Ultravox - The Collection POLL (Midge Ure/Chrysalis era 1980-1984)

This is difficult, I'm torn between Passing Strangers and The Thin Wall.

Passing Strangers

Gah, serious cock-up on the image there...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5d/Ultravoxthecollection.jpg

Yeah, I'm finding this one just as difficult as the Foxx one, to be honest... until I've given it some thought, I can easily say which ones I wouldn't consider voting for: 'We Came To Dance' (one of their weaker singles), 'Love's Great Adventure' and 'Vienna' (which is my least favourite track on its parent album my miles, if only because it's the one Ultravox song that's been played into the ground and it doesn't really represent the album anyway, I feel!)

I'm very tempted to vote for 'One Small Day', actually... jesus christ, that's the very definition of "soaring chorus"!

yes, a recent fave of mine too! Midge, we take it all back!?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYxh1ANUjM4

"New Europeans" glaringly absent here, no "White China" either - I know what Alex In NYC is voting for though! Reap. The. Wild...

"Passing Strangers" (flanged bass!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUyd8JJaMIM

"The Thin Wall":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLcT0U-9iV4

Voted "Passing Strangers" but have to mention that the live version of "The Voice" on the Monument live album may just be my fave moment of theirs.

Most of this stuff is unbearable, but "One Small Day" totally works. I love Midge's solo, and how I'm sure he makes faces to match.

The Thin Wall or Reap The Wild Wind

Am I the only one who thinks "Vienna" wipes the floor with the rest of this list?

New Europeans wasn't a single, was it? That's probably why it's omitted.

I love all four of the singles from Vienna but it has to be Reap The Wild Wind for me. Beautiful song.

Most of this stuff is unbearable, but "One Small Day" totally works. I love Midge's solo, and how I'm sure he makes faces to match.

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, November 6, 2014 11:56 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Unbearable!?

No, 'New Europeans' wasn't a single, but it could easily have been! I don't think 'White China' was a single either.

'Passing Strangers' seems to be more popular than I thought, though! It's always been a favourite of mine, but I didn't realise it had so many fans.

Am I the only one who thinks "Vienna" wipes the floor with the rest of this list?

― goth colouring book (anagram), Thursday, November 6, 2014 1:52 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well, I certainly disagree. One of the Ultravox tracks I return to the least out of both the Foxx and Ure incarnations.

I love these tracks though not the source albums in their entirety. But I wonder how it sounds to fresh wars - it's got to have dated and the pomposity of it all must be silly to most.

I find Muse and Queen both far more pompous than Midge-era Ultravox, to be honest. Although I understand what you mean about not loving the source albums in their entirety... I think Ultravox and Rage In Eden are both fabulous albums from front-to-back, but Quartet and Lament have one or two spotty moments. The less said about the Warren Cann-less U-Vox (thankfully not covered by this compilation), the better. Fucking awful record.

one of the best Midge Ure era (Rage In Eden album) tracks missing from this comp ~ "The Stranger Within":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypX66O8UrKQ

Unbearable!?

― Welcome To (Turrican)

Midge Ure is a horrible singer and when he hits high notes I duck.

xpost:

I love the 'Accent On Youth'/'The Ascent'/'Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)' sequence on Rage In Eden. If My Bloody Valentine were allegedly meant to sound "like God sneezing in slow motion", then 'Your Name (Has Slipped My Mind Again)' sounds like God slamming the universe's largest book shut over and over again.

I'll agree about Midge Ure being a horrible singer now. Some of his vocals on the last Ultravox album (Brilliant) make me wince.

I think Ultravox and Rage In Eden are both fabulous albums from front-to-back

Gah, I meant Vienna, ofc...

"Vienna" isn't shallow, bombastic or any of the things it's often accused of being. It's epic, haunting, glacial.

My favourite band (and thing in the world) in 1981 when I was ten. It's between the Vienna tracks, The Voice and RTWW for me. Predict no votes for DWTIMeyes, only a hit because of the video.

I went to see them for the first time on the 2008 tour and hooked up with some card carrying fans, as I wasn't going with anyone I knew. Among them was a teenager who had got into them via her dad's record collection. They disdainfully call the U-vox album "the pink thing" and have similar love for Warren Cann as Roxy fans do for TGPT. He reciprocated by showing up at a nearby pub after the show and drinking with us - apparently did this each night of the tour.

