How Ultravox invented the 80s
The influence of pop pioneers Ultravox spreads way beyond their epic 1981 hit Vienna.
But do they embody the 80s? Wasn’t that Depeche Mode, Madonna, Eurythmics or U2?
Let me explain. Here are 6 ways in which Ultravox — yes, Ultravox — invented the 80s:
Synth pioneers
Ultravox began in 1974 as an experimental glam punk band fronted by John Foxx.
Originally called Tiger Lily, they changed their name to Ultravox! in honour of krautrock band Neu! before losing the exclamation mark.
Foxx told Classic Pop magazine: “The name resembled an electrical device, which we were.”
Ultravox fused sparse electro with raw punk on their self-titled debut album and 1977 follow up Ha!-Ha!-Ha! This contained Hiroshima Mon Amour, which hypnotised many future synthpop acts.
The band enlisted Kraftwerk and Neu! producer Conny Plank for third album Systems of Romance, taking their sound in a deliberately European direction.
“We tried to maintain our own way the whole time.”
Bassist Chris Cross, talking on Australian TV show Countdown
The album’s mix of electronica with guitars and other traditional instruments proved to be hugely influential. Gary Numan was among those who expressed an admiration for Ultravox, as he topped the UK singles chart with Are “Friends” Electric?
But despite earning respect from peers and critics, early Ultravox albums did not sell and they were dropped by their record label.
Announcing that he had decided to live without emotions, Foxx left the band after a US tour in 1979. He went on to become an acclaimed solo artist with hits including Underpass and Burning Car.
New Romantics go overground
While the original Ultravox was breaking apart, strings and keyboard player Billy Currie joined the band Visage — formed by Rusty Egan, the DJ at highly influential New Romantic club Blitz.
They were joined by Midge Ure, who was already in a band with Egan called Rich Kids. Ure had previously had a number 1 hit as lead singer of Scots glam rock band Slik and had played on tour with iconic rock band Thin Lizzy.
Visage would go on to have a massive hit with Fade To Grey, sung by Blitz club host Steve Strange, taking the New Romantic sound overground.
Ure later explained to Prog magazine why he was so keen to join Ultravox: “We’d been playing [Ultravox album] Systems Of Romance in clubs like the Blitz, and through big speakers that stuff sounded fantastic. I loved what they were doing with technology.”
Midge Ure became Ultravox’s new frontman in 1979. His soaring heartfelt vocals and skills as a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter helped revitalise the band — as heard on Sleepwalk, their first single together.
Currie told Prog mag: “We worked well together in Visage, that’s why I asked Midge to join Ultravox. This line-up integrated more, pooled our ideas. In retrospect we found our own sound — other ‘electronic’ bands weren’t using ‘real’ instruments alongside synths. At the time I wondered why not.”
“We were so pleased to still be carrying on as a band that we pulled out all the stops, and it was great.”
Billy Currie
Ure’s suave retro futurist image — straight from the Blitz dancefloor — topped off by a pencil moustache and the sharpest sideburns in pop, also helped Ultravox secure magazine covers and mainstream appeal. Ultravox would go on to have a total of 17 UK hit singles and seven Top 10 albums.
The band has always acknowledged its New Romantic heritage, most directly on their 1982 hit We Came To Dance. Ure neatly sums up the scene on The Thin Wall as he sings: “Just living lines from books we’ve read, with atmospheres of days gone by.”
But for the revitalised Ultravox, New Romanticism was just the start.
Videos become epics
The song Vienna was a synth, strings and piano epic — and Ultravox wanted a music video as ambitious as its sound.
So they enlisted director Russell Mulcahy, who had already made Video Killed the Radio Star (for The Buggles), Turning Japanese (The Vapors), Empire State Human and Circus of Death (The Human League) plus the video for previous Ultravox single Passing Strangers.
When their record label refused to fund the Vienna video, unconvinced this 5 minute opus could be a hit, the band crossed their fingers and helped pay for it themselves.
Why was a lone horse walking through the cold air? Why does that man have a tarantula on his face? Who let these Blitz Kids crash the embassy party?
If it is possible to decipher the symbolism of the Vienna video, no-one is letting on. As brilliant as it is preposterous, the electro noir epic closes with Midge Ure singing into the middle distance: “This means nothing to me.” Most of us would agree — we’re just happy to be immersed in its haunting decadent melodrama.
As the single became a massive 1981 hit, Vienna raised the bar for music videos. If it wasn’t an artful masterpiece on a grand scale, we were no longer interested.
The timing was also perfect. MTV started broadcasting 24 hour music videos soon afterwards, ensuring ambitious mini films such as Vienna gained mass exposure.
