“More Than This” by Roxy Music

"More Than This" was the first single from Avalon, the eighth and last studio album from Roxy Music, in 1982, and it's the band's art-rock glamour boiled down to pure atmosphere: a gliding, bittersweet melody, shimmering keyboards and Bryan Ferry's voice floating over it all like smoke over a dance floor at closing time.

Ferry wrote it alone and plays keyboards, with Phil Manzanera and Neil Hubbard trading gauzy guitar lines, Andy Mackay's saxophone drifting in the background, Alan Spenner on bass, Andy Newmark on drums and Jimmy Maelen on percussion, plus backing vocals from Fonzi Thornton. Rhett Davies produced it with the band and Bob Clearmountain mixed it to a satin finish.

It was the last time Roxy Music reached the UK top ten, peaking at number six, and it scraped onto the Billboard rock tracks chart in America before becoming one of their best-loved songs. The single sleeve borrowed Dante Gabriel Rossetti's painting Veronica Veronese, completed in 1872 with Alexa Wilding as the model.

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