Avalon is the eighth and final studio album by the English rock band Roxy Music, released on 28 May 1982 by E.G. Records and Polydor. It was recorded between 1981 and 1982 at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, and is regarded as the culmination of the smoother, more adult-oriented sound of the band's later work. It has been credited with pioneering the sophisti-pop genre. Ferry said of the album:
Guitarist Phil Manzanera has said about the making of the record: "By the time you get to Avalon, 90 per cent of it was being written in the studio. That album was a product of completely changing our working methods," adding "for the last three albums, quite frankly, there were a lot more drugs around as well, which was good and bad. It created a lot of paranoia and a lot of spaced-out stuff." Production began at Manzanera's Gallery Studios in Chertsey, where they worked on song ideas in the studio and developed backing tracks to a Linn LM-1 drum machine.
Manzanera said of the title track, "Avalon", "When we were recording the third or fourth album in London we'd often be working in the same studio as Bob Marley, who'd be downstairs doing all of those famous albums. It just had to rub off somewhere." Rhett Davies recounted the story of how the song got made:
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The album has received positive reviews from music critics. Reviewing the album in Rolling Stone, Kurt Loder wrote: "Avalon takes a long time to kick in, but it finally does, and it's a good one. Bryan Ferry stars as a remarkably expressive keyboard player and singer whose familiar mannerisms are subsumed in a rich, benevolent self-assurance. And reed man Andy Mackay shines in a series of cameos (his oboe meditation on Ferry's 'Tara' is particularly lovely). Ten years after its debut, Roxy Music has mellowed: the occasional stark piano chords in 'While My Heart Is Still Beating,' for example, recall the stately mood of 'A Song for Europe,' but the sound is softer, dreamier and less determinedly dramatic now. Ferry's songwriting, however, has seldom seemed stronger."
In The Village Voices 1982 Pazz & Jop critics' poll, Avalon was voted the 11th-best album of the year. In 1989, the album was ranked No. 31 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of "The 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s". In 1993, Entertainment Weekly included the CD as No. 25 in their 100 Greatest CDs A Love-It-Or-Loathe-It Guide to the Essential Disc Library. In 2000 it was voted number 187 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums. 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 at No. 371, Country Life at No. 387 and For Your Pleasure at No. 394 being the others); Avalon and Country Life were dropped from the 2012 revision, but Avalon was re-included on the 2020 revision at No. 336. In 2012, Slant Magazine named the album the 45th best album of the 1980s.
Mark Coleman in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide gave the record four-and-a-half stars out of five, and wrote; "this austere, beautiful set of songs represents a mature peak. The controlled chaotic edge of the early albums is completely gone, and co-founders Manzanera and Mackay provide only skeletal guitar and sax lines. Ferry fills in the details, creating layered synth landscapes around his tragic scenarios and melodic ruminations. Avalons pervasive influence on the British pop scene of the '80s can't be overstated. Roxy Music's stature is even further enhanced by the absence of a latter-day comeback album. So far, anyway." Spin Alternative Record Guide rated Avalon nine out of ten: "1982's Avalon remains one of the all-time great makeout infernos, a synthesized version of Al Green's Call Me, Van Morrison's Moondance, and João Gilberto's Amoroso."
In 2024, the album received another surround treatment when Bob Clearmountain remixed Avalon in Dolby Atmos immersive sound. In the accompanying press release, Bryan Ferry said, "Bob is the great master of the art of mixing, I was very moved when I heard his recent Dolby Atmos mix of Avalon – it sounds amazing." This digital-only product was only available on Apple Music and Tidal. In November 2024, this version was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Immersive Audio Album, a nod the 2003 release had also received (without winning).
A physical release of the Dolby Atmos mix on a limited Blu-Ray Audio disc (which also includes the original 5.1 mix, though without the bonus track "Always Unknowing", according to the band's wishes) was announced in February 2025, available to anyone who preorders until February 21. On this occasion, it was also explained that the multitracks of "India" had been found and used for the Atmos mix.
Track listing
Personnel
Track numbering refers to CD and digital releases of the album, except where noted.
Roxy Music
- Bryan Ferry – vocals (1–3, 5–9), keyboards, guitar synthesizer (4), Linn LM-1
- Andy Mackay – saxophones (1–6, 9, 10), oboe (7)
- Phil Manzanera – lead guitar (1–7, 9)
Additional personnel
- Paul Carrack – acoustic piano (8)
- Neil Hubbard – guitars (1–9)
- Jimmy Maelen – percussion (1–3, 5, 7, 9)
- Kermit Moore – cello (8)
- Andy Newmark – drums (1–7, 9)
- Rick Marotta – drums (8)
- Alan Spenner – bass guitar (1, 3–6, 8, 10)
- Neil Jason – bass guitar (2, 6, 7, 9)
- Fonzi Thornton – backing vocals (1–3, 5–7, 9)
- Yanick Étienne – backing vocals (3)
Production
- Rhett Davies – producer, engineer
- Roxy Music – producers
- Benjamin Arbiter – assistant producer
- Barry Bongiovi – assistant producer
- Colin Good – assistant producer
- Ian Little – assistant producer
- Peter Revill – assistant producer
- Bob Clearmountain – engineer, mixing
- Michael Boddy – tape archivist
- Bob Ludwig – mastering at Masterdisk (New York, NY)
- Bryan Ferry, Neil Kirk, Antony Price and Peter Saville – cover artwork
Charts
Weekly charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col"| Chart (1982–1983)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
!scope="row"| Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| 1
|-
|-
|-
|-
! scope="row"| Finnish Albums (The Official Finnish Charts)
| 26
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Italian Albums (Musica e dischi)
| 14
|-
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Spanish Albums (AFYVE)
|align="center"|7
|-
|-
|-
|}
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col"| Chart (2022)
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
|}
Year-end charts
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center"
! scope="col"| Chart (1982)
! scope="col"| Position
|-
!scope="row"|Australian Albums (Kent Music Report)
| 5
|-
|-
!scope="row"|Dutch Albums (Album Top 100)
| 5
|-
!scope="row"|German Albums (Offizielle Top 100)
| 23
|-
!scope="row"|New Zealand Albums (RMNZ)
| 4
|-
!scope="row"|UK Albums (OCC)
| 9
|}