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No, we won't be reopening the age-old debate about the double life of Ultravox, split between the pure avant-gardists led by visionary John Foxx and the more pragmatic, more successful outfit fronted by new frontman Midge Ure. First of all because it's bored us to death (chiefly because it's pointless), and secondly because this playlist, which traces both eras, tries instead to highlight the points of contact between them and a certain experimental continuity. And finally, all the more so, because rather than fishing out the British band's chart hits, we'll be focusing – as you'll have guessed – on the more hidden, lesser-known side of their output, which is often just as inspired (if not more so). In short, no "Dangerous Rhythm", "I Want To Be A Machine" or "Hiroshima mon amour" from the early phase, nor "Vienna", "The Voice" or "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" from the later one. We'll be digging through the tracklists of albums released under the Ultravox name – from the essential self-titled debut of 1977 to the launch of the new era with "Vienna" all the way to the 2013 reunion album "Brilliant" – to (re)discover the hidden treasures that have always characterised their discography, lending richness and variety to their work.

Saturday Night In The City Of Dead

As if their quality alone weren't enough, the songs from the Foxx era also deserve credit for the beauty of their titles. Starting with the very first track that opens the British band's self-titled debut album, recorded in 1976 and released in 1977. "Saturday night in the city of the dead" unfolds over a frenzied yet controlled post-punk rhythm, like a robotic ballet. The scenario recalls "Chronicles from after the bomb", to borrow from Philip K. Dick: a mechanised, terrifying future that suppresses vitality and annihilates the individual. Written when the band was still called Tiger Lily, it anticipates their new formula while retaining clear ties to the punk era.

Slip Away

With this small art-rock pièce, Ultravox immediately reveal the full ambition of their project, which certainly doesn't settle for renewing punk's fury, but rather aims to move beyond it, forging a futuristic, decadent sound of their own – born of the pioneering electronics of Brian Eno and Kraftwerk, but also of the glam rock of David Bowie and Roxy Music – the latter especially echoed in the elegant shades of this track, composed by John Foxx together with keyboardist Billy Currie, who immediately emerges as the band's second soul, the one more inclined towards atmospheric and (neo-)romantic touches. The tension between the former's futurist spirit and the latter's romantic sensibility would go on to define the band's entire history. Elegance and nostalgia, hidden behind the chill of the synths.

Fear In The Western World

"Fear in the western world" is still the same anxiety that haunts new wave as a whole: dread of the Cold War, of a mechanical, dehumanised future, in which the omnipresence of the television medium conjures the spectres of an Orwellian Big Brother: “Your picture of yourself it’s a media myth/ Someone told me Jesus was the Devil’s lover/ While we masturbate on a magazine’s cover/ Mother’s still on valium/ Daddy puts the news on tv/ Orphans laughs at the confusion/ Ireland screams/ Africa burns/ Suburbia stumbles/ I can feel the fear in the western world”. A dissonant strain of electronic punk drives a theatrical, absurdist pageant with a marked streak of irony, in a choral tour de force credited to every member of the group at work on their second album, "Ha Ha Ha!" (1977): Warren Cann, Chris Cross, Billy Currie, John Foxx, Stevie Shears.

Artificial Life

John Foxx once again dons his android guise for this intriguing electronic pastiche, picking up where "I Want To Be A Machine" on "Ultravox!" had left off. Produced, like its predecessor, by Steve Lillywhite, protégé of Brian Eno (who had left his mark on the debut), "Ha! Ha! Ha!" confirms Ultravox as one of the founding fathers of new wave, with a formula that hybridizes crucial elements that were, for many, irreconcilable before this venture, such as glam rock and kraut-rock, electronics and a primordial form of punk. An "artificial life" in which, however, a hammering creative heart still beats. Complete with a heart-stopping final guitar solo. And more than a few echoes of their contemporaries - and wonderfully raw - Japan of "Adolescent Sex".

