Life Of Bryan

by Nick Kent

Melody Maker, 19th April 1986

Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music - Street Life - 20 Greatest Hits - Polydor

THIS compilation album, more than anything else, is Bryan Ferry's attempt to legitimise the contention that he WAS Roxy Music and that his solo work and his creations under the Roxy soubriquet are ultimately one and the same.

This boast, which I'm not about to argue with, forms this double album's sole reason for existing, but the dominant characteristic inherent in the package is the unassuagable fact that Ferry's form has suffered an inextricable breakdown between the dual concerns of style and content over the years, with the former ultimately winning hands down.

The first record here once again shows just why Ferry was such a force to be reckoned with throughout the Seventies. The first bars of "Virginia Plain", "Do the Strand", even a comparative throwaway like "Pyjamarama", all still ring true with the cardinal aesthetic virtues of great pop music ingeniously created and arranged for a brand-new market.

The twin concerns of style and content are perfectly balanced here with a wit, panache and a certain calculated audacity to it all. Similarly, Ferry's early cover versions, especially his wicked re-arrangement of Dylan's "A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall" still sound fresh, buoyant, alive.

It's when you get to the Roxy Mk II creations, however, that the rot really sets in. The two "Manifesto" cuts, "Dance Away" and "Angel Eyes" remain durable enough, but from "Flesh And Blood" onwards, Ferry seems to have used up or simply lost the sharpness of his early vision, allowing his "romantic" persona to wallow in arch washes of sound, the aural equivalent of some turgid midway land where the whole endeavour of looking for love in a looking glass world becomes just simple, tedious self-absorption, bereft of even the remotest hint of catharsis.

Bryan Ferry is still there in that lonely nightclub where everyone looks at each other just to see what they're wearing, where people talk but say nothing. He still suffers more elegantly than the others perhaps, but the pose is now old and Ferry hasn't afforded himself the grace to grow from young romantic to old roue.

Except as a documentary on the blunting of Bryan, "Streetlife", with its ridiculous title for a Ferry retrospective, is ultimately a redundant purchase.

Text copyright 1986 Melody Maker, used without permission.
With thanks to Grant Goggans.

Last Updated: 9 April 2008