Romy Madley Croft (born 18 August 1989),[1] who releases solo music as Romy, is an English musician.[2][3] She is the guitarist and co-vocalist of the xx, who won the Mercury Music Prize.[4] In 2023, she released her first solo album, Mid Air, which peaked at No.15 on the UK Albums Chart. She was nominated for the Brit Award for British Dance Act at the 2024 Brit Awards.[5]
The only child of a primary school teacher mother and a father who worked in a library, Romy grew up in Putney.[4] Her mother died when she was 11 of a brain haemorrhage.[4] Her father died nine years later from complications due to alcoholism.[4] Romy describes these events saying: "It's been horrible, but it's made me who I am and made me stronger. I think I take that experience with me."[4]
Romy started to play in a band aged 15, and began to play gigs aged 17.[4] Her interest in clubbing began when she went to the gay club, Ghetto, in Soho, London, every Thursday with future bandmate Oliver Sim when they were 16 and 17.[6][7][8] The manager of the Ghetto later asked her to DJ at the club.
The first gig Romy saw was Peaches, who she sees as an inspiration, supporting The Distillers.[7][9] She also cites Madonna as an influence.[10]
Music
The xx
Romy met Oliver Sim at nursery school in London when they were 3,[11] and they lived 5 minutes away from eachother.[12] They attended the same primary school and then met Jamie Smith (Jamie xx) when they were 11, at the induction day for Elliott School, the secondary school they all attended.[12][11] There, they also met (now former) bandmate Baria Qureshi.[9] They all studied GCSE Music together. Romy played guitar and had drum lessons for a short period. Whilst Romy and Sim knew Smith, and Romy used to go skateboarding with him,[9] Smith did not join the band until after being formally introduced by their label, Young Turks (now Young).[11][13]
The band released their debut album xx in 2009, their second album Coexist in 2012, and their third ablum I See You in 2017.[14]
Romy used to DJ at the afterparties for the xx, but stopped when someone asked if she was being ironic, as she didn't want to risk compromising the band's reputation.[10]
Mid Air
Romy's album Mid Air (2023) makes her the last member of The xx to release solo material, following Jamie xx's "In Colour" (2015) and Oliver Sim's "Hideous Bastard" (2022).[2] It was released on 8 September 2023.[15]
Romy said she wanted to make an upbeat pop album for queer women, which would have wanted growing up.[6][7] She cited Peaches as an influence for this album and new phase of her work.[16] Many of the songs are inspired by her relationship with her wife, Vic Lentaigne.[7] Lentaigne also worked with Romy to produce photography and direct videos for the album, as well as encouraging Romy to cast her cousin Louis in the video for "Strong".
Nick Levine gave the album 5 stars in the NME, describing it as "a nostalgic but box-fresh dance album that taps into a deep well of feeling."[15] Giving the album four stars, Alexis Petridis of the Guardian described the album as "Driven almost exclusively by four-to-the-floor beats, and featuring a voice that sounds ineffably melancholy even when singing about happiness".[17]
Singles
In September 2020, three years prior to her release of Mid Air, Romy released the single "Lifetime".[15] Sea Griffiths, in Mixmag, described the single as "A joyous exultation of a record, it has that unique blend of euphoria and melancholia so often found in timeless dancefloor records...Both lyrically and sonically the record feels like the valve being released on a canister of pent up emotion and speaks to an internal craving to simply ‘have some fun’ that so many of us are feeling right now.".[19] Romy purposely chose to only employ women and non-binary artists to work on the remix package for the single.[19] It featured Anz, Planningtorock, Jayda G and HAAi.
In May 2024, Romy released the single "Always forever".[20] It was co-written and co-produced with Fred Again. Joy Anonymous are also credited as producers. The song samples Donna Lewis' 1996 single "I Love You Always Forever". The video for the single was directed by writer and director Charlotte Wells.
Romy came out as gay to her dad when she was 15, but did not come out publicly in the xx during the first two album releases due to fears of negative response.[6][7] She said that "I didn’t want to jeopardize anything with the band. And genuinely that makes me feel really sad now...When I look back at that time, I definitely think I kept some things back on those first two albums. That’s just the reality."[7]
Romy's wife is photographer and filmmaker Vic Lentaigne, who had also been her first relationship.[2][6][7] They first met in 2008,[2] but their first relationship was short-lived.[8] They reconnected through the five-a-side football team, Whippets FC, they began playing for, and married in 2021.[8][15] Romy and Lentaigne live in East Sussex.[8]
Romy started a club night called "Feelings Café" held weekly at Hackney cocktail bar Behind This Wall, where she DJ'ed alongside her friends, including Kim Ann Foxman and Pandora's Jukebox, as well as those who had never DJ'ed before, for three months before she said the night "imploded on itself".[19]
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