| Avalon | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Roxy Music | ||||
| Released | May 1982 | |||
| Recorded | 1981–82 | |||
| Genre | Pop-rock, New Wave, New Romanticism | |||
| Length | 37:31 | |||
| Label | Warner Bros./Virgin/E.G. | |||
| Producer | Rhett Davies and Roxy Music | |||
| Roxy Music chronology | ||||
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| Singles from Avalon | ||||
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Avalon, released in 1982, was Roxy Music's eighth (and, to date, final) studio album. Recorded in 1981-82 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, it is generally regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of the band's later work. It was a huge commercial success, hitting #1 in the UK (for 3 weeks) and staying on the album charts for over a year. Although it only climbed as high as #53, Avalon is notable as the band's only platinum record in the US. Bryan Ferry's girlfriend (and soon-to-be wife) Lucy Helmore appeared on the cover wearing a medieval helmet and carrying a falcon, evoking King Arthur's last journey to the mysterious land of Avalon and continuing the tradition for Roxy Music albums to feature images of women on the cover artwork (though perhaps less apparently than previous albums). The lush arrangements and synthesizer drenched sound of Avalon later found its way onto Bryan Ferry's solo album Boys and Girls (1985).
A single, "More Than This," preceded the album and was a Top 10 hit in Britain (#6), Australia (#6) and most European countries . Although a chart failure in the US, the song was popular on the college radio circuit. It is unusual for a pop song in that Ferry's vocal ends at 2.45 minutes, leaving the last 1.45 minutes as a synth-driven instrumental. It has since become regarded as a classic Roxy Music song. In 1997, a cover of "More Than This" performed by 10,000 Maniacs with the lead singer Mary Ramsey became a US hit when it reached 25 on US Hot 100.
The title track was released as the album's second single and also became a UK Top 20 hit. A third extract, "Take a Chance With Me," with a remixed version of album track "The Main Thing" on the b-side, reached UK #26 and was Roxy Music's last UK hit single. The extended remix of "The Main Thing" is only available on the 1995 box set, The Thrill of It All. New York DJ duo Rub N Tug released an official dance remix in early 2007.
"The Main Thing" was also used in a 2006 television advertisement for the Vauxhall Vectra, which was based around football and featured Pierluigi Collina. Pianos were added to the track in the advertisement version.
Contents |
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
| Rolling Stone | [2] |
| Robert Christgau | (A-)[3] |
| Piero Scaruffi | [4] |
In 1989, the album was ranked #31 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "The 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s". In 2003, the album was ranked number 307 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Avalon is the highest entry of four Roxy Music albums that made the list (Siren, For Your Pleasure and Country Life being the others).
In 2003, Virgin reissued Avalon on Hybrid Super Audio CD 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 1982 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 the process. The surround part of the HD layer includes the full album in the original running order plus the bonus track "Always Unknowing", whose original stereo mix is only available on CD on the 4-CD boxed set "The Thrill of It All".
Except for "India," the short instrumental piece whose original multi-track tape had been lost, all tracks in the surround mix were remixed from multi-track sources, as opposed to two-channel stereo mixes being 'upmixed' to 5.1 as in some DVD-Video releases. For "India," the stereo mix is panned clockwise a few times as the piece is being played, which ends nicely in the rear right channel, from which the saxophone begins the next piece, "While My Heart Is Still Beating," making up for "India" not being a fully-fledged surround recording. The surround mix has roughly the same running times as the ten tracks present in the stereo mix. The main difference is in the stereo image being 360-degrees wide, as opposed to a front image plus rear ambiance, and the levels at which various tracks from the multi-track are mixed into the multi-channel mix. For instance, the guitar parts in "The Main Thing" and "Take a Chance With Me" are noticeably more prominent in the multi-channel mix than in the stereo mix. Guitar, saxophone, synthesizer, and percussion parts are often placed in the rear part of the sound field, while lead vocals tend to stick to the front centre, as opposed to being mixed in dual-mono in front left and right like in the somewhat traditional 2.0 stereo mixing.
All songs written by Bryan Ferry except as noted.
| Year | Chart | Peak Position |
|---|---|---|
| 1982 | Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart | 1 |
| 1982 | UK Albums Chart | 1 |
| 1982 | Billboard 200 | 53 |
| Preceded by Complete Madness by Madness |
UK Albums Chart number one album 5 June 1982 19 June 1982 – 26 June 1982 |
Succeeded by Complete Madness by Madness The Lexicon of Love by ABC |
| Preceded by Rio by Duran Duran |
Australian Kent Music Report number-one album 12 July 1982 – 26 July 1982 |
Succeeded by Sons of Beaches by Australian Crawl |
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