Dislocation

In the third and final chapter of the Foxx saga, "Systems Of Romance" (1978) - the first work produced by Conny Plank, guru of electronic rock since the days of the legendary Can - Ultravox lose the exclamation mark but gain in sonic variety, progressively abandoning punk and glam in favor of a full-on encounter-clash between electronics and romanticism. The total dominance of these latter two elements should be read as a reflection of the ever-growing tension between Foxx and Currie, which would prove incredibly fruitful for the album's success but would lead, in 1979, to their inevitable split. With its stuttering drum machine and keyboard pulses and its ghostly choirs, underpinning Foxx's desolate, clinical vocals, "Dislocation" is perhaps the experimental peak of an album blessed with inspiration even in its seemingly minor moments.

Maximum Acceleration

Speaking of seemingly minor moments, here's one, in which "maximum acceleration" is actually a sly, unhurried progression driven by dark bass lines, with Foxx's vocals wrapped in synth drapery and pierced by searing guitar riffs, in a decadent atmosphere typically Bowie-esque, where elegance masks rising tension. A little gem within an album in which Ultravox establish themselves as standard-bearers of a thoroughly European new wave, one that shuns the clichés of American rock: Currie plays violin rejecting blues scales, drawing instead on classical music, while Foxx taps into a decadent imagery in line with the avant-gardes of the Old Continent. A shame, though, that the idyll between the Quiet Man and the rest of the crew was already coming to an end. Ultravox would carry on chasing Currie's love of decadence and romanticism, churning out a series of wonderful albums, among the finest expressions of 80s synth-pop; Foxx, on the other hand, would launch a solo career of a thousand incarnations, indulging his passion for futurism, starting with the icy masterpiece "Metamatic".

Astradyne

To put to rest, once and for all, any debate over the supposed "commercialization" of post-Foxx Ultravox, this dazzling, cosmic mini-suite that opens "Vienna" (1980) - the first, and landmark, chapter of the band's new era - would be enough on its own. Seven breathtaking minutes of grandiose, experimental electronics, echoing the golden age of Tangerine Dream, driven by a pulsing bassline that merges with melodies sketched out by killer synths, while sequencers and spare drumming carry us on a cosmic journey studded with dreamlike swirls and keyboard solos. One of the finest instrumentals in the Ultravox catalog, and in all of new wave.

New Europeans

With "New Europeans" we're on the border between an anthology classic and a hidden gem worth rediscovering. For Ultravox fans the former may apply, but for everyone else it might be worth digging out of the memory drawer this masterclass of a track, placed second in the tracklist of "Vienna" and (mysteriously) never released as a single. A manifesto of the album's Mitteleuropean celebration, the track bursts out of the speakers with its bouncing gait, marked by Warren Cann's obsessive beat, alternating drum tempos while Ure's searing guitar paints a first rock-driven bridge and a second, more suspended and melodic one. The frontman's own catching, sobbing vocal delivery is masterful too, backed by abstract keyboard flourishes that give way, in the finale, to a magnificent piano. The Europe of Ultravox is a continent corroded by decadence, depicted through almost Hollywood-style glamour scenarios (in the vein of "Julia"), yet capable of casting an uneasy glance toward the future: “On a crowded beach/ washed by the sun/ He puts his headphones on/ His modern world revolves around the synthesizer’s song/ Full of future thoughts and thrills/ his senses slip away/ He is a European legacy/ A culture for today”. Musically, Ure and co. carry out an operation that is the reverse of what Trevor Horn was pursuing in those same years: rather than subverting the structures of the pop song, they convert them into an art form, through contaminations with electronics (the keyboards) and classical music (the violin).

Mr. X

The Kraftwerkian lineage of Ultravox is reaffirmed by this other masterful robotic number that seems to come straight from the grooves of "The Man-Machine": it's the story of a mysterious traveller narrated by drummer Warren Cann's voice, with a glacial spoken delivery over a lush carpet of synths, and the final eruption of Billy Currie's viola. The pulsing, martial rhythms, the obsessive samples, the distorted, reverbed vocoder effects all conjure cyberpunk scenarios. "I'm still searching," Cann intones stubbornly. And everyone wonders just what the object of that search might be… An absolute tour de force, the ideal soundtrack for a Philip K. Dick science-fiction novel. To be injected on loop, Ludovico-technique style, into anyone who accuses the Ure-era Ultravox of having given up on experimentation.

