Street Life: 20 Great Hits

STREET LIFE is a collection that, with barely a misstep, arranges the career of Bryan Ferry into a brilliant, nearly chronological 20-track retrospective, with material from both Roxy Music and his concurrent solo career. The first ten tracks, from pre-1979, show Ferry and the band in their loose, glam rock mode, freely toying with other musical styles as the mood takes them. It includes classics like "Virginia Plain", "Pyjamarama", and "Do the Strand", along with a funny, and slightly surreal, take on Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" and Ferry's smooth interpretation of "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" (from his ANOTHER TIME, ANOTHER PLACE solo album).
The second ten tracks feature the band's later period (1979 and onwards), where they explored the limits of sophistication. Every song presents a carefully polished mood, the kind of songs designed for listening to with the lights low and a glass of wine in one hand. This group includes the heartbreak of "Dance Away" and perhaps Ferry's suavest moment, "Slave to Love". The band's masterpiece, AVALON, is represented by that album's title track and "More Than This". This set is the place to start collecting the many fine efforts of Roxy Music.|