The band achieved immediate international success with the release of their self-titled debut album in 1972, containing a rich multitude of sounds, which reflected Ferry's interest in exploring different genres of music.

Their second album, For Your Pleasure (1973), further cultivated the band's unique sound and visual image that would establish Ferry as a leading cultural icon over the next decade.

His second album, Another Time, Another Place (1974), featured on its cover the image Ferry posing by a pool in a white dinner jacket, a persona which Rolling Stone magazine dubbed "dandy of the bizarre".

[7] Over the next two years, Roxy Music released a trilogy of albums, Stranded (1973), Country Life (1974) and Siren (1975), which broadened the band's appeal internationally and saw Ferry take greater interest in the role of a live performer, reinventing himself in stage costumes ranging from gaucho to military uniforms.

[20] During this period, Ferry was a member of the bands the Banshees,[21] City Blues, and the Gas Board, the latter of which featured his university classmates Graham Simpson and John Porter.

[25] Ferry formed Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances, beginning with bassist Graham Simpson, an art school classmate, in November 1970.

Ferry met women's fashion designer Antony Price at a party in Holland Park in 1972, and later that year enlisted him alongside other friends including Nick de Ville to create the cover for Roxy Music's debut album.

Featuring model Kari-Ann Moller splayed on the floor in a dress designed by Price, the cover image captivated the attention of the general public and according to writer Richard Williams was, "nothing less than a challenge, bold and direct, to the prevailing complacency.

[8] Ferry's interest in the Great American Songbook represented a stark departure from Roxy Music, and the success of these two albums created a template which would be followed later by other artists including Joni Mitchell, Rod Stewart and Bob Dylan.

[15] Embarking on his first solo tour in support of these albums, in 1973 Ferry was notably denied his request for a show at the Royal Albert Hall due to a ban on rock concerts before ultimately being granted his first performance a year later, in December 1974.

From their definitively art-school debut album of 1972, the collision of past and future of which still startles, through the Gatsby sighs of Ferry's gondolas, glam and goddesses period, then the two-year split, then the return with the likes of Manifesto and Avalon (so improbably refined that they shouldn't exist, can't exist, but do), Roxy were the ultimate marriage of style and substance: inspiring, influential, intoxicating.Between 1972 and 1974, Ferry's creative output was prolific, as he released a total of six studio albums between his solo career and Roxy Music.

1 album, dominating the charts for four months, and its supporting world tour saw Ferry wear a white dinner jacket and move out from behind the keyboard to take centre stage.

[8] Disappointed by the lukewarm response to The Bride Stripped Bare, Ferry reformed Roxy Music at the end of 1978 to record tracks for what would become their sixth studio album, Manifesto, which was released in early 1979 and reached no.

In 2002, Ferry released a new studio album, Frantic, which featured several tracks written with David A. Stewart of Eurythmics as well as collaborations with Eno, Manzanera and Thompson.

In 2005, it was confirmed[39] that Roxy Music (Ferry, Mackay, Manzanera and Thompson) would perform shows at that year's Isle of Wight Festival and that they would record an album of new and original songs, with no indication of when such a project would reach completion.

[46] In 2011, Roxy Music performed together for the last time before going on indefinite hiatus as Ferry, Manzanera, Mackay, and Thompson embarked on a world tour to celebrate the group's 40th anniversary.

[54] In November 2014, Ferry released a new album entitled Avonmore, featuring original material and two cover songs (including the aforementioned "Johnny and Mary" with Terje).

[56][57] In November and December 2018, Ferry made his second appearance with the long-running concert series Night of the Proms in Germany, along with the Pointer Sisters, Milow, and Tim Bendzko.

[58][59] While furthering his solo career in recent years, Ferry has continued to collaborate with previous members of Roxy Music, including backing singer Fonzi Thornton and guitarist Neil Hubbard.

In February 2018, a 45th anniversary deluxe edition of Roxy Music's eponymous debut album was released, including numerous demos, outtakes, and unseen photographs curated over the years by Ferry.

[67] In March 2022, Ferry announced, alongside bandmates Andy Mackay, Phil Manzanera and Paul Thompson, that Roxy Music would be touring for the first time since 2011.

Per a press release, the upcoming project is billed as a series of cover versions that range from Bob Dylan to Amy Winehouse, Rodgers and Hart to the Velvet Underground via Tim Buckley, Shakespeare, sea shanties and Sam & Dave.

[79] In 2005, GQ presented Ferry with its Lifetime Achievement Award, deeming him "pop's original art-school bobby-dazzler" and noting his solo career spent as the "world's best-dressed and most languidly mannered deluxe chanteur".

[81] In 2007, Belgian fashion designer Dries van Noten created a Fall 2007 collection inspired by outfits Ferry wore during his solo career and tenure with Roxy Music.

[82] In his 1976 essay "Them", cultural critic Peter York described Ferry as "the best possible example of the ultimate art-directed existence" and suggested he was the most important pasticheur in Britain at the time.

Phil Manzanera – who would become Roxy Music's guitarist – recalls, during his audition to join the band, that Ferry and he discussed Humphrey Bogart and classic films from the Golden Age of Hollywood.

[88] Additionally, Ferry's 1978 solo album The Bride Stripped Bare is widely believed[89] to contain allusions to his break-up with Hall, particularly the song "When She Walks in the Room".

"[105] In 2007, controversy arose when Ferry praised the imagery and iconography of Nazi Germany in an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag, citing in particular "Leni Riefenstahl's movies and Albert Speer's buildings".

I don't like the way the present Government has done things, most of all putting my son in prison for four and a half months, totally unlawfully ... and that's not just my opinion: judges, all sorts, have said it was a stitch-up.

[115] In August 2014, Ferry was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian expressing their hope that Scotland would vote to remain part of the United Kingdom in September's referendum on that issue.