These Foolish Things is the debut solo studio
album by
Bryan Ferry, who at the time was still
Roxy Music's lead vocalist. The album was released in October 1973 on
Island Records in the United Kingdom and
Atlantic Records in the United States. It is considered to be a departure from Roxy Music's sound, because it consists entirely of cover versions, mainly of standard songs. These Foolish Things was a commercial and critical success, peaking at number five on the
UK Albums Chart. It received a gold
certification from the
British Phonographic Industry in May 1974.[1]
Most of the tracks on the album were personal favorites of Ferry's, and spanned several decades from 1930s standards such as the title track through 1950s
Elvis Presley to
Bob Dylan and
the Rolling Stones.[2]
Speaking about the album in 1973, Ferry said: "It's a very catholic selection, I've given up trying to please all of the people all of the time. Some will like it for one reason, some for another. And some will presumably dislike it for the wrong reasons though I hope the general point of it will be understood. It's amusement value. I think."[5]
These Foolish Things pits Lesley Gore against Bob Dylan, and not just for effect. Ferry views pop as a kind of continuum, extending through all sorts of
Tin Pan Alley and
Brill Building craftsmanship and incorporating visions as radical as Dylan's and as banal as Gore's. Within such a sensibility discerning what deserves to be dismissed as "trash" and what deserves elevation as "art" is not a simple problem. And such designations are so often determined by context that their order can be reversed almost at will. By altering tempos and singing every song with the deadpan emotional blankness he largely avoids with Roxy, Ferry exposes these issues as effectively as any pop singer in history.[11]
In
AllMusic, critic Ned Raggett said that throughout These Foolish Things, "Ferry's instantly recognizable croon carries everything to a tee, and the overall mood is playful and celebratory", calling the album "one of the best of its kind by any artist."[6]Rob Sheffield, in 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide, praised it as a "conceptual and musical tour de force".[10] In 2010,
Rhapsody listed These Foolish Things as one of the best covers albums.[12]