Bryan Ferry announces Retrospective collection

Bryan Ferry has announced details of Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023. The 81-track collection is the first ever career-spanning release to fully explore and celebrate the depth of Bryan Ferry’s work as a solo artist, spanning a period of over 50 years of music and 16 solo albums.

The collection is due for release on 25 October 2024 via BMG and the 81 tracks illustrate an adventure in music like no other. A peerless story in songwriting that has been unfolding for more than 50 years will now be celebrated in this kaleidoscopic compendium of Bryan Ferry’s music.

The release is a celebration of the performer who has carved out a place as a master modern interpreter of song via a dizzyingly inventive series of cover versions that range from Bob Dylan to Amy Winehouse, Rodgers and Hart to the Velvet Underground via Tim Buckley, Shakespeare, sea shanties and Sam and Dave.

Then there’s the songwriter who, in singles like 1985’s  Slave To Love, has crafted music that stands amongst the defining recordings of their era, yet sound unique and timeless to this day. Marking the start of this career-spanning celebration, Bryan Ferry has released She Belongs To Me, a powerful re-imagining of the 1965 Bob Dylan classic that brings the story full circle. Listen below:

Going Solo

Five decades ago, the Roxy Music phenomenon exploded in a technicolour flash of pop, high art, outré fashion and glamour, asserting band leader Bryan Ferry as one of the most vital and exciting songwriters British music has ever seen. During this ultra-prolific period, in 1973, Ferry launched his solo career in parallel to Roxy Music.

His first release, an audacious remodelling of Bob Dylan’s apocalyptic 1962 anthem A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall, signalled the dawn of Ferry’s status as one of the great modern interpreters of song, in tandem with his own peerless songwriting and composition.

Fast forward to 2024 and Bryan Ferry returns to the Dylan songbook anew. She Belongs To Me is rendered in a beautifully rough-edged style balancing shades of the Velvet Underground against the most prominent Ferry whistling solo since Roxy Music’s 1981 rendition of John Lennon’s Jealous Guy.

She Belongs To Me is part of a new five track EP titled Retrospective: She Belongs To Me – the first of three digital EP releases that will accompany Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 over the coming months. Click here.

Complete Collection

Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 brings together, for the first time, Bryan Ferry’s classic recorded output with Island Records, Polydor, Virgin, E.G. Records and BMG, and features two brand new recordings. The album will be released in multiple formats including a 5CD deluxe boxset featuring 81 songs, accompanied by a 100-page hardback book containing extensive new liner notes, rare and unseen photographs and imagery.

A 2LP gatefold edition presents The Best Of Bryan Ferry, containing 20 songs pressed to black vinyl with variants including a green/blue vinyl pressing and a clear vinyl pressing. A 1CD version will also feature the same 20 songs and a booklet containing liner notes and photographs.

An 81-track edition of the album will be released digitally, including a brand new song titled Star. Bryan Ferry’s first new music release in over a decade.

Carefully Curated

The 5CD deluxe boxset is curated across five stages, with each disc devoted to a different aspect of Bryan Ferry’s career.

Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry presents 20 essential tracks. World-devouring singles like Slave To Love, The ‘In’ Crowd and Let’s Stick Together – songs that are woven into the fabric of British music and remain abidingly popular.

Disc Two: Compositions examines the 1977-2014 period, and how Ferry’s craft has evolved.

Disc Three: Interpretations celebrates the remodelling side to Ferry’s artistry. His remakes of the Velvet Underground’s What Goes On, Sam and Dave’s Hold On, I’m Coming and Otis Redding’s That’s How Strong My Love Is see Ferry exploring the past as if it were now.

Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra explores the conceptual project that Ferry began with 2012’s The Jazz Age album, reimagining music from across his own repertoire as if it had been recorded nine decades earlier by one of the great early jazz combos.

Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased gathers B-sides, extras, curiosities and outtakes.

Tracklisting
Disc One: The Best Of Bryan Ferry

1. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
2. These Foolish Things
3. The ‘In’ Crowd
4. Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
5. Casanova
6. Let’s Stick Together
7. Sign of the Times
8. Slave To Love
9. Don’t Stop The Dance
10. Windswept
11. Kiss and Tell
12. As Time Goes By
13. Your Painted Smile
14. I Put A Spell On You
15. Which Way To Turn
16. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
17. Make You Feel My Love
18. You Can Dance
19. Love Letters
20. Johnny and Mary

Disc Two: Compositions

1. Can’t Let Go
2. Tokyo Joe
3. This Island Earth
4. Love Me Madly Again
5. Limbo
6. When She Walks In The Room
7. Boys and Girls
8. Zamba
9. Chain Reaction
10. Bête Noire
11. I Thought
12. The Only Face
13. Valentine
14. Loop De Li
15. Reason or Rhyme

Disc Three: Interpretations

1. The Price of Love
2. Shame Shame Shame
3. Hold On (I’m Coming)
4. Just One Look
5. Girl of My Best Friend
6. What Goes On
7. That’s How Strong My Love Is
8. You Go To My Head
9. Where or When
10. The Way You Look Tonight
11. One Night
12. Simple Twist of Fate
13. Positively 4th Street
14. Song to the Siren
15. Fooled Around and Fell In Love

Disc Four: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra

1. Virginia Plain
2. Do The Strand
3. While My Heart Is Still Beating
4. This Island Earth
5. Bitter-Sweet
6. Dance Away
7. Zamba
8. Reason or Rhyme
9. Avalon
10. Back To Black
11. Limbo
12. Young and Beautiful
13. Love Is The Drug
14. Sign of the Times
15. Chance Meeting

Disc Five: Rare and Unreleased

1. Feel The Need
2. Mother of Pearl (Horoscope Version)
3. Don’t Be Cruel
4. I Don’t Want To Go On Without You
5. I Forgot More Than You’ll Ever Know
6. Crazy Love
7. Whatever Gets You Through The Night
8. Bob Dylan’s Dream
9. He’ll Have To Go
10. A Fool For Love
11. Lowlands Low
12. Is Your Love Strong Enough
13. Sonnet 18
14. She Belongs To Me
15. Oh Lonesome Me
16. Star (with Amelia Barratt)

Retrospective: She Belongs To Me EP Track Listing

1. She Belongs To Me
2. Let’s Stick Together
3. Slave to Love
4. I Put A Spell On You
5. Make You Feel My Love

Retrospective: Selected Recordings 1973-2023 is available to pre-order here.

Read More: The Best Of Roxy Music – track by track with Bryan Ferry