Article about Ultravox

ULTRAVOX

It meant nothing to them!

No ether band in the select coterie of the New Romantics expanded beyond its initial frontiers as radically as the London-based band Ultravox, whose early werk bore all the hallmarks of the scene thanks to the synth experimentalist and frontman John Foxx (real name Dennis Leigh).
Their later music, however, was basically synth-pop with rock guitars courtesy of Foxx's replacement and sometime Visage associate Midge Ure, whose axe-heavy background (The Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy) meant that an inevitable amount of rockism was injected into the Ultravox mix. While commercial success was the result, Midge Ure even made Ultravox sound like U2, Big Country and Simple Minds at points, fans of the bands early direction voted with their feet.

Formed way back in 1974, before any of their contemporaries on this list, Ultravox consisted of John Foxx plus bassist Chris Cross, keyboard player and violinist Billy Currie, guitarist Steve Shears and drummer Warren Cann. Their Bowie and Roxy-influenced sound led to a deal with Island at the height of punk, and a major coup was scored when Brian Eno agreed to produce their eponymous debut album, which, however, failed to chart. 1977's Ha! Ha! Ha! album and the following year's Systems of Romance also flopped and Island dropped them. John Foxx then trotted and Simon quit to join Magazine.

That might well have been it for Ultravox, had net the newly arrived Midge Ure's anthemic songwriting resulted in the spectacular Vienna, an album which combined a kind of sixth-form film noir obsession with gothic imagery and synth-rock. A minor hit en first release in July 1980, it was reissued the following January alongside the title track, an epic composition which peaked at No. 2 and stayed around for 14 weeks. A series of successful singles followed, four of which (Reap The Wild Wind, Hymn, Visions In Blue and We Came To Dance) were lifted from the George Martin-produced Quartet album of 1983. Where the band excelled was in the scope of their talent: Midge Ure and his cohorts could do edgy balladry, upbeat pop and sparse, spiky synthscapes at will.

When the downturn came, it came quickly, and by `87 chart success was eluding them. Midge Ure, who had co-written 1985's Do They Know It's Christmas with Bob Geldof, embarked on a temporarily successful solo career, while the ethers renamed the band U-Vox before vanishing, more or less completely.

Q&A JOHN FOXX

Were Ultravox a New Romantic band?

We were never a part of any particular movement. I think we were one of the elements referred to by those bands without really being a part of it. New Romantic was a journalistic term for the new generation of bands who were reacting against the New Puritanism of punk. I guess we'd inadvertently supplied a title for the period with the Systems Of Romance album in 1978. At that time we were the first band to identify this area as seminal and to go into German music and electronics. Much of that was as a result of working with Brian Eno on our first album in 1976.

Why were Bowie and Kraftwerk so influential on the New Romantic scene?

I guess that, as usual, several things were happening at once. Everyone seemed to want a change from punk conservatism, which had become as conformist as a pinstriped suit. So formalised displays of 'anger' gave way to formalised displays of imagined glamour and cool. Bowie had always been good at this, so he was in again, the only artist who supplied genetic material to both movements. So he was Dad. I guess Warhol, Kraftwerk and Ferry were respected uncles. Kraftwerk were much hipper than anyone else, because they were such a clear opposite to punkcool and distant in a Gilbert & George sort of a way, to punk's affected sweaty confusion. Everyone desperately wanted this opposite. England was a dull, poor place in the mid 80s and that generation brightened things up no end. They reinvented a nicely tacky modern version of going-out glamour. You could dance without looking angry. Being working-class didn't mean you had to be think, snotty and obnoxious.

What were the trademark elements of the New Romantic sound?

Clumsy electronic dance mixed with trash glam-rock. Crème de menthe panto music. Lily Savage disco. Of course everything was on its way to somewhere else, as usual. The scene was unknowingly headed toward acid and house music. After Metamatic and Gary Numan, everyone and his dog went electro. There were even boy bands of the time, like Depeche Mode. Total technological takeover.

John Foxx is currently working with Louis Gordon, Cathedral Oceans 3, Karl Bartos and Adult, as well as editing and sampling movies for a live concert later this year.

Source: Record Collector June 2004