Saturday, January 30, 2021

1981 Singles # 21 Ultravox

 


Not something I like. I didn't at the time. It's ludicrously portentious and quite meaningless, a series of art school shapes and poses, putting on long coats, going outdoors and turning up collars in the shallow pretence of projecting the profound, a conceit it has no real right to. Blitz Club refugees and clothes horses gatecrash the Hapsburg Empire and Midge Ure models sideburns that you could probably cut bread with. It marked the end of the much worthier John Foxx Ultravox phase and the moment when Midge well and truly  truly seized contol of the reins and the band finally started to shift units. Best listened to in the company of its video which was utterly ubiquitous at the time and marked the band's arrival in the mainstream as UK singles contenders. A position they maintained for a number of years. Every hit thereafter  was to some degree a rewrite of Vienna, every video a recasting of the Vienna video. The single was kept off Number One by Joe Dolce's Shaddap Your Face. It's fair to say that Midge probably had the last laugh.

P.S. An alternative way of looking at this is that it is a good tune.

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