What's interesting to me is that while there are some people (such as myself) that like both the Foxx-led and Midge-led Ultravox line-ups, more often than not you'll find people who are heavily into one particular line-up over the other. This is interesting, because the basic core of musicians of Billy Currie, Chris Cross and Warren Cann remained the same in both line-ups, with Midge taking up guitar duties in the second line-up whereas the Foxx-led Ultravox had Stevie Shears and Robin Simon. And these three members were responsible for more than people think in both line-ups of Ultravox... hell, Warren Cann was responsible for quite a lot of the lyrics in the early stages of the Midge led line-up, and if you look at the writing credits for the Foxx-led albums, it wasn't as if Foxx was doing all the writing.

And it's not just a case of disgruntled Foxx fans thinking that Midge "took over" and "ruined" their band, either... the OFFICIAL Ultravox website is presented in such a way that mostly seems to deny the existence of the Foxx-led albums, so there can be some perceived snobbery on both sides.

disgruntled Foxx fans thinking that Midge "took over" and "ruined" their band

This is more or less my position tbh.

not that Foxx-era Ultravox didn't have its religio-mystic pomposity but he knew when to chill the fuck out and not get adenoidal ("Hymn," ugh).

I mean, Midge sounds like Jack Wagner on some of these

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xn8E9rrBt7s

But the thing is, Midge didn't just step in and "take over". John Foxx was the one who left the band, and Midge was invited to become a member of Ultravox after working with Billy Currie in Visage during the period Ultravox weren't doing anything. It's clear that Midge wasn't the sole driving force during his years in Ultravox, and the direction in which they were going had as much to do with the other three than with him. Although, success does weird things to people, I guess, and Midge could be forgiven for thinking he was the reason Ultravox were successful during his years. Certainly, around the time of Live Aid and just after, it was clear that Midge's ego had ballooned a little: the solo album, the sacking of Warren Cann... etc.

"Adenoidal" is an extremely harsh way of putting it!

i think midge's main problem was he lacked any sort of mystique or coolness - he was just some scottish bloke with a spivvy 'tache and an arched eyebrow, no matter how hard he tried (too damn hard if you ask me)

He was cool when he was in Slik, but not at all thereafter.

Wasn't much different to his Slik image when he was in the Rich Kids.

i confess i've still not heard slik

i think midge's main problem was he lacked any sort of mystique or coolness - he was just some scottish bloke with a spivvy 'tache and an arched eyebrow, no matter how hard he tried (too damn hard if you ask me)

― john wahey (NickB), Friday, November 7, 2014 3:45 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, I can definitely agree with this... the pointed sideburns & pencil 'tache combo just looked so fucking ridiculous, although I do think he looked more comfortable when he was 'tache-free and had the long hair circa Lament. If we're talking about Midge vs. Foxx in terms of "mystique" or "coolness", then Foxx definitely takes the prize without any hesitation or doubt.

i confess i've still not heard slik

― john wahey (NickB), Friday, November 7, 2014 4:06 PM (7 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

You're not missing much!

With regard to the change in the band's sound between the Foxx and Midge eras, the exasperating thing is that it was so opportunistic. Regardless of who was mostly responsible for the music, Ure joined Ultravox on the back of his stint in Visage and at a time when Gary Numan was at the height of his popularity. Numan had acknowledged the influence of Foxx-era Ultravox on his first two albums, both of which were a mix of guitar and synths. But by the time of The Pleasure Principle, which was all but guitar-free, Ultravox were on hiatus. And then, hey presto! they re-emerged with a synth-heavy sound.

Added to this, when Foxx himself re-emerged as a solo artist with Metamatic he was also foregrounding the synth to the exclusion of the guitar. It was as if the whole lot of them decided to abandon the guitar at the same time, following the lead set by Numan.

(xp) Oh I don't know, "Requiem" is quite an interesting song.

But there's guitar all over the Vienna album! It never stopped being a component of the Ultravox sound, and they'd done guitar-free tracks in the Foxx years like 'Dislocation' (in fact, I'd go as far as saying the Vienna album was musically a continuation of the sound they'd explored on Systems of Romance, not to mention that OMD and The Human League were already around or at least formed by the time Foxx came out with Metamatic, and OMD and The Human League certainly weren't taking their cues from Numan!

I'd say that given that it was John Foxx that left Ultravox, the remaining members of the band were free to choose whether to carry on or not without him, and they chose to carry on.

