Bryan Ferry will release a career spanning retrospective of his solo work on 25th October 2024

The 5 CD Box Set will also feature a disc of Rare and Unreleased material.
Two tracks from the Love Letters EP will also be included and released on a physical format for the first time.

There will also be a 1x CD version and a 2x 12" vinyl version.

More details and track by track annotations can be found here;
http://vivaroxymusic.com/albums_131.php

The press release can be found here including the track list for the 1 CD version and double vinyl version.
http://www.vivaroxymusic.com/articles_539.php

J.O'B.

Five discs of BF solo and no top ten single This Is Tomorrow?

Eccentric!

Thanks for the info John - looking forward to the release.

I notice on another music site I follow that they have been told the box set is ‘extremely limited.’ Do you know just how limited the box set is? Is it limited enough to make a pre purchase just now rather than holding off until nearer the time?

I am not sure how limited it is I will try and find out.

J.O'B

Well, it's an interesting compilation, not unlike 'The Thrill Of It All'. The track selections will never please everyone but, the 'theming' of discs aside, I do wonder why rarities couldn't have been covered more comprehensively (à la TTOIA). Additionally there's only one thing you can say about volume of BFO content, and that is it's truly inordinate when set against the wider BF catalogue and the length of his career. Further, how these tracks contribute to the claim the boxset provides "the deepest dive into Bryan’s career ever", when for many of them he's not even present, is baffling to say the least.

I'm sure the presentation will be thoroughly delightful, but I do also wonder about the choice of cover photo. It is indeed a great archive pic of BF, but the days when it was 'cool' to be photographed with a cigarette are long gone. Attitudes to smoking are very different today to when that photo was taken and I can't help thinking - with the wealth of terrific photos at their disposal - why they had to choose this one. Seems like a gaff to me.

Niggles aside, it'll be a nice addition to the collection and offer some Ferry sustenance through the autumn/winter gloom. The fruits of the latest and much-vaunted Studio One recordings would have been far more welcome, but if they're to surface at all, it looks like the wait will go on a little longer.

I have to say I love the album cover and actually glad they chose this and also didn’t airbrush it or anything. In the past they’ve airbrushed the Beatles, John Lennon, Simon and Garfunkel photos/album covers, amongst others, just to appease a certain section of the public.
In fact I remember one time ordering a framed print of the Beatles Abbey Road and when it came noticed that they had airbrushed the cigarette out of Paul’s hand - that went straight back to the supplier and I had to source another original one!
This world is bad enough with the amount of cancelling or brushing out things that happened in the past - there’s a certain element of snowflakes out there and it’s getting ridiculous the things that they can cry about and people just bow down to them!

Anyway rant over - can’t wait for the new set!

Ferry’s album covers where he is holding a cigarette

Another Time, Another Place
Boys and Girls
Bete Noire
Frantic ( old picture)

I think he had given them up by the time Bete Noire was released .

I recall a picture of Bryan from the ATGB era when he had his shorter hair with a cigarette. Not sure if it was actually lit or just used for artistic prop but I remember thinking it strange as he had well given up by then.

I would have included 'She's Leaving Home', but still it's nice to see a few previously unreleased tracks.

At no point did I suggest air-brushing out anything, merely that there are more great photos of BF without cigarettes than there are with. Pictures like ATAP are of their time and that's fine, but this is 2024 when the hazards of smoking are far better understood than they were in, say, 1974.

By all means turn a blind eye to it or what you think is some kind of historic righteousness, but it's tasteless. And that doesn't make me - or anyone else who dislikes smoking, a snowflake.