Flesh + Blood by Roxy Music

Flesh + Blood, Roxy Music's seventh studio album, came out on E.G. Records in 1980, and it's the sound of the old art-glam provocateurs slipping into a silk suit. Drummer Paul Thompson had gone, leaving a core trio of Bryan Ferry on vocals, Andy Mackay on saxophone and Phil Manzanera on guitar, with session players filling out the rest and Rhett Davies producing. The jagged edges of the early records are sanded down into glossy, late-night art pop, all shimmer and slow-burning romance, with Ferry crooning like a man who has been to every party and is still waiting for one to mean something.

They tried a couple of covers on for size, the Byrds' "Eight Miles High" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour". "Over You" and "Oh Yeah" both reached number 5 in Britain, "Same Old Scene" made 12, and the album sat on top of the UK chart twice over, logging 60 weeks there in all.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.