What is it that allows me to like Bryan Ferry‘s unleashed solo side almost as much as I do Roxy Music? And that would be a lot. Compared with my general anti-camp stance on rock, my longtime enjoyment of Roxy Music and solo Bryan Ferry (up to a point – his solo albums past the band’s breakup circa 1982 are of no interest to me – and maybe this is significant) surprises me and makes me question myself.
Here’s a song and performance that encapsulates much of what I love about Roxy Music: The Power and Glory of Rock, the introspection, the self-effacing humor, the strong rhythm section…
The clip also features Ferry wearing clothes and a mustache that I have found off putting on artists like Bowie and that Sparks guy. Why don’t I simply want to give this guy a wedgie and possibly turn my ears off to his supposedly great music, as I’ve done with some of his contemporaries?
- Did the work of early Roxy Music buy him (and what the band would become) a free pass?
- Is it the fact that he seems to have a sense of humor about his persona?
- Is it the fact that the rhythm section is both tough and fluid?
In short, why do I dig Ferry but recoil at similar impulses in the music and performance of David Bowie and other ’70s camp-rockers?
whatever the reason is that you like him, i don’t think it’s because early Roxy gets any “gay points” taken off one’s resume.
i think Avalon is their best album, and that’s barely Roxy right? Isn’t it more like a Ferry solo album?
Don’t Stop the Dance is my favorite thing he’s ever done, and that’s well into his solo career no?
Nothing wrong with liking a fop.
As long as we’re being frank…
I’ve had many of the same conflicted emotions regarding specifically Ferry vs. Bowie. (I consider Freddie Mercury in a category of his own and think he’s great.)
I have always regarded Bowie as a second-rate Bryan Ferry wannabe. That’s not to say that I don’t like a lot of Bowie. I do. I dig most of the Ronson era stuff and really dig The Man Who Sold the World album, irregardless of how ridiculous he looks in that dress on the cover.
This is what I’ve come down to. My impression is that Ferry built his personae around the music and that Bowie built the music around the personae.
If Bowie had gone to my highschool (think a cross betwen Ridgemont High and Dazed and Confused) he would have been relentlessly called a “Theater Fag.”
Bowie held the theater above the music or, at best, on the same level.
That’s one.
Two, Ferry’s personae is rooted in a manly history. Bowie’s personae is rooted in the “fantastic.”
Ferry’s image is, by and large, rooted in the vintage lounge singer. Even his boy scout thing, which is pushing it, has a sort of 40s Andrew Sisters thing going on.
So Ferry has solid ground under him where Bowie is miles above the earth.
As far as sexuality is concerned, I a always imagined Bowie’s genitalia having the same plastic smooth mound as a Barbie™ doll.
It is Bowie’s ambiguity that gives me more pause than if he was full-on out of the closet.
Further enhanced by the constant character/costume changes. Its like if he doesn’t know who he is then how should I.
I understand that likely this is also his appeal but I prefer a band/performer with a POV.
I will bring Freddie Mercury in here as it was pretty evident, even to my 8th grade mind, that Freddie was gay and I had no problem with that because Queen rocked. Everything was understood with Queen.
Ferry can get away with his flair due to being grounded in a manly era of yester-year. That and the hot chicks on the album covers leaves no questions as to what Bryan Ferry likes to do offstage.
My issue with the “Bowie is an AC-tor!” meme is that it’s more of a talking point (granted, propagated originally by Bowie himself) than an accurate description of the actual lyrical perspectives contained in his music. It then got turned into a pejorative by the likes of Lester Bangs, and that ruled the standard critical line on Bowie for quite some time.
I appreciate the honesty of this post, though I’m not sure how to tell you why you like what you like. I like Roxy and Bowie both. I got into Roxy first, but like Bowie more now, because he wrote more Great Songs. I also would like to amplify killroy’s pro-fop worldview. I even have a “Fops and Dandies” playlist on my iTunes.
I appreciate your facing these thoughts of mine head on and am not surprised that there may not be a clear answer to my dilemma. I hope that continuing to work through it will help me, among other things, like the other half of the songs on the very interesting and occasionally excellent Station to Station album, which I pulled out and have been spinning over the last week.
