Romy Madley Croft, the xx’s silken-voiced guitarist, crafts exuberant and openly queer dance music under the name Romy. Alongside her bandmates she helped shape a restrained blend of indie and electronic textures that earned both critical and popular acclaim; the group’s self-titled 2009 debut captured the Mercury Prize, while their subsequent U.K. number-one albums included 2017’s I See You. Outside the xx she has written material for Dua Lipa and King Princess, and she channeled a comparable sense of pop euphoria into her own early solo work—the 2020 single “Lifetime” and the 2023 album Mid Air, whose track “Strong” received a Grammy nomination.
She first picked up the guitar at fifteen, shortly after coming out as gay. With future bandmate Oliver Sim she immersed herself in South London’s club circuit during the late 2000s, discovering how dance music could bring together marginalized listeners; she soon began DJing at several queer venues. Around the same period she, Sim, and Jamie xx formed the xx, whose introspective style showcased her understated vocals and restrained guitar playing on the Mercury Prize-winning 2009 album The xx. Further success arrived with 2012’s Coexist, which topped the U.K. Album Charts. Madley Croft and Sim both contributed to Jamie xx’s 2015 solo debut In Colour, and the group reconvened for 2017’s I See You, a more expansive record that again reached number one in the United Kingdom.
While the xx paused after I See You, Madley Croft began writing for artists including King Princess and Jehnny Beth. She supplied songwriting to Dua Lipa’s Grammy-winning single “Electricity” and met producer Fred Again during sessions for Halsey. Retaining several compositions for herself, she created her debut single “Lifetime” amid the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown; the track drew from Ultra Naté and other early club favorites while expressing her yearning for communal dance-floor experiences during social distancing. Teaming with a collective of queer, female, and non-binary collaborators that included Fred Again and engineer Marta Salogni, she issued “Lifetime” in September 2020. The song climbed to number 83 on the U.K. Singles Chart, prompting remixes by Planningtorock, Jayda G, and HAAi. In 2022 she and HAAi joined Fred Again on the single “Lights Out,” and Fred Again produced Romy’s November release “Strong,” the first preview of her debut solo album Mid Air, which appeared in September 2023. That record also contained the Jamie xx collaboration “Enjoy Your Life,” which peaked at number 69 on the U.K. Singles Chart, along with contributions from Stuart Price and jazz singer Beverly Glenn-Copeland. Mid Air earned broad praise, reaching number 15 on the U.K. Albums Chart and number eight on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums Chart in the United States, and “Strong” later earned a Grammy nomination for Best Dance/Electronic Recording.
