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BRYAN FERRY: The Pariah Speaks

For someone who once seemed to dominate the rock scene—both musically and visually—so totally, Bryan Ferry seems strangely alienated from what’s going on in 1987. Almost like an outsider merely looking on in mild curiosity, he occasionally breaks the silence with a new album hinting at past glories, teasing at what could still be and then disappearing like a snowflake.

April 1, 1988
Gill Smith

BRYAN FERRY: The Pariah Speaks

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by Gill Smith

For someone who once seemed to dominate the rock scene—both musically and visually—so totally, Bryan Ferry seems strangely alienated from what’s going on in 1987. Almost like an outsider merely looking on in mild curiosity, he occasionally breaks the silence with a new album hinting at past glories, teasing at what could still be and then disappearing like a snowflake.

His latest work, Bete Noire, has already been announced by the presence of a hit single, “The Right Stuff,” a swirling, emotional song that features the work of exSmiths guitarist Johnny Marr. Amazingly, before deciding to work with Marr, Ferry hadn’t really heard much of the Smiths—“just bits on the radio...it seemed interesting enough, but I hadn’t really followed it as such, because I don’t really do that. So I wasn’t listening closely.”

The link with Marr came through Warner Bros., which has both Ferry and the Smiths in America. “They were aware that I was open to working with different people and so someone sent me a cassette of some things and I met Johnny and we got on very well. It was as simple as that, really.”

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