About
Few bands captured the glittering excess and artistic ambition of the early 1970s quite like Roxy Music. Brian Ferry assembled the group in London in 1971, surrounding himself with a genuinely eccentric cast of collaborators, most notably the avant-garde synthesizer wizard Brian Eno, whose experimental textures gave the band an otherworldly edge unlike anything else on the scene. Guitarist Phil Manzanera and saxophonist Andy Mackay rounded out a lineup that felt more like a art collective than a conventional rock outfit. Their 1972 self-titled debut announced something genuinely new, blending glam rock theatrics with art school sophistication and a cool, detached European sensibility. Eno departed after the second album, but the band barely missed a step, refining their sound through classics like Country Life and Siren before a lengthy hiatus in the late 1970s. Ferry reconvened Roxy Music in 1979 and delivered their commercial peak with Flesh and Blood and the era-defining Avalon in 1982, a record so lush and seductive it practically invented the template for sophisticated adult pop. Their influence is almost impossible to overstate, running through post-punk, synth-pop, new wave, and indie rock, with artists from David Bowie to Duran Duran to St. Vincent openly citing them as essential touchstones.
