This is a series I'm intending to do about great music albums that were either underappreciated at the time of their release, or faded into obscurity - or both. Today, to kick off the list, it's the turn of Ultravox's third release, the aforementioned 'Systems Of Romance'.
One of the leading new wave groups and much-lauded for their 1980s classic, moody single Vienna, many people wouldn't know Ultravox even had a career before the arrival of Midge Ure. The genial, dark-haired, moustache-wearing Scotsman had a fine singing voice and gelled well with the others, arguably better than his predecessor as frontman had: the high-cheekboned and high-minded John Foxx.
Foxx - real name Denis Leigh - encouraged a more angular, arty approach arguably ensured the band could hardly be seen as a commercial proposition. Their debut was an awkward mix of detached Berlin-period Bowie, punchy Roxy Music/New York Dolls-style glam, and a whole slew of other styles - reggae, funk and even a bluesy stomp with that most un-Ultravox of instruments, a harmonica! It was inevitably seen as unfocused and little chart success followed, yet the album has been somewhat reassessed of late. The follow-up, 'Ha! Ha! Ha', was far more chaotic and punk-influenced in an attempt to capture the quintet's live performances on tape, but similarly to bands like Mott The Hoople in their earlier years this proved very difficult to perfect.
However the album's closing track, the shimmering 'Hiroshima Mon Amour', had shown the group tentatively moving towards a new style. Guitarist Stevie Shears' squalling, squealing style was replaced with the textured tones of Robin Simon's fretwork, and Currie's similarly shrieking violin was also toned down in favour of understated keyboard drones. When the violin did appear it was more melodic than combative, underpinning Foxx's yearning, disembodied vocals, which sang of feeling insubstantial and not quite there - a theme which carried over into much of his solo work. Electronic backings on tracks like the lurching, unsettling 'Dislocation' pre-dated much of new wave and cold, harsh electropop.
The group could still play fast numbers like 'Blue Light' or 'Some Of Them', carried by the deft chemistry of rhythm section Chris Cross and Warren Cann, yet these still fitted seamlessly with the Kraftwerk-like mechanical chug of songs like 'Maximum Acceleration' or 'The Quiet Men'. The latter of these contained the persona Foxx would regularly revisit in the rest of his career; this ghostly observer of life would haunt the whole record much as Bowie's Thin White Duke character had inhabited the excellent vampire-funk of 'Station To Station'.
So why else is this an underrated record? Firstly, it's not so much the dying embers of the group's less commercially successful era as a curious transition. The group had dropped the exclamation mark from their name (in an homage to Kraftwerk's equally influential offshoot Neu!) and were now working with Conny Plank who immediately refined the band's sound and gave it depth and nuance. It contains Foxx's finest, most cohesive visions around the topic of alienation and eschews some of the pretensions in his previous work. Finally it marries the propulsive kick of their more 'human' and previously awkward Foxx years with the glossier yet more mechanical pound of the Ure era, particularly on the mannequin-like 'Vienna' and the ominous 'Rage In Eden'.
History is often written by the winners. Whilst Ultravox gained the commercial success that eluded their former frontman (even moving into U2/Simple Minds-style stadium rock by the mid 1980s) Foxx's own works became more obscure, which is a shame since his debut - the cold, barely flesh-and-blood 'Metamatic' - is one of the finest, least-dated electropop albums along with the early Human League. Yet 'Systems Of Romance' is a well-hidden gold nugget in rock history, bridging the art-rock of the band's early years with the commercial new wave group that followed, complete with its wonderfully mysterious artwork, and at least the LP didn't suffer the ignominy of its having one of its singles kept from number 1 by Joe Dolce's 'Shaddup You Face'...
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