Roxy Music "Avalon"

"Avalon", which was released by Roxy Music on May 28, 1982, is their eighth and final studio album. It was produced at Compass Point Studios in Nassau, Bahamas, between 1981 and 1982 and marked the peak of the band's smoother, more adult-oriented sound.

The first single from the album, "More Than This", was released prior to the album's debut and became a top 10 hit in the UK, Australia, and several other European countries. "Avalon", the second single, also charted in the top 20, while "Take a Chance with Me" made it to the top 30. In the US, "More Than This" and "Take a Chance with Me" only reached positions 103 and 104, respectively.

"Avalon" is Roxy Music's most commercially successful album. It topped the UK Albums Chart for three weeks and stayed on the chart for more than a year. Although it only reached No. 53 in the US, the album became a sleeper hit and is Roxy Music's only record to have sold over a million copies in the US, ultimately earning a platinum certification.

The album was highly acclaimed by critics. In the Village Voice's 1982 Pazz & Jop critics' poll, it was ranked as the 11th-best album of the year. Rolling Stone magazine included it on their list of "The 100 Greatest Albums of the 1980s" at No. 31 in 1989, and in 2003 it was listed as No. 307 on their list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album has also been included on several other "best of" lists throughout the years, such as Entertainment Weekly's "100 Greatest CDs" and Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums".

Critics have praised the album for its mature sound and Bryan Ferry's songwriting skills. Mark Coleman in The New Rolling Stone Album Guide gave the album a four-and-a-half-star rating out of five, calling it "austere" and "beautiful". Spin Alternative Record Guide rated it nine out of ten, describing it as "one of the all-time great makeout infernos".