Yes. There you go. I’m glad you had this breakthrough on your own, as we would have all been hesitant to bring it up. I applaud your willingness to work through these issues.
Regarding Bowie the actor/performer, I meant to bring this up in that earlier Bowie discussion, but I think one of the best things people should take away from Bowie’s overall career as a performer is a sort of modular rock fandom. I think that constantly coming up with new personae and changing styles – truly embracing the notion of Look in rock – was at least somewhat intentionally a way to say that you can and should take what you want from an artist’s work and leave the parts you don’t. I like Berlin Bowie, but I like the 1970-1974 stuff more, and with a handful of exceptions, don’t like much at all of what he put out from China Girl on. Same with Roxy Music, I much prefer the music on the earlier albums. Having people occasionally delineate their “eras” so blatantly is a nice reminder that you can be free to embrace the material you works for you.
OK, this topic has not generated much discussion. That’s fine. Perhaps the whole set of questions was poorly stated. Perhaps few of us struggle with trying to figure out why we’re so more readily accepting of the foppish side of Ferry than we are the dandyish side of Bowie. No problem. Here’s another way we might look at my questions: Are Bryan Ferry’s covers albums from the ’70s good? What does he bring to covers of songs like “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, “It’s My Party”, “These Foolish Things”, and even “A Hard Rain’s-a-Gonna Fall” (or whatever the exact title of that song is)? I like these covers, by the way, but sometimes I’m not sure why. If you like them, can you explain why?
Never heard any of his solo records, Mr. Mod–when we joked years ago about the title “These Foolish Things,” I was dissuaded from exploring further. Could it be that Ferry’s solo work is not widely known?
I’ve been watching from a distance, but I’m not sure I can be much help. I’m afraid Ferry’s appeal is somewhat inexplicable.
I’m gay now, but when I discovered Roxy Music I was still in the dark. I would have been mortified by the idea that liking Ferry was revealing something. I admit that similar feelings delayed my appreciation of Bowie.
I’m still allergic to camp, but I think Ferry doesn’t usually fit into that category. He over-emotes, but somehow he comes out (sorry) on the other side and manages to express real emotion.
The early solo albums with the corny covers are not that successful, because they don’t ever get past being campy. He’s much better in Roxy Mark I, where he’s walking the line. Is it camp emotion or is it real?
Once he gets past Avalon he’s not walking the line anymore. He’s crossed back over into straight (sorry) emotion. It’s not bad, but it doesn’t hold the same fascination.
I’m a fan of Bowie and of Ferry. I think it’s largely irrelevant to their broadcast sexualities. The
fact that the women on Roxy covers are as often as not mannequins, transsexuals, or men in drag (Manifesto, For Your Pleasure, and the first album) only clouds that issue. I don’t know what the hell Ferry is that way, and I don’t need to know. I think what Steve said is true: he goes beyond his semaphore histrionics to actually express something. Bowie, too. Ferry’s covers of Let’s Stick Together, You Go to My Head, Carrickfergus, Jealous Guy – all work for me. And When She Walks In the Room is a beautiful recording.
Bowie, I think was so much more innovative, especially from Young Americans through Low. His camp doesn’t get in the way, in that period, of my hearing the music.
I guess one reason I didn’t respond to your post is that I agree with just enough of it, to a moderate degree, and don’t get some of it, but not enough to bug me. Ferry is a little bit of a guilty pleasure, so that when I hear some of it, a small portion of me cringes at his lapses in taste or restraint, and the rest of me pushes Play again. Those broad teeth, as it turns out, *can* take so much kicking. Oh, naughty sneaky.
I was thinking a little more about this thread last night. I will say this about Ferry: His approach to love songs — meaning it but not meaning it, cataloging the ways a complete cad can get his heart broken — is much more conceptually strong than any of Bowie’s conceits, which were almost intentionally threadbare. I’d also say Roxy were more successful at taking the sound of the Velvet Underground to the next level. Bowie was obviously a Velvets fan, but you get the feeling that no one in his backing bands (until he hooked up with Eno) ever heard of the group. Bowie however does have more sonically innovative albums to his credit.