By which I mean, surely it was the right of the remaining band members to carry on without Foxx?

the other thing that happened round about the time of midge signing up was that the whole new romantic scene blew up and i think that a lot of post foxx stuff was their take on that rather than them necessarily copping moves off numan. you could argue that hiroshima mon amour was a precursor to duran duran etc and obv midge was in visage so thinking about them in that context kind of makes sense. certainly there's a shift from ballardian black humour to grandiose songs about the crumbling of old world europe etc. god knows they surely weren't anyone's idea of smash hits new-rom pin-ups though

Yeah, they definitely weren't what I'd call "pin-ups". I think Steve Strange was more the "visual" side of Visage, whereas Billy Currie, Midge, Rusty Egan and the members of Magazine/The Banshees that were on the record were responsible for the musical side of it. It's highly plausible that some "Visage-ness" would have seeped into the work of the Midge-era line-up on a musical level, but the Midge-era line-up didn't really slot comfortably in with the New Romantics in a visual sense.

I mean, none of 'em looked like Steve Strange or fucking Boy George, y'know!?

actually listening to this stuff

it isn't as bad as i feared

The Voice is actually kinda ace

actually

If you like 'The Voice', you'll pretty much like the whole of Rage In Eden. They worked with Conny Plank for that one again, as on Systems of Romance and Vienna, and it was pretty much the only time they wrote material in the studio.

In fact, they worked with decent producers both throughout the Foxx years and the Midge years: Brian Eno, Steve Lillywhite, Conny Plank, George Martin/Geoff Emerick...

quite like Hymn too

I think the versions of 'The Voice' and 'Hymn' are edited down on The Collection, both of those songs run for nearly 6 minutes on the albums.

I'll agree about Midge Ure being a horrible singer now. Some of his vocals on the last Ultravox album (Brilliant) make me wince.

They definitely made some bad vocal decisions on that album, but reunion video footage suggests that he has retained most of his range.

I'd go as far as saying the Vienna album was musically a continuation of the sound they'd explored on Systems of Romance

Yup (and side 2 of Ha! Ha! Ha!). I definitely don't think they hopped on the synth train after Numan hit it big - SOR was the album that made Numan want to explore that sound. (It's too bad "Slow Motion" wasn't a massive hit so this era of Ultravox would have gotten its due for really jump-starting the synthpop era.) In addition, the US tour with Foxx ended in March 1979 - by November they were back touring with Midge. Vienna wasn't released until July 1980, but most of it was written months before.

As for John Foxx abandoning the guitar as mentioned upthread, Ultravox was already inching toward the Metamatic sound with "Dislocation," "Just For A Moment," "Quiet Men," and "Cross Fade" -- not to mention that "Touch & Go" and "He's A Liquid" were played during 1978/79 Ultravox shows. (I know "Quiet Men" has guitar, but I think of it as more of a synth song and it was an image/theme that Foxx kept revisiting.)

god knows they surely weren't anyone's idea of smash hits new-rom pin-ups though

I had an Ultravox pic from Smash Hits on my wall. I thought post-stache Midge was very handsome.

The first two Midge-era LPs are pretty great. "Passing Strangers" is my pick for this poll. "Sleepwalk," "New Europeans," "All Stood Still," "The Voice," "The Thin Wall," "We Stand Alone," etc. etc. Top stuff.

Quartet is kinda weak - "Reap The Wild Wind" is corny, but sneaks by with that grand, glacial synth part. I really prefer to not listen to "Hymn," but "The Song (We Go)" is a great closer, and I dig "Serenade," "Mine For Life," and "Visions in Blue." Lament is mostly good. U-vox is painfully stinky despite Conny Plank producing.

As for the official website ignoring the Foxx era, I think there might be lingering resentment about how that era of the band ended - going through a final tour knowing the vocalist was leaving at the end (and then not receiving writing credits on his first solo album), being dropped by their label after releasing three albums with minimal success... I can understand just wanting to ignore it - though they did perform some of that material live when Midge first joined.

But by the time of The Pleasure Principle, which was all but guitar-free, Ultravox were on hiatus. And then, hey presto! they re-emerged with a synth-heavy sound.

Worth noting that Billy Currie was part of Numan's band in 1979 when Ultravox was on hiatus. Think he appears on The Pleasure Principle too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryiGc1efry0

Yeah, that's correct, both 'Touch and Go' and 'He's A Liquid' were performed live by the band prior to Foxx leaving and were destined for the next Ultravox LP. In fact, 'Mr X' from Vienna has musical similarities to 'Touch and Go' (which I'm sure Warren Cann touches on in that interview I posted in the Foxx-era thread). And yeah, Billy Currie did play on The Pleasure Principle and tour with Numan in '79.

