https://thebaffler.com/latest/editions-of-you-nesbitt

Worth a read, whether one agrees or not.

What a rambling convoluted article - exhausted after reading it
He seems desperate to become the next Michael Bracewell ....

Mes Amis,
‘The Baffler’ is indeed baffling.
Quelle masturbation intellectuelle !
What a risible empty assessment of one of the finest lyricists of the last century. Quel Bordel.
Salutations a tous,
Windswept

I got through most of the Baffler's pontificating, but only because I thought maybe something new and interesting might arise. Sadly, not so much...

I've been listening to Country Life a fair amount lately (during some long drives) and, among other things, I've been impressed with the lyrical thoughtfulness of A Really Good Time. And the line from ARGT that is specifically brought to mind by the Baffler's blandishments is "they don't tell you anything new."

I thought it was ok.

Rambling in parts, but hey, we could say that about Puxley's superb notes on the first album.

Towards the end, the author's esoteric lathering of cleverness about
Bryan's "demise" into cover songs, reminded me of an interview with Orson Welles, where the interviewer went on about a very lengthy quote Welles had made about the Catholic imagery and symbolism in his later films.

Welled said "I never said that, it sounds like I just listened to a very long synopsis by a studious earnest young interviewer and said "Yes!."

I rather enjoyed it, actually. As an architect, I am perpetually tantalized by the line between tradition and Modernity. I thought that the comment in the review,

" Ferry recreates his personal canon, a selected history of twentieth-century music, and by listening to it we eventually come to understand him as a collage rockstar whose early glosses on modern art, Hollywood cinema, or love-as-mediated-by-the-love-song were always destined to find their continuation as icy, oddly timeless restylings of the once-new sounds of modernity."

was a really clear recognition that Modernism is itself now a well worn and familiar approach to making art. The act of Collage, taught by Hamilton to Ferry has become the the most prevalent art form today. Tik Tok Instagram, et al , as much as they realize Warhol's idea that everyone will in the future be famous for 15 minutes, are in their methodologies, forms of collage. In recycling his own work, Ferry is becoming part of the zeitgeist he helped create.

I also thought that the summary:

"[O]ne of the clearer narratives of Ferry’s career, the interplay between finding exquisite pleasure in not getting what you want, to getting exactly what you think you want and finding yourself left cold by the result."

encapsulated my reading of Ferry's work in a much more articulate manner than I ever could have been able.