Bryan Ferry announces Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023. The 81-track collection is the first-ever career-spanning release to fully explore and celebrate the depth of Bryan Ferry’s work as a solo artist, spanning a period of over 50 years of music and 16 solo albums. The collection is due for release on 25th October 2024 via BMG.
The 81 tracks that make up Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 illustrate an adventure in music like no other. A peerless story in songwriting that has been unfolding for more than 50 years will now be celebrated in this kaleidoscopic compendium of Bryan Ferry’s music. The release is a celebration of the performer who has carved out a place as a master modern interpreter of song via a dizzyingly inventive series of cover versions that range from Bob Dylan to Amy Winehouse, Rodgers and Hart to the Velvet Underground via Tim Buckley, Shakespeare, sea shanties and Sam and Dave. Then there’s the songwriter who, in singles like 1985’s ‘Slave To Love,’ has crafted music that stands amongst the defining recordings of their era, yet sound unique and timeless to this day. There’s the futurist conjuring vortices of electronica; or the passionate revivalist, presenting songs and styles from the 1920s and 1930s as if they were the hot sound of tomorrow calling. There’s the figure out on the pulsing nightclub dancefloor, tripping the light fantastic; and the guy who wants only to be alone, slipping away into brooding, bittersweet backstreets where everything turns neon and noir.
Marking the start of this career-spanning celebration, Bryan Ferry has released ‘She Belongs To Me’. A powerful re-imagining of the 1965 Bob Dylan classic that brings the story full circle.
Five decades ago, the Roxy Music phenomenon exploded in a technicolour flash of pop, high art, outré fashion and glamour, asserting band leader Bryan Ferry as one of the most vital and exciting songwriters British music has ever seen. During this ultra-prolific period, in 1973, Ferry launched his solo career in parallel to Roxy Music. His first release, an audacious remodelling of Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic 1962 anthem ‘A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,’ signalled the dawn of Ferry’s status as one of the great modern interpreters of song, in tandem with his own peerless songwriting and composition. Fast forward to 2024 and Bryan Ferry returns to the Dylan songbook anew. ‘She Belongs To Me’ is rendered in a beautifully rough-edged style balancing shades of the Velvet Underground against the most prominent Ferry whistling solo since Roxy Music’s 1981 rendition of John Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy.’
‘She Belongs To Me’ is part of a new five-track EP titled Retrospective: She Belongs To Me – the first of three digital EP releases that will accompany Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 over the coming months. Listen to the EP
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 brings together, for the first time, Bryan Ferry’s classic recorded output with Island Records, Polydor, Virgin, E.G. Records and BMG, and features two brand new recordings. The album will be released in multiple formats including a 5CD deluxe box set featuring 81 songs, accompanied by a 100-page hardback book containing extensive new liner notes, rare and unseen photographs and imagery. A 2LP gatefold edition presents The Best Of Bryan Ferry, containing 20 songs pressed to black vinyl with variants including a green/blue vinyl pressing and a clear vinyl pressing. A 1CD version will also feature the same 20 songs and a booklet containing liner notes and photographs. An 81-track edition of the album will be released digitally, including a brand-new song titled ‘Star.’ Bryan Ferry’s first new music release in over a decade.
The 5CD deluxe box set is curated across five stages, with each disc devoted to a different aspect of Bryan Ferry’s career. ‘Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry’ presents 20 essential tracks. World-devouring singles like ‘Slave To Love’, ‘The ‘In’ Crowd’ and ‘Let’s Stick Together’ – songs that are woven into the fabric of British music and remain abidingly popular.
‘Disc Two: Compositions’ examines the 1977-2014 period, and how Ferry’s craft has evolved. The unfolding narrative of ‘Can’t Let Go’ and the deep mood of ‘The Only Face’, like many of Ferry’s songs, both share a sense of being out in the world, endlessly roaming main drags and backstreets. Elsewhere the sashay of ‘Limbo’ and ‘Loop De Li’ spotlight elements of Ferry’s work that remain unchanged – always keeping one eye on the dancefloor. His great constant theme, however, is love and its costs, viewed from different angles. Three of his finest recordings on the subject feature here in ‘When She Walks In The Room’, ‘I Thought’ and ‘Reason Or Rhyme’, each equally beguiling and deeply resonant.
‘Disc Three: Interpretations’ celebrates the remodelling side to Ferry’s artistry. His remakes of the Velvet Underground’s ‘What Goes On,’ Sam and Dave’s ‘Hold On, I’m Coming’ and Otis Redding’s ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’ see Ferry exploring the past as if it were now, roaming genres and presciently sending up a signal for the post-punk generation to receive years later – that the music remains all up for grabs.
‘Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra’ explores the conceptual project that Ferry began with 2012’s The Jazz Age album, reimagining music from across his own repertoire as if it had been recorded nine decades earlier by one of the great early jazz combos. Ferry doesn’t sing on The Jazz Age, but reappears in a new light. With his voice and lyrics removed the listener’s attention is focussed onto his gift as a composer. Ferry refined this concept across two further collections, 2018’s Bitter-Sweet and 2013’s The Great Gatsby: The Jazz Recordings – featuring reworkings of Roxy Music’s ‘Love Is The Drug’ and Amy Winehouse’s modern classic ‘Back To Black’ for the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 cinematic release, The Great Gatsby.
