Avalon, released in 1982, was Roxy Music's eighth studio album, recorded in 1982 at Compass 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. Continuing a Roxy Music tradition, Ferry's girlfriend Lucy Helmore appeared on the cover wearing a medieval helmet and carrying a falcon. The image evoked King Arthur's last journey to the mysterious land of Avalon. The lush arrangements and synthesizer drenched sound of Avalon later found its way onto Bryan Ferry's solo follow-up album Boys and Girls (1985). Cover image of Roxy Music album Avalon (scanned) This is an album cover. ... A studio album is a collection of studio-recorded tracks by a recording artist. ... Roxy Music are an English art rock group founded in the early 1970s by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards). ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Album Oriented Rock, abbreviated AOR, was originally an American FM radio format focusing on album tracks by rock music artists rather than singles releases. ... In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. ... Virgin Records was a British recording label founded by English entrepreneur Richard Branson, and Nik Powell in 1972. ... In the music industry, a record producer (or music producer) has many roles, among them controlling the recording sessions, coaching and guiding the musicians, organizing and scheduling production budget and resources, and supervising the recording, mixing and mastering processes. ... Rhett Davies (born 1950, London) is a British record producer and engineer. ... Roxy Music are an English art rock group founded in the early 1970s by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards). ... The All Music Guide (AMG) is a metadata database about music, owned by All Media Guide. ... Image File history File links 5_stars. ... Robert Christgau (born April 18, 1942), is an American essayist, music journalist, and the self-declared Dean of American Rock Critics.[1] In print, his name is sometimes abbreviated as Xgau. ... This article is about the magazine. ... Image File history File links 4_stars. ... Roxy Music are an English art rock group founded in the early 1970s by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards). ... Flesh And Blood is the seventh (studio) album by Roxy Music and was released in 1980. ... The High Road (album) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Roxy Music are an English art rock group founded in the early 1970s by art school graduate Bryan Ferry (vocals and keyboards). ... For other uses of Nassau, see Nassau (disambiguation). ... The description Gold Album is applied to recorded music albums that have sold a minimum number of copies (in the US, currently 500,000 sales). ... Lucy Helmore was formerly married to Roxy Music lead singer Bryan Ferry, since they were divorced in 2002. ... For other uses, see Falcon (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see King Arthur (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Avalon (disambiguation). ... Bryan Ferry (born 26 September 1945 in Washington) is an English singer, musician, songwriter and occasional actor famed for his suave visual and vocal style, who came to public prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with Roxy Music. ... Sixth album by neo-crooner Bryan Ferry. ...

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. College radio (also known as university radio, campus radio or student radio) is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college or university. ... 10,000 Maniacs is a United States-based alternative rock band, formed in 1981 and active with various line-ups since that time. ... 10,000 Maniacs is a US rock band, formed in 1981 and active with various line-ups since that time. ... The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. ...

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. In recorded music, the terms A-side and B-side refer to the two sides of 7 inch vinyl records on which singles have been released since the 1950s. ...

"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. 1992 Opel Vectra 2. ... Soccer redirects here. ... Pierluigi Collina (born 13 February 1960) is an Italian former football referee, who was widely regarded as one of the worlds best officials. ...

Critical praise

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). This article is about the magazine. ... This article is about the magazine. ... The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time is the cover story of a special issue of Rolling Stone magazine published in November 2003. ... Siren is a 1975 album, the fifth released by the British rock band Roxy Music. ... ‹ The template below has been proposed for deletion. ... Country Life is the fourth album by Roxy Music, and was released in 1974. ...

