Boys and Girls (album)

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]
Robert Christgau	B−[5]
Rolling Stone	(equivocal)[6]
Smash Hits	6/10[7]

Writing retrospectively for AllMusic, critic Ned Raggett complimented the track "Slave to Love" and wrote "As a whole, Boys and Girls fully established the clean, cool vision of Ferry on his own to the general public. Instead of ragged rock explosions, emotional extremes, and all that made his '70s work so compelling in and out of Roxy, Ferry here is the suave, debonair if secretly moody and melancholic lover, with music to match."^[8]

Critic Robert Christgau wrote: "His voice thicker and more mucous, his tempos dragging despite all the fancy beats he's bought, he runs an ever steeper risk of turning into the romantic obsessive he's always played so zealously."^[5]

The 1992 edition of the Rolling Stone Album Guide gave the album three and half stars out of five: "Set in the richly synthesized mode of Avalon, Ferry's sixth album envelopes the listener in emotional subtleties and sonic nuance. Then it's over like a pleasant dream. Boys and Girls could stand a couple of more tunes along the memorable lines of "Slave to Love" or "Don't Stop the Dance."^[9] The 2004 New Rolling Stone Album Guide repeated the three-and-a-half star rating; "Boys and Girls, his first solo album after Roxy Music broke up, was his disco-friendly bid for solo stardom, and while it's too fluffy, it does have one of his greatest love songs ever, the hypnotic slow-dance "Slave to Love."^[10]

In the 1985 Pazz & Jop Critics Poll by the Village Voice it was voted the 31st best album of the year.^[11]

In 2006, Virgin reissued Boys and Girls on Hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) with a new 5.1-channel surround sound remix by the original production team of Rhett Davies (the producer) and Bob Clearmountain (the mixing engineer). The original 1985 stereo mix is left intact and is the same for the CD layer and for the HD layer, allegedly being transferred from analogue master tapes to DSD and processed in DSD throughout.

All songs written by Bryan Ferry, except where noted.

• Bryan Ferry – vocals, keyboards, percussion
• Jon Carin – keyboards
• Guy Fletcher – keyboards (track 2)
• Chester Kamen – guitars
• Nile Rodgers – lead guitar (tracks 1, 3)
• Neil Hubbard – lead guitar (track 2)
• Keith Scott – lead guitar (track 2)
• David Gilmour – lead guitar (tracks 5, 8)
• Mark Knopfler – lead guitar (track 7)
• Tony Levin – bass (track 2)
• Neil Jason – bass
• Marcus Miller – bass (track 3)
• Alan Spenner – bass
• Andy Newmark – drums (tracks 1, 3-9)
• Omar Hakim – drums (track 2)
• Jimmy Maelen – percussion
• David Sanborn – saxophone (track 3)
• Martin McCarrick – cello
• Anne Stephenson – strings
• Virginia Hewes – backing vocals
• Ednah Holt – backing vocals
• Fonzi Thornton – backing vocals
• Ruby Turner – backing vocals
• Alfa Anderson – backing vocals
• Michelle Cobbs – backing vocals
• Yanick Etienne – backing vocals
• Colleen Fitz-Charles – backing vocals
• Lisa Fitz-Charles – backing vocals
• Simone Fitz-Charles – backing vocals

• Bryan Ferry – production
• Rhett Davies – production, engineering
• Bob Clearmountain – engineering, mixing
• Neil Dorfsman – engineering
• Femi Jiya – engineering
• Andy Lydon – engineering
• Dominick Maita – engineering
• Brian McGee – engineering
• Benjamin Armbrister – engineering assistance
• Andy "Carb" Cannell – engineering assistance
• Steve Churchyard – engineering assistance
• Randy Ezratty – engineering assistance
• Dave Greenberg – engineering assistance
• Kevin Killen – engineering assistance
• Heff Moraes – engineering assistance
• Peter Revill – engineering assistance
• Kendal Stubbs – engineering assistance
• Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York City)

• Bryan Ferry – art direction
• Simon Puxley – art direction
• Cream – artwork
• Antony Price – photography

• Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.

• Boys and Girls at Discogs (list of releases)