Lyrics & Music Bryan Ferry - The Bride Stripped Bare (1978) (0684814021)

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Bryan Ferry - The Bride Stripped Bare (1978)

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Ned Raggett, All Music Guide wrote:

When Jerry Hall, front-cover model on Roxy's Siren, left Ferry for Mick Jagger, his response was this interesting album, not a full success but by no means a washout. In part Ferry returned to the model of his solo work before In Your Mind, with half the tracks being covers of rock and soul classics. Thus, Sam and Dave's "Hold On (I'm Coming)," Al Green's "Take Me to the River" (which arguably sounds like a strong influence on Talking Heads' near contemporaneous version) and even the Velvet Underground's "What Goes On," among others, take a bow. Unfortunately Ferry's backing performers, mostly drawing on studio pros like Waddy Wachtel, don't seem to have the real affinity for the material like his earlier solo-effort cohorts did. If anything, though, there's also the sense of Ferry channeling his romantic gloom through a number of the songs, giving them a strong personal bite. The guitar and bass-only version of the traditional folk tune "Carrickfergus" works best of all, its lovelorn sentiments and slow pace connecting just left. As for Ferry's originals, his sentiments are all the more clear, left from the abbreviated charge of the opening "Sign of the Times," its fractured sentiments of disturbed, vicious romance matched by the clipped punch of the music and Ferry's own brisk delivery. The other originals don't cut quite so bloodily, but the sense of loss and confusion is all there, from the opening line "Well I rush out blazin'/My pulse is racin'" on "Can't Let Go" to the lonely sense of mystery on "This Island Earth," the album's conclusion.

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Amazon.com wrote:

This album has a reputation of being Bryan Ferry's darkest and least esoteric of all his work. This is partly true, but only partly. True that the cover design is thematically very dark and some of the lyrics are darker than usual for him especially on "Sign of the times" and "This Island Earth", but the album still has all of Ferry's trademarks: meticulous production, unique arrangements, excellent musicianship and a prevalent sense of romantic longing. What sets this album apart from all of his other work is how eclectic and more raw than usual it is. It starts with the dark rocker "Sign of the times", shifts to the epic and wonderfully arranged "Can't let go" to soul "Hold on I'm coming/That's how strong my love is" to blues "The same old blues" and the unique synth-driven atmospherics of the closing track "This Island Earth", to a few other genres in between including astounding funk "Take me to the river". By being a mix of six covers and four originals, it allows Ferry to produce a unique and highly intriguing album full of his unique production touches and ability to handle several styles vocally and musically, but it is not more or less esoteric (or as some call it more human) than any of his other works. What it is is Ferry's last album as a solo artist before entering his sonically fog-shrouded, experimental phase (which was equally intriguing and produced masterworks such as BOYS AND GIRLS and MAMOUNA) and an underrated, extremely enjoyable piece of eclectic music filtered through Ferry's unique style.

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Robert Duncan, Rolling Stone (from 1978) wrote:

Chic thinking, as he himself would have undoubtedly realized in his glory days, is poised to write Bryan Ferry off. In the face of this, it's high time to give credit where credit is due: Ferry, both in and out of Roxy Music, is one of the rank weirdos of rock & roll. In other words, a prize. And, though some choose not to notice, the man's accomplishments are enduring.

It's probable that, without Bryan Ferry, the high-tech wing of the New Wave would never have gotten off the ground. For starters, his aberrant singing style, based more on Edith Piaf than Muddy Waters, blazed a trail in rock & roll for the similar vocal aberrations of Tom Verlaine, Talking Heads' David Byrne, Devo's Mark, et al. Onstage, Ferry virtually invented the detached, awkward, goofy/cool performing posture that's become a standard among certain New Wavers.

But this artist may have exerted his most direct influence with his songwriting, which mated modern decadence to the artifice of technology and, through irony, fathered what might be called chromium romanticism (a feeling that Byrne, at his best, sometimes approaches).

When Ferry archly dropped French phrases into songs on Roxy Music's Country Life, it's likely that Byrne, who'd later pen "q'est-ce que c'est" in "Psycho Killer," was listening. Also, Devo was surely aware of and impressed by the pioneering paean to inflatable fuck-doll love, "In Every Dream Home a Heartache." With these numbers and others, such as "Ladytron," "Do the Strand" and "Remake/Remodel," Ferry practically defined the so-called devo society. (Further, it's no coincidence that Roxy cofounder Brian Eno produced the latest albums by both Talking Heads and Devo.)

Because of what he's done in the past and his continuing hold on some of the finest of today's rock & roll, Bryan Ferry deserves our attention. The Bride Stripped Bare, however, is not his strongest record. Though he's always posed as slick, Ferry's never been as moderate as this. Perhaps in deference to commercial success (which has thus far eluded him), he's reigned himself in here, grounding the kooky flights and twists of singing, composing and arranging that have characterized his work.

Able to lend new and strange meanings to the familiar, Ferry has frequently been an exciting interpreter of other people's tunes. But this time out, neither the choices nor the arrangements are surprising, and his latest cover versions lack the unique ironic edge of such earlier classics as "The In Crowd" or "Let's Work Together." In fact, in "That's How Strong My Love Is," Ferry comes as close as he ever has to being good in the conventional sense of the word–ultimately a mistake for him. Most of the covers are unnecessarily straight ("Hold On I'm Coming," Lou Reed's "What Goes On") or even laid-back (J.J. Cale's "Same Old Blues"). "Carrickfergus," a traditional ballad, adds some dimension because it suggests a possible connection between Bryan Ferry's vocal style and those of trembly British folk singers, but you can't dance to musicology. The best of the standards, Al Green's "Take Me to the River," is a great song, smoothly and adequately rendered by Ferry and crew, though Talking Heads' more bombastic version seems nearer the point.

As a songwriter, Ferry demonstrates in "Can't Let Go," the LP's knockout cut, that his knack for the pop hook is still alive and well. In the coda to "When She Walks in the Room," he displays a more distinctive gift for minor-key variations on the pop hook–something he showed off so well with Roxy Music, frequently in coda sections that would turn ordinary, even silly, tunes into things of grandeur ("If There Is Something" on the first Roxy album). "This Island Earth," with its intimations of a spurned lover as a creature literally adrift in space, certainly hints at Ferry's brilliance as a lyricist, but it lacks the musical urgency of his earlier, similar "Out of the Blue." Urgency, for that matter, is what's missing throughout the new record. Sometimes hinting just isn't enough.

But surely I carp. The Bride Stripped Bare is better than most, and so is Bryan Ferry. If, for now, he's trying to squeeze himself into a round commercial hole, his old fans can take solace in the fact that he'll always be a hopelessly square peg. Which is a rate thing in these days of business rock (to adapt Andy Warhol's phrase), and about as unsquare as you can get.

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