‘Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased’ gathers B-sides, extras, curiosities and outtakes. A shimmering remake of Roxy Music’s ‘Mother Of Pearl’ recorded in the early-1990s during the Horoscope / Mamouna sessions features backing vocals from the great Ronnie Spector. ‘Don’t Be Cruel’ is bolstered by Elvis’s original rockabilly bandmates Scotty Moore and DJ Fontana, recorded for 2001’s Sun Records tribute album, Good Rockin’ Tonight. Elsewhere Ferry’s celebratory take on ‘Whatever Gets You Thru The Night,’ John Lennon’s ramshackle secular hymn of 1974, was begun in 1995 for a Lennon tribute planned by Yoko Ono that was never released. Ferry re-worked the track in 2010 as a bonus addition for the Olympia album.
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 celebrates Bryan Ferry’s revered songwriting talent. The tracklisting explores the sonic versatility and genre fluidity of his solo career – from rock ‘n’ roll to R&B dance-based grooves, piano ballads, electronica, ambient music, jazz, country, folk, blues, avant-garde and new wave. At the centre of it all is the unmistakable musicality and style of Bryan Ferry.
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 is available to pre-order here.
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 5 CD Track Listing:
Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry
1. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The ‘In’ Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let’s Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don’t Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary
Disc Two: Compositions
1. Can’t Let Go
2. Tokyo Joe
3. This Island Earth
4. Love Me Madly Again
5. Limbo
6. When She Walks In The Room
7. Boys and Girls
8. Zamba
9. Chain Reaction
10. Bête Noire
11. I Thought
12. The Only Face
13. Valentine
14. Loop De Li
15. Reason or Rhyme
Disc Three: Interpretations
1. The Price of Love
2. Shame Shame Shame
3. Hold On (I’m Coming)
4. Just One Look
5. Girl of My Best Friend
6. What Goes On
7. That’s How Strong My Love Is
8. You Go To My Head
9. Where or When
10. The Way You Look Tonight
11. One Night
12. Simple Twist of Fate
13. Positively 4th Street
14. Song to the Siren
15. Fooled Around and Fell In Love
Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra
1. Virginia Plain
2. Do The Strand
3. While My Heart Is Still Beating
4. This Island Earth
5. Bitter-Sweet
6. Dance Away
7. Zamba
8. Reason or Rhyme
9. Avalon
10. Back To Black
11. Limbo
12. Young and Beautiful
13. Love Is The Drug
14. Sign of the Times
15. Chance Meeting
Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased
1. Feel The Need
2. Mother of Pearl (Horoscope Version)
3. Don’t Be Cruel
4. I Don’t Want To Go On Without You
5. I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know
6. Crazy Love
7. Whatever Gets You Through The Night
8. Bob Dylan’s Dream
9. He’ll Have To Go
10. A Fool For Love
11. Lowlands Low
12. Is Your Love Strong Enough
13. Sonnet 18
14. She Belongs To Me
15. Oh Lonesome Me
16. Star (with Amelia Barratt)
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 Digital Track Listing:
1. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The ‘In’ Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let’s Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don’t Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary
21. Can’t Let Go
22. Tokyo Joe
23. This Island Earth
24. Love Me Madly Again
25. Limbo
26. When She Walks In The Room
27. Boys and Girls
28. Zamba
29. Chain Reaction
30. Bête Noire
31. I Thought
32. The Only Face
33. Valentine
34. Loop De Li
35. Reason or Rhyme
36. The Price of Love
37. Shame Shame Shame
38. Hold On (I’m Coming)
39. Just One Look
40. Girl of My Best Friend
41. What Goes On
42. That’s How Strong My Love Is
43. You Go To My Head
44. Where or When
45. The Way You Look Tonight
46. One Night
47. Simple Twist of Fate
48. Positively 4th Street
49. Song to the Siren
50. Fooled Around and Fell In Love
51. Virginia Plain
52. Do The Strand
53. While My Heart Is Still Beating
54. This Island Earth
55. Bitter-Sweet
56. Dance Away
57. Zamba
58. Reason or Rhyme
59. Avalon
60. Back To Black
61. Limbo
62. Young and Beautiful
63. Love Is The Drug
64. Sign of the Times
65. Chance Meeting
66. Feel The Need
67. Mother of Pearl (Horoscope Version)
68. Don’t Be Cruel
69. I Don’t Want To Go On Without You
70. I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know
71. Crazy Love
72. Whatever Gets You Through The Night
73. Bob Dylan’s Dream
74. He’ll Have To Go
75. A Fool For Love
76. Lowlands Low
77. Is Your Love Strong Enough
78. Sonnet 18
79. She Belongs To Me
80. Oh Lonesome Me
81. Star (with Amelia Barratt)
Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 2LP / 1CD Tracklist:
1. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The ‘In’ Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let’s Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don’t Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary
Retrospective: She Belongs To Me EP Track Listing
1. She Belongs To Me
2. Let’s Stick Together
3. Slave to Love
4. I Put A Spell On You
5. Make You Feel My Love
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