I Remember (Death In The Afternoon)

Here too we're on that thin ridge separating the classic (for the fans) from the track waiting to be rediscovered (for everyone else). Anyone who loves the Ure-era Ultravox can't help but hold up this icy electropop piece as a guiding star, though it slipped past most people thanks to the greater popularity of other tracks from "Rage In Eden", such as the singles "The Thin Wall" and, above all, "The Voice". Propelled by Cann's obsessive drumming, the noir snapshot of "I Remember" is another masterful showcase for Ure's taut, metallic vocals, scarred by the guitars' constant slashes and cradled by the sinuous flow of Currie's keyboards, right up to the extraordinary final surge: a crescendo brimming with pathos, in which a piano part of aching beauty merges with the guitars' searing tears, setting up the reprise of the chorus. The emotional peak of this synthetic Eden, and one of the masterpieces of the entire Ultravox saga.

Accent On Youth

The whole of "Rage In Eden", their last album produced by Conny Plank, is in fact a new futurist nightmare, a sepulchral requiem filtered through a grey, glassy hue, as shown by a series of thoroughly experimental episodes (so much for the supposed commercial turn theorised by the usual clueless critics). Almost a propellant for the instrumental explosion of the following "The Ascent", the electro-rock of "Accent On Youth" is driven by a relentless, hammering drumbeat and embellished by a web of guitar filigree that flecks the thick blanket of keyboards, while Ure delivers another of his cries of pain (“You take my time you live my life for me/ What have I done to rate this penalty/ You suck me dry/ My body cries”). The track doesn't actually end, but flows naturally into the following one. And that's another revelation.

The Ascent

Indeed, because once the merging phase from the previous track is over - of which it initially seems just a continuation - "The Ascent" unveils another astonishing instrumental spell, with master Currie's aching violin solo sparring with the keyboards in a majestic, breathtaking symphonic crescendo à la Schulze. Just two minutes and nineteen seconds long, but among the most beautiful and evocative of the British band's entire career, with Currie holding court with his classical influences, somewhere between Tchaikovsky and Béla Bartók, alongside the late bassist Chris Cross with his synthetic modulations. The icing on the cake of that masterpiece called "Rage In Eden", fully able to hold its own against its more celebrated predecessor "Vienna".

Serenade

With the collaboration with Conny Plank over, none other than his majesty Sir George Martin took the producer's chair for the following "Quartet", recorded entirely in digital. Despite the success of the single "Hymn", the album was generally rather snubbed, even by many Ultravox fans. Definitely to be ranked a notch below its two predecessors, "Quartet" is actually a bold compendium of Ultravox's brand of electropop, which here, amid the full explosion of new romantic, lets the traces of that Visage experience resurface more clearly - an experience that had in fact proved decisive for the birth of the band's second incarnation (just listen, for instance, to the single "Visions In Blue"). This serenade "in rhythm and swing", sung by a mellifluous, sly Ure, might come across as a touch mannered, but it flaunts a rarefied elegance in its syncopated gait, underpinned by the frontman's hooking guitar lines as he engages in thrilling new instrumental duels with Currie, sublime this time on piano.

Mine For Life

"Quartet" almost entirely abandons the instrumental suites that had made the fortune of the first phase of the new Ure-led course, focusing instead on a highly refined kind of "electronic song". Thus was born the desperate "Mine For Life", with its intriguing sonic layering, between a direct riff and pulsing bass. Ure turns in one of his finest guitar solos, engaging in another formidable close-quarters clash with his friend Billy's keyboards, sublimated in the splendid interlude that kicks in at 2'33" and ennobles the whole track, granting all of us those "forbidden desires" invoked in the lyrics. It would find new life too in the fine live rendition on the live album "Monument" (1983), amid a flurry of Ure's notorious "oh oh oh ohh"s.

When The Scream Subsides

The real surprise on “Quartet”, though, is the most “rock” track of the bunch. The relentless “When The Scream Subsides” skillfully blends post-punk energy with a strong melodic streak, hitting on an intoxicating, irresistible groove that carries the vocals of a Midge Ure increasingly in command of his (always considerable) vocal powers. The synth flourishes, expertly carved out by Currie, and Chris Cross's pulsing bass (which even gets a brief solo here) have to make way for the frontman's distorted guitar solo, which splits the song in two, well supported by Cann's relentless drumming, which underpins it while also adding backing vocals. A deconstructed track fleeing the classic song format: enough to make plenty of bands envious, bands that tried (in vain) to reproduce a certain eighties sound in the early 2000s.