2003 surround-sound remix

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". Super Audio CD (SACD) is a read-only optical audio disc format aimed at providing much higher fidelity digital audio reproduction than the Red Book audio CD. Introduced in 2000, it was developed by Sony and Philips Electronics, the same companies that created the Compact Disc. ... Surround sound is the concept of expanding the spatial imaging of audio playback from 1 dimension (mono/Left-Right) to 2D or 3D. This is often performed for a more realistic audio environment, actively implemented in cinema sound systems, technical theatre, home entertainment, video arcades, computer gaming, and a growing... Rhett Davies (born 1950, London) is a British record producer and engineer. ... Bob Clearmountain is a legendary American music engineer, mixer and producer. ... Direct-Stream Digital (DSD) is an encoding technology to store audio signals on digital storage media and is used for the super audio compact disc (SACD). ...

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. DVD-Video format logo DVD-Video is a consumer video format used to store digital video on DVD (DVD-ROM) discs, and is currently the dominant form of consumer video formats in the United States, Canada, Europe and Australia. ...

Track listing

All songs written by Bryan Ferry except as noted: Bryan Ferry (born 26 September 1945 in Washington) is an English singer, musician, songwriter and occasional actor famed for his suave visual and vocal style, who came to public prominence in the 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with Roxy Music. ...

1. "More Than This" – 4:30
2. "The Space Between" – 4:30
3. "Avalon" – 4:16
4. "India" – 1:44
5. "While My Heart Is Still Beating" (Ferry, Andy Mackay) – 3:26
6. "The Main Thing" – 3:54
7. "Take a Chance With Me" (Ferry, Phil Manzanera) – 4:42
8. "To Turn You On" – 4:16
9. "True to Life" – 4:25
10. "Tara" (Ferry, Mackay) – 1:43

Andy Mackay (July 23, 1946—) is a British musician, best known as the saxophonist for the group Roxy Music. ... Phil Manzanera (born Philip Geoffrey Targett-Adams, 31 January 1951, in London, England), is an English guitarist. ...

Musicians

Roxy Music

• Bryan Ferry - vocals & keyboards
• Andy Mackay - saxophone
• Phil Manzanera - guitar

Additional musicians

• Paul Carrack - piano on 8
• Yannick Etienne - vocals on 3
• Neil Hubbard - guitar on all except 10
• Neil Jason - bass on 2, 5-7
• Jimmy Maelen - percussion on 1-3, 5-7 & 9
• Rick Marotta - drums on 8
• Kermit Moore - cello on 8
• Andy Newmark - drums on 1-7 & 9
• Alan Spenner - bass on 1, 3-6 & 8-10
• Fonzi Thornton - vocals on 1-3, 5-7 & 9

Singles

• "More Than This" / "India" (April 1982) (#6 UK) (#6 AUS) (#6 SWI) (#17 SWE)
• "Avalon" / "Always Unknowing" (June 1982) (#13 UK) (#22 AUS)
• "Take a Chance With Me" / "The Main Thing (Remix)" (September 1982) (#26 UK)

Avalon in popular culture

• The Captain, a character from Marvel Comics' Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., went briefly by the alias "Captain Avalon." He quickly dropped the moniker after learning from his mother that Avalon was the album playing when he was conceived.
• In the October 2002 PlayStation 2 videogame Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the song "More than this" is featured as part of the Power Ballads radio station Emotion 98.3
• In the 2003 Sofia Coppola movie "Lost in Translation", Bob Harris (played by actor Bill Murray) sings "More Than This" in a karaoke bar in Tokyo.
• In the Max Brooks novel World War Z, the title song is mentioned. It is sung by a Scripps College student "with a voice like an angel" to inspire the exhausted defenders before the last major zombie incursion, during The Battle of the Five Colleges in Claremont, California.
• Robyn Hitchcock has covered the song "More Than This," in his live act on numerous occasions, and released a live recording on a promotional single for his song "Madonna of the Wasps."
• When the Toyota Avalon sedan was released to the New Zealand market in 2000, the advertising campaign used the song "Avalon". Due to the success of the campaign, Roxy Music/Bryan Ferry CD compilations in music shops soon had stickers proclaiming "Featuring 'Avalon,' from the Toyota Avalon car commercial".