Avalon (album)

Infobox Album
Name = Avalon
Type = studio
Artist = Roxy Music


Released = 1982
Recorded = 1981–1982
Genre = Album Oriented Rock
Length = 37:17
Label = Virgin
Producer = Rhett Davies and Roxy Music
Reviews =
* Allmusic Rating|5|5 [http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:wuabqjmwojha link]
* Robert Christgau (A-) [http://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=roxy+music link]
*"Rolling Stone" Rating|4|5 [http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/roxymusic/albums/album/113275/review/6068156/avalon link]
Last album = "Flesh + Blood"
(1980)
This album = "Avalon"
(1982)
Next album = "The High Road"
(1983)
Misc = Singles
Name = Avalon
Type = studio
Single 1 = More Than This
Single 1 date = start date|1982|4
Single 2 = Avalon
Single 2 date = start date|1982
Single 3 = Take a Chance with Me
Single 3 date = 1982

"Avalon", released in 1982, was Roxy Music's eighth studio album, recorded in 1981 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. Continuing a Roxy Music tradition, Bryan 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).

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.

Critical praise

In 1989, the album was ranked #31 on "Rolling Stone" magazine's list of the "The 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s". RS500|307 "Avalon" is the highest entry of four Roxy Music albums that made the list ("Siren, For Your Pleasure" and "Country Life" being the others).

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".

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.

Track listing

All songs written by Bryan Ferry except as noted.
# "More Than This" – 4:30
# "The Space Between" – 4:30
# "Avalon" – 4:16
# "India" – 1:44
# "While My Heart Is Still Beating" (Ferry, Andy Mackay) – 3:26
# "The Main Thing" – 3:54
# "Take a Chance with Me" (Ferry, Phil Manzanera) – 4:42
# "To Turn You On" – 4:16
# "True to Life" – 4:25
# "Tara" (Ferry, Mackay) – 1:33

Personnel

* Bryan Ferry - vocals, keyboards
* Andy Mackay - saxophone
* Phil Manzanera - guitar
* Neil Hubbard - guitar
* Alan Spenner - bass on tracks 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 and 10
* Andy Newmark - drums on tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9
* Jimmy Maelen - percussion on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 7 and 9

Additional personnel

* Neil Jason - bass on tracks 2, 5, 6 and 7
* Yannick Etienne - vocals on track 3
* Paul Carrack - piano on track 8
* Rick Marotta - drums on track 8
* Kermit Moore - cello on track 8
* Fonzi Thornton - vocals on tracks 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 and 9

ingles

* "Avalon" / "Always Unknowing" (June 1982) (#13 UK) (#22 AUS)
* "Take a Chance With Me" / "The Main Thing (Remix)" (September 1982) (#26 UK)

Chart positions

"Avalon" in popular culture

* The Captain, a character from Marvel Comics' "", 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 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.
* 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".
* Bill Murray performs "More Than This" in a memorable karaoke scene in the 2003 movie Lost in Translation.

succession box
before = "Complete Madness" by Madness
"Complete Madness" by Madness
title = UK Albums Chart number one album
years = June 5 1982 – June 11 1982
June 19 1982 – July 2 1982
after = "Complete Madness" by Madness
"The Lexicon of Love" by ABCsuccession box
before = "Rio" by Duran Duran
title = Australian Kent Music Report number-one album
years = July 12 1982 – August 1 1982
after = "Sons of Beaches" by Australian Crawl