336. Roxy Music, "Avalon"

 

I have another confession to make: this was my high school sex album.  I KNOW.  Can you imagine, being in high school and finally getting to hook up with your fellow high schooler because their parents are out of town or whatever and they put on.... Avalon by Roxy Music?????  What the fuck????

(Now, this move made a lot more sense back then because this album came out in 1982 and I was in high school.... closer to 1982 than you'd think.  I remember thinking of this as "cool" at the time and maybe it still was then and wasn't totally Dad music or maybe cool divorced uncle music.)

But it makes sense because this album is extremely horny!  Not just the music itself, although there's a reason I'm probably not the only person who this was a Sex Album for, but the whole vibe.  And leaving that aside, this is just a really good album.  I imagine a lot of later synth-pop was influenced by this record.  Check out "To Turn You On," one of the lesser-known, but for my money, better songs on this record:

There's a very sad story about the woman on the cover wearing the helmet.  Her name was Lucy Helmore and when the photo was taken, at an Irish lough in 1982, she was singer Bryan Ferry's girlfriend.  They married shortly after and had four kids and then got divorced in 2003.  She struggled with depression and substance abuse most of her life and shot herself in 2018.  I told you it was a sad story.

Bryan Ferry, while a good singer, and maybe the only singer for this kind of material, does not have a stellar reputation.  After divorcing Lucy, he started going out with a woman 35 years younger than him, then married a woman 38 years younger who was a friend of one of his kids, ewwwww.  She dumped him for being a dick, apparently.  Anyway, still a good album.

Does this album deserve to be in the Top 500? Yes, but now that I know this is on the list, that other Roxy Music album on here retroactively should not be.