homes and heartaches.
| Last Updated: 16 August 2008 |
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