Bryan Ferry -- Avonmore

"Loop De Li" is good, the title track is almost good, the covers are adequately sung but conceptually corny, the rest is weak to terrible.

"Johnny and Mary" is conceptually brilliant.

"Loop De Li" is a fun single too.

Agreed, tho the version on Horoscope ("Your Love Has Died") is superior, largely bc of the comparative power of his vocal (Mamouna probably features his best late-period vocals -- you can hear a little smoke sneak in on Frantic). There are even a few achy "More Than This"-y moments which were stricken from the record around 1997. It's also mixed more skeletally, as was his wont in the early-90s.

Not sure if Trower was involved by that point, but both the voice and mix are superior on the Horoscope "Midnight Train," too -- which still isn't one of his stronger compositions but suits Ferry's urban funk era much better a la "NYC" than the heavy beated return to it two decades later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9JW-NsXzPM

I have no idea what led Ferry to Trower or even about Trower's sideline as producer, but he was the best collaborator outside of Eno that Ferry could've asked for.

"Johnny and Mary" is conceptually brilliant.

I don't think it works as a dirge, all the pathos in Robert Palmer's version comes from the contrast of the downbeat words and the sprightly tempo.

I think it's ... fine as a dirge? But yeah -- I think the Ferry version is both more sophisticated but also less complex, if that makes sense.

I have no idea what led Ferry to Trower or even about Trower's sideline as producer, but he was the best collaborator outside of Eno that Ferry could've asked for.

Yeah, me neither. But Taxi was the first Ferry solo record I bought -- I picked it up when it came out. And even then, I was struck by how it was his simultaneously his Lothario Smoothie persona that shot him to superstardom as well as kind of weird, distant and not particularly commercial. It's still one of my favorites of his.

yall hear this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U32k9zabDjE