Swan Song

In 1982, TV shows like Dallas were all the rage, MTV was in its infancy, & the Internet was still a very distant dream looming over the horizon. It was a period of fame, greed & lots of excess ran up to the nth degree - an apt summarization of the 80s in a nutshell.

For Roxy Music, 1982 was their last stand as a group. We didn't sense this at the time, but the second incarnation of Roxy Music was about to call it a day with no additional words or rhetoric. Yet did they ever make their last stand courageously as their swan song Avalon brilliantly demonstrates.

Now pared down to a trio of Bryan Ferry (vocalist/lyricist/stylemeister), guitarist Phil Manzanera, reedman Andy Mackay & a slew of session musicians, Roxy Music in its second incarnation helped synthesize new wave & post punk influences together with R&B & soul in more ways than one on their predecessors Manifesto and Flesh + Blood. And in the process, they ushered in the 80s as the torchbearers of synth-pop as well as a sound distinctly their own. With Avalon, however, the core strengths of the aforementioned albums were refined & matured even more than ever.

RM's trifecta of original personnel was approaching middle age & surely that may have played a key role in why Avalon comes across as so mellow, mature & restrained. But then again, this album sounded like all of the above as if to signal the end of the road for the group, a final resigned proclamation from Bryan Ferry & company.

That didn't mean you couldn't get dancing to songs like "The Space Between" or "The Main Thing," because you most certainly could. Yet it's the slower, more shimmering/atmospheric numbers like "More Than This," "True To Life," & the title track that stand out the most for me. "More Than This" could be seen as Ferry's declaration that Roxy Music, like any relationship with nothing more to give, would soon come to a halt & who could say where each of the band members would go next. "To Turn You On" is a solo Bryan Ferry song (sans his Roxy bandmates) which connects so perfectly to this whole song cycle in general; not just that but within the bigger picture the subject matter works wonders. "India" & "Tara" are short instrumental vignettes which really don't detract from the flow or pace of this album by any stretch. "While My Heart Is Still Beating" is pure melancholia & longing all the way, a fine example of why Avalon is such a brilliant recording for all of its 35 minutes.

After this masterpiece Roxy Music went off the radar, or if I must say so, was no more. Bryan Ferry of course went on to bigger & better things as his 1985 release Boys and Girls (which is a perfect companion piece to Avalon) boldly pointed out to us back in the day. This album isn't just a swan song, a silent word of goodbye from Messrs. Ferry, Manzanera & Mackay. It was perfection attained, & to this day it doesn't get any better than this. No, there's nothing more than this.