The Best Bryan Ferry albums

I count myself as a huge fan of Bryan Ferry and I'm delighted that he's around and entertaining audiences still. However, unlike Roxy who left behind them a body of work that to many set the gold standard for excellence, even I would have to admit that his solo career has seen some highs and (I guess inevitably) a few lows. So, with the man's 1973-85 catalogue now out on SACD, what do you think? Vote for your 5 favourite BF albums.

 

I voted for the first 5, those are the albums i know best and still have on vinyl and cds.

 

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My vote for no. 1 + 3, these are the only albums from BF I have, and I still love them.​

 

Boys and Girls is my favorite, then Bete Noire. Not really much of a fan of the cover tunes albums.

 

These Foolish Things
Another Time, Another Place
Let's Stick Together
The Bride Stripped Bare
Boys & Girls

All of which I've recently purchased on SACD and sound fantastic, BTW!

 

Here's a super live version on Jools Holland Show from his latest album Avonmore...



The band gets into a great groove on this one...

JG

 

You display such good taste on your avatar, I'm inclined to take your choice VERY seriously indeed!

It's good, isn't it. Better than the album version in fact. It's been discussed elsewhere on this forum, but I get the feeling that over the last few albums - Olympia particularly - he's overcooked things and let the song slip beneath the weight of the production. You Can Dance was a good example of this - it should have been a monster hit and if it'd been released the way it was played live, it probably would have been. See his appearance on Later with Jools Holland in 2010 to see what I mean.

 

Amost my choices exactly - I substituted Frantic for These Foolish Things, which I thought was inconsistent even though some songs were great (Hard Rain, These Foolish Things).

 

I went for the first three too, plus Boys and Girls and Olympia, which has some nice sounds.

 

Mamourna. Boys & Girls is close but its too much the son of avalon. He's very consistent.

 

You mean the beautiful, brilliant, gorgeous, genius offspring of Avalon? The similarity is a feature, not a bug!

 

Did Mamouna die?

 

My most listened to through the years:

1973 These Foolish Things
1974 Another Time, Another Place
1976 Let's Stick Together
1978 The Bride Stripped Bare

Bought each LP as soon as they came out. (Well, there was a bit of a lag getting The Bride Stripped Bare. I think that was because I didn't play In Your Mind much.)

My favorite is Let's Stick Together. I quite like the mix of covers and remakes of Roxy Music songs. I could imagine the remakes easily going wrong but that did not happen in the case of this album. A fine balance between recreating and making them Bryan Ferry solo songs was achieved , IMO. And sequenced for a nice flow with the excellent cover songs. This is also my favorite for sound quality (at least prior to the dance inspired albums).

My original US LP and CD sound great to me. The only recent Bryan Ferry Japanese mastering I bought was Let's Stick Together SHM-SACD. I've only listened to it once, and it sounded too bright. Mastering needed on this flat transfer?

 

Same here. The man is an enigma, some might say, but he makes excellent music. And yes, they sound great.

 

I am not a Brian Ferry fan but I love 'In Your Mind' from beginning to end.
It is a fantastic album and it is one of those I would take with me to a desert island any time.

 

Mocked by the silent "r"!

 

That's exactly how I felt about it as well. How often do you hear an artist perform a song live and then album version is anaemic in comparison.

JG

 

The Bride Stripped Bare
for me.
great rocking album that does away with all the slickness.
Bryan sounds energized on this one.

Next would have to be Taxi.

 

Picked four:
Let's Stick Together
The Bride Stripped Bare
Boys & Girls
Frantic

 

The first three

 

Boys and Girls

 

Couldn't agree more about In Your Mind. That guitar work from Chris Spedding is what pushes this one to the top for me.

 

These foolish things
Another time....
The bride stripped bare
Frantic
Dylanesque

The first three on my list are excellent albums and I (as a rabid fan) bought them all on release.

Frantic is a late return to peak form and Dylanesque is a brilliant sounding collection of songs that stands up alongside his best for me.

Some of his albums suffer from an ambient bland wash of subdued funk backing and echoey keyboards and they leave me utterly cold. He needs someone to edit his output and to tell him to give Phil Manzanera a call sometimes.

 

Agree that the original CD of Let's Stick Together sounds wonderful. I prefer it to the new remaster.

 

You people gotta gobble up a bit of In Your Mind (1977). Very listenable.

'This is Tomorrow', 'Tokyo Joe', 'All Night Operator', to name a few. not bad track, all gold. A bit like Manifesto. Yeah, where was the love for that?