Bryan is still extremely photogenic even at his age, so why this 40 year old photo I don't know? Maybe something as simple as keeping production costs down?

That thought crossed my mind too Gary. Perhaps he owns the copyright so a saving on costs? Maybe that shot is a personal favourite of his and although it has been used to advertise ATAP in the press back in 74 it has not been used on an album cover. To his regret?, who knows. Perhaps there will be an answer in any press interviews to promote the album. I really hope that one of the more recent shots of him will be on the rear as I think he looks great in them.

Art is subjective and I imagine the cover will evoke different emotions and opinions in us all. I have tried to imagine the album on a rack in a record shop which is probably a rarity these days.

Just my feeble thoughts

From a marketing point of view I think it is important that the band/artist name is at the top.

Imagine trawling through CDs on shelves (something I would miss if I was a downloader) You only see the top part of a CD as you quickly flick through them.

If you were someone who had bought the odd Roxy/Ferry album in the past and not a huge fan that goes out of your way to know if he has a new album out or not. When you flicked through CDs you may not have known that Olympia for example was a Bryan Ferry album and continued browsing other CDS, whereas you would see BRYAN FERRY on the new album, pull it out of the rack and have a look and maybe buy it.

I think the problem for any artist in the 21st century is that the distance between the professionals who can produce an album cover and and the person at home with some basic image editing software is closer and closer all the time and therefore it makes it less the professional product less special.

A case in point is if you look at some of the early pressings of For Your Pleasure, this was a composite of the different images on the cover and if you got a poorly printed one where the background black was not so black it looks amateurish now but at the time (41 years ago) would have looked great.

I too would have liked a contemporary photo of BF. I am sure he has his reasons for using this one. I have always thought that Bryan was very photogenic. He has not so much looked young for his age at any time but he has a quality better than that, he has looked as good as any man his age can at any given time of his life.

J.O'B.

I would agree with that John, I was pleased to his name back on the front and at the top, where it should be. Of all the solo albums only Boys and Girls, Mamouna and Olympia didn't have his image on the front with B&G not having his name either.

Like you I don't download my music unless that is the only available option. I like to buy the physical CD, preferably in a shop but sometimes online. The new cover is growing on me and I think it will look pretty good in the flesh or on the rack.

I find it really, really strange. On so many recent fotos and videos he looks fantastic. I really like it that he doesn't do anything to cover up his age. No face-lift, no hair dye, no botox - none of these ridiculous procedures we're getting used to from so many other celebrities. He's a perfect example that even in this confused day and age it is still possible to age gracefully and beautifully. So why on earth is there no actual foto on the cover?

Exactly why BF decided to dig back 40 years into his photo file for an album cover is a mystery to me. But it should be recalled that the Kate Moss photo shoot for the Olympia cover was not an inexpensive affair and that expense - combined with the cost of his video for U Can Dance (with many high-end writhing models) - no doubt proved a huge drag on the album's bottom line.

It may be that Avonmore is being called upon to help pay off some of the lingering debt left by Olympia and this is a reason why no expensive photo shoot is involved with the new album... Avonmore may not make a lot of money for BF (albums rarely make much money for any artist in the post I-Tune Era), but he likely wants to make sure that he doesn't lose money this time around...

JO'B is dead-on in his observation that someone with a Mac and Photoshop can generate graphic designs that back in the 70s would have only been possible in a fancy graphic design studio. The Avonmore cover looks like something that could easily be cranked out in an hour (or less). That doesn't make it bad, it's simply a statement on the state of graphic design in the 21st century

As happy as I am to be awaiting Avonmore , it's announcement was a surprise as I'm not sure that we knew there was an "album" in the pipeline - he had been touring a lot of this and last year.

So it may not be a completely new product, but I take the view that the deliberate use of a 40 year old photograph on the cover is a clear statement that his career goes right back to the early 70's , and he is a bit of an , ahem, icon, with one foot in the present, one foot firmly in the past.
A whole generation has grown up either not knowing who he is (unlike, perhaps, Bowie) or associating him with fox-hunting and the like.
Avonmore, and let's wait to hear it, may be a reminder for many of who Bryan Ferry is.

And it is a stripped down visual , after the fuss of Olympia.

I think you have been reading my mind Avalon_eyes! I have more or less been thinking the same but avoided using the term "iconic" regarding that particular image for fear of that being frowned apon. It is not the typical cool, sartorial Ferry image but there is something special in that photo, especially around the eyes. ATAP was the first self penned track to appear on a solo album in 1974 and we still have him here in 2014, making music.

It has been mentioned by many elsewhere that not only did Bowie use and old image for The Next Day he used the exact same album cover only slightly adjusted.

DCJ's statement reminded me of my own efforts - only for private use - to get several rare tracks of Roxy Music or Bryan Ferry a self-penned cover. Here's an example I created on my Mac with PowerPoint for some rare Roxy tracks (BBC, Musikladen, The Dumbells etc.).

I really don't care about the cover or why B chose that pic. I just want to hear more music from the man that inspired me to make music, and Gloria of course.

Rock on ya'll - s'cuse my English.