Heart Of The Country

Having by now fully abandoned electronic instrumental scores in favor of a refined song format, the Ultravox of “Lament” prove they can handle their new sonic guise brilliantly too, more in line – it's 1984, after all – with the emerging new pop of the day, yet still light years away from the more stereotyped, glossy mainstream productions of the period. Amid their icy synthetic scores, the warmth of Celtic folk and ancient melodies seeps through, though the horizon remains anguished, melancholy. Even in this bucolic sketch that is “Heart Of The Country”, which reveals all the love for those British moorland landscapes later celebrated in the unforgettable video for “Lament”. With the alluring keyboards in the background lulling the listener into this dreamlike, nostalgic ode.

Man Of Two Worlds

The true hidden gem of “Lament”, however, is this disarming track, on which Midge Ure is joined by the stunning female vocals (in Gaelic) of Mae McKenna, perfect with that evocative vibrato of hers in summoning ancestral melodies, suspended in time. “Man Of Two Worlds” is a prodigious surge on an electronic canvas, taking flight after the classically epic intro, the eruption of Cross's cadenced bass and the lashes of guitar – more distorted than ever – from a Ure particularly at ease in these hazy landscapes bordering on Celtic folk. A marvel.

A Friend I Call Desire

And to bolster the already intense pathos of “Lament” (the album containing the most harrowing post-atomic love song of all time, “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes”), there's also the closing farewell of “A Friend I Call Desire”. Another highly emotional episode, unfolding over a masterful guitar riff carved into a bed of the darkest synths, with Midge Ure still in a state of grace at the microphone, backed by more female vocals to give vent to all that sense of suffering and irremediable melancholy oozing from the album's grooves. One could consider it Ultravox's true farewell.

Dream On

With “Lament”, in fact, Ure and co. seem to have poured all their creativity into crafting elegant pop-wave songs, steeped in the same decadent, melancholy spirit as the first albums of the new era, but stripped of that visionary electronic exploration that had remained the true trait d'union between the Foxx period and what followed. On “U-Vox”, weighed down by an ill-judged production, all that's left are half-hearted attempts to repeat the experiment, pushing further into the Celtic folk territory dear to Ure, following in the footsteps of British bands in vogue at the time such as Alarm and Big Country. Amid the general mess, at least this atmospheric track is worth saving – recently dusted off for the soundtrack of the Netflix series “Supersex” – on which Ultravox seem to rediscover the mysterious magnetism of their golden years, thanks to an icy synthetic backdrop where the sinuous keyboard flourishes and Ure's pained delivery stand out; not long after, he would launch his solo career. With few real high points, admittedly, among which we're happy to recall the magical duet with Japan bassist Mick Karn on “After A Fashion”.

Rise

The story of Ultravox effectively ends with that 1986 misstep (followed, however, by a thoroughly respectable tour, which this writer had the good fortune to attend). While Ure ventures out on his own, Currie, who holds the rights to the name, reforms the band with other musicians to produce two entirely skippable LPs (“Revelation” from 1993 and “Ingenuity” from 1996). Then, in 2012, comes the unexpected reunion for “Brilliant”: Billy Currie, Midge Ure and Chris Cross reunite with plenty of enthusiasm but few ideas. A missed opportunity, then, though at least the fifth track on the record lives up to the album's title – as Marco Bercella points out in our review – “bringing into focus robotic textures close to the 'Systems Of Romance'-era, in a curious point of contact with Foxx's current productions, with one of those lethal little synth solos that only Currie can pull off, which upon repeated listens turns out to be the best of the bunch, however hard Midge tries, unsuccessfully, to undermine it with a forgettable falsetto in the bridge”.

This is where we close the circle, hoping you can keep reopening it by discovering other feats, hidden and otherwise, from the glorious saga of Ultravox (the complete collection of their tracks is available in this Spotify playlist).

In memory of Chris Allen Cross (London, 14 July 1952-25 March 2024)

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01/02/2026