Roxy Music – More Than This

Avalon, 1982: Ferry stops singing, the synths keep walking

In March 1982, Roxy Music put out More Than This as the first single from Avalon, their eighth and final studio album. Bryan Ferry wrote the song. Rhett Davies and the band produced it; Bob Clearmountain mixed. Sessions for the album ran through 1981–1982 at Compass Point in Nassau, the Power Station in New York, and Gallery Studio in Chertsey. The album followed on 28 May 1982 on E.G. / Polydor.

What you hear first is a soft pulse: Andy Newmark’s drums, Alan Spenner’s bass, Neil Hubbard and Phil Manzanera on guitar, Andy Mackay’s saxophone kept low, Jimmy Maelen on percussion, Fonzi Thornton on backing vocals. Ferry’s lead vocal sits clear and almost conversational. The unusual move is structural: his singing ends about a minute and forty-five seconds before the track does. The rest is a synthesizer-led instrumental outro that refuses a hard stop.

Ferry has said he began writing the Avalon songs on Ireland’s west coast, and that the place shaped the album’s darker, calmer mood. On the UK Singles Chart the single peaked at number 6 (first chart date 3 April 1982, eight weeks). It also reached the top 10 in Australia, Ireland, Norway, and Switzerland. In the United States it only touched the Billboard Rock Top Tracks chart at 58. The official video leans on cinema and silhouette rather than a loud arena stage.