Quartet is kinda weak - "Reap The Wild Wind" is corny, but sneaks by with that grand, glacial synth part. I really prefer to not listen to "Hymn," but "The Song (We Go)" is a great closer, and I dig "Serenade," "Mine For Life," and "Visions in Blue." Lament is mostly good. U-vox is painfully stinky despite Conny Plank producing.

I'm not overly fond of 'Serenade', but I like 'Reap The Wild Wind', 'Hymn', 'Mine For Life', 'Visions In Blue', 'Cut and Run' and especially 'When The Scream Subsides' quite a great deal. 'We Came To Dance' and 'The Song (We Go)' don't do much for me either, really.

While the Warren Cann interview I posted in the Foxx-era thread doesn't touch on the time they made Quartet with George Martin, I did manage to find some quotes from other interviews regarding working with him...

First up, Warren:

One of the most pleasurable meetings of my life was spending time with George Martin. He was eminently knowledgeable and truly charming, a gentleman I always privately thought of as "Sir George," long before that was made reality by a subsequent honours list. Our choice of working with George was another example of a great idea - certainly to us - which backfired and was totally misinterpreted by everyone else, or so it seemed. We wanted to work with George Martin; the man who produced the making of what is considered one of, if not The, greatest albums of all time… Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. But we got slammed for working with "Mr. Mainstream." We'd lost it and had "sold out." Hey! This was the guy whose work on that pioneering record has been assimilated by every band on the planet. Of whom it's been said, "… the man who put on record the band who changed the world."

The press just didn't get it!

When we approached him we were well aware that he'd been working with more, shall we say, conservative acts. We made it clear we weren't wallflowers in the studio… if we needed to bring in fifty washing machines, fill them full of rocks, mic them up, and turn them all to spin-cycle - then we'd do it. We were very up front about it. We were game for anything. During the recording of "Quartet," I often sat there thinking, "Wow! Pinch me! I'm working with George Martin and Geoff Emerick, producer and engineer of Sgt. Pepper!!"

It didn't turn out quite as we'd imagined. Perhaps George was tired or perhaps we were suffering from our own misconceptions, but it was a rather sedate experience and not the liberating sonic voyage we were expecting. However, I wouldn't trade that adventure for anything. By the way, it says "produced by George Martin" because that was in the contract as a condition of working with him. A concession we were happy to make.

and then Midge...

"George Martin is obviously a brilliant man, he was great to work with as well but in a very different way. He made a much more polished record, at times maybe too polished. Ultravox had a bit of an edge to it and I think that the Quartet album was a very sort of chic record, designer music, you know. I don't know if it was quite the right thing to do."

never heard/saw this before (gotta be some Duran Duran influence in the video idea):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPwmoLl60nc

this poll exactly coincides with my finally getting around to buying Quartet and Lament on LP. similarly Dance and I, Assassin. AND Adolescent Sex plus Obscure Alternatives. ILM repping hard for them helped. gap-filling is a pleasure with such great groups!

might even pick up Sparkle In The Rain and Speaking In Tongues on LP someday soon too.

Not a bad of albums there, Paul! :D

*set of albums, rather.

Gotta say, I still dig Midge with the Rich Kids. It's not all gold but the best bits like "Ghosts Of Princes In Towers" are terrific.

x-post yeah lots of b-albums with occasional a-moments! takes the pressure off zee masterpieces.

Looks like someone's uploaded the Monument film, from around the time they were making/touring Quartet. First time I've heard George Martin talk about his work with Ultravox, even if he doesn't say an awful lot. Peter Saville also features.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GxNgAOKHUE

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Aw, poor The Voice and One Small Day! And how wrong I was about DWTIM Eyes.

Thanks, Turrican, for running this and the Foxx era one, which has prompted some 'further listening', as the Midge era reissues might call it.

Wonder what would win a non-singles poll, or what album tracks would rank highest in a ballot poll. White China (live version)? We Stand Alone?

Insane that five people voted for "Dancing..." and no one voted for "One Small Day."

I was going to vote for 'One Small Day' but ended up going for 'The Thin Wall' at the last moment, I'm really surprised nobody else voted for it though. Likewise 'The Voice', I thought that would be up there as well!

thought I voted for "One Small Day" - maybe I voted "Passing Strangers" instead? or forgot to check if I had actually voted - I did vote for "Slow Motion" on the other thread.

Oh, my sentimental friend