Roxy Music

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Roxy Music

British rock group

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Awards And Honors:: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (2019)

Date:: 1971

Related People:: Brian Eno; John Wetton

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Roxy Music, British art rock band of the 1970s whose influential style was an amalgam of glam rock campiness, sophisticated, often experimental musicianship, arch humour, and world-weary romanticism. The principal members were vocalist-songwriter Bryan Ferry (b. September 26, 1945, Washington, Durham, England), keyboardist Brian Eno (in full Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno; b. May 15, 1948, Woodbridge, Suffolk), saxophonist Andy Mackay (b. July 23, 1946, England), guitarist Phil Manzanera (original name Philip Targett-Adams; b. January 31, 1951, London), drummer Paul Thompson (b. May 13, 1951, Jarrow, Northumberland), and keyboardist Eddie Jobson (b. April 28, 1955, Billingham, Durham).

Formed in 1971, Roxy Music was largely the brainchild of Ferry, who had studied with Richard Hamilton, a key figure in British pop art. A shifting early lineup stabilized around Ferry, Mackay, Eno, Manzanera, and Thompson. The band’s eponymous debut album, the nonalbum single “Virginia Plain” (both 1972), and the follow-up album For Your Pleasure (1973) were hits in Britain, as Roxy Music’s fully textured sound and lush instrumentation set it apart from mainstream rock. When Eno departed to pursue his remarkable career as a solo performer and producer, Ferry became even more the band’s focal point, cultivating a suave persona he projected in a solo career that paralleled his work with Roxy Music. Following British success with Stranded (1973) and Country Life (1974), the band broke through in the United States with Siren and its hit single “Love Is the Drug” in 1975. Splitting, re-forming, and splitting again, Roxy Music had commercial success with its albums in the late 1970s and early 1980s, most notably with its final studio album, Avalon (1982), but failed to regain its earlier critical acclaim. After a lengthy hiatus, the band reunited in 2001 and continued to perform occasionally for the next 10 years before dissolving for a second time. Roxy Music was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Patricia Bauer.

glam rock

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glam rock

music

Also known as: glitter rock

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Last Updated: Apr 18, 2025 • Article History

Also known as:: glitter rock

Key People:: David Bowie; Marilyn Manson

Related Topics:: rock

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glam rock, musical movement that began in Britain in the early 1970s and celebrated the spectacle of the rock star and concert. Often dappled with glitter, male musicians took the stage in women’s makeup and clothing, adopted theatrical personas, and mounted glamorous musical productions frequently characterized by space-age futurism.

Self-glorifying and decadent, glam rock positioned itself as a backlash against the rock mainstream of the late 1960s; on the periphery of society and rock culture, glam rockers were, as critic Robert Palmer put it, “rebelling against the rebellion.” At glam’s core musically was a heavy guitar sound shaped by hard-rock and pop styles, though the movement also had heavy metal, art rock, and punk incarnations.

David Bowie, one of the movement’s principal practitioners, set the standard for showmanship while producing The Man Who Sold the World (1970) and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972). Other members of the British glitterati were Slade, Gary Glitter, and Marc Bolan’s T. Rex, whose Electric Warrior (1971) and The Slider (1972) typified the trashy power-pop version of glam rock. Other performers associated with British glam included Elton John, Queen, Roxy Music, the Sweet, and, in the early 1980s, Culture Club. Lou Reed of the Velvet Underground launched his solo career and American glam with Transformer (1972), coproduced by Bowie.

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In the United States glam gained a harder edge with the proto-punk stylings of the New York Dolls and the glitzy hard rock of Kiss and Alice Cooper. By the 1980s glam had devolved into the heavy metal excesses of such American groups as Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe, and Poison. In the 1990s Marilyn Manson courted controversy with a brand of glam intended to shock conservative Americans.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.