The Bride Stripped Bare (album)
| The Bride Stripped Bare | ||||
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| Studio album by Bryan Ferry | ||||
| Released | 1 September 1978 | |||
| Recorded | 1977 | |||
| Studio | Mountain Studios, Montreux, Switzerland | |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:42 | |||
| Label | EG Records | |||
| Producer | Waddy Watchel, Rick Marotta, Simon Puxley, Steve Nye and Bryan Ferry | |||
| Bryan Ferry chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |
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| Robert Christgau | (B+) link |
The Bride Stripped Bare is a 1978 solo album by Bryan Ferry and is his fifth album released independent of Roxy Music. It was recorded after his girlfriend Jerry Hall left him for Mick Jagger in 1977, and appears to contain references to their break-up. The album peaked at number 13 on the albums chart in the United Kingdom. Although critically acclaimed, the album didn't achieve the success it was expected as it was released in the peak of punk rock.
The album's title is taken from the Marcel Duchamp artwork The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even. Ferry had been introduced to the work as an art school student by Richard Hamilton. A subtext of Duchamp's piece is masculine and feminine relationships.
Reviewing for AllMusic critic, Ned Raggett wrote of the album "When Jerry Hall, front-cover model on Roxy's Siren, left Ferry for Mick Jagger, his response was this interesting album, not a full success but by no means a washout." And the critic, Robert Christgau wrote of the album "Maybe the smoke in Bryan's eyes has finally reached his heart; the apparent sincerity of some of the singing here makes those five-minute moments when he lingers ponderously over a key lyric easier to take." and he added that "The Los Angeles musicians don't hurt either--the conjunction of his style of stylization (feigned detachment) makes for interesting expressive tension."
Greil Marcus listed it as his number one record in The Pazz and Jop Critics Poll of 1978. Marcus commented about the album, and is quoted saying, "Already a certified commercial stiff after only a couple of months in the racks, this stunningly personal album—comparable in its way to Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, Jesse Winchester, John Cale’s Vintage Violence or Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks—continues to deepen the Don-Juan-in-Hell persona this English eccentric has explored throughout the decade. Backed by American session men (notably guitarist Waddy Wachtel), Ferry acts out The Revenge of Lust, a tale that leaves all parties free to indulge their cruelest, most self-pitying instincts, and then pay for them. From “Can’t Let Go,” an extraordinarily dramatic account of a lover in exile, to “Hold On I’m Coming,” the latest in Ferry’s string of unlikely and successful covers, the record is glamorous, bitter, effete and passionate. As always, Ferry sings in the voice of Dracula risen from the grave—risen to tell us how much he cares.
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Wikipedia