Russell Mulcahy would go on to direct some of the most iconic videos of the 80s including Rio and Wild Boys for Duran Duran, I’m Still Standing for Elton John and Total Eclipse of the Heart for Bonnie Taylor — a video that eclipses even Vienna in its scale. He also directed the immortal blockbuster Highlander in 1986, soundtracked by Queen.
The Ultravox single was taken from the band’s fourth album, also called Vienna, now recognised as a synth pop classic. Its striking cover photo was by Brian Griffin and the band subsequently worked with designer Peter Saville and photographer Anton Corbijn among others.
“Art, film and music were starting to interweave more,” bassist Chris Cross explained to Classic Pop mag. New Order, Depeche Mode and the Pet Shop Boys would go on to perfect this multimedia approach.
It could be argued that subsequent Ultravox videos failed to match the impact of Vienna — but they had a good crack at it. The band reunited with Mulcahy for The Thin Wall, a gripping rush of symbolism which sees Ure pulled into a wall, drowned inside a car and crushed by a giant ceiling fan.
Other Ultravox music videos depicted Satanic pacts (Hymn) and nuclear destruction (Dancing With Tears In My Eyes), while Visions in Blue is an art house opus that showed just enough flesh to be censored in 1982.
If the Vienna music video remains central to the Ultravox legacy, that’s nothing to be ashamed of. Fresh off the Vienna set in 1981, Midge Ure told TV show TopPop: “It’s a good bit of film. It will last forever.”
Gigs go electronic
By mixing electronica with guitars and other traditional instruments, Ultravox got tangled up in early arguments about the merits of “real” music compared to anything created using synths.
EDM (electronic dance music) is now a festival staple — but in the early 80s, audiences still needed to be convinced that musicians playing electronic instruments could cut it live.
“His modern world revolves around the synthesiser’s song”
New Europeans, from the album Vienna
Thankfully Ultravox had already proved themselves onstage. The band’s original line up received their first deal from Island Records thanks to their abilities as a formidable live act.
Drummer Warren Cann explained to Classic Pop magazine: “We made some major inroads on people who, at the time, equated the sound of a synthesizer only with ticky-tocky toy beeps and whistles.”
He added: “We’d slammed them against the back wall of the Marquee Club with their ears bleeding from the roar of a synth at full rip. Still makes me smile.”
The early Ultravox line-up even withstood being gobbed on by fans (the traditional sign of punk appreciation) whenever they performed Young Savage.
After John Foxx left, the band decided to stand behind their giant synths onstage — but charismatic frontman Midge Ure helped to compensate for this, engaging the audience as the band ramped up their sound.
Ultravox remained a respected live act and they continued to tour until 2013. They played their final gig in support of Simple Minds at London’s O2 Arena.
Dancing into the apocalypse
Impending doom was a recurring theme in Ultravox lyrics.
Synth bands embraced new technology to push music into the 80s — but it remained a period of political tension between the East and the West, with a pervading fear that the world could go nuclear at any time.
Ultravox reflected this Cold War paranoia and the legitimate terror of annihilation across their early 80s output.
The nightmarish urgency of their 1980 single Sleepwalk was followed by the menacing paralysis of All Stood Still.
“Everyone kissed (we breathe exhaust)
In the new arcade (of the holocaust)”
All Stood Still
But it was Dancing With Tears In My Eyes that addressed our nuclear horror head on. Its video depicts an everyday couple’s final hours after a nuclear reactor core overheats. “We drink to forget the coming storm,” sings Midge Ure. “The man on the wireless cries again — it’s over.”
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes reflected a general feeling of utter helplessness in the face of political conflict during the nuclear age. This was also portrayed in Raymond Briggs’ acclaimed graphic novel Where The Wind Blows (1982) and BBC movie Threads (1984), which tracked the grim aftermath of a nuclear attack on Sheffield. After just a single screening, Threads was banned by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government.
Ultravox had a defiant and humane response to the nuclear threat: dance into the apocalypse. What else could we do?
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes was released in 1984 and became the band’s biggest UK hit after Vienna.
Two years later, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant disaster led to an explosion that released large amounts of radiation near the Ukrainian city of Pripyat. While its long term effects remain uncertain, the World Health Organization estimates up to 4,000 deaths may be linked to the accident.
Music feeds the world
Synth pop was lightening up towards the end of 1984. Its icy electronic pulse, doom-laden vocals and religious imagery were being displaced by warmer rhythm sections (Duran Duran) and slick old school instrumentation (Spandau Ballet).
Ultravox acknowledged this with the upbeat Love’s Great Adventure, complete with an action-packed video Indiana Jones could be proud of.
But just as it seemed war may not bring apocalypse after all, along came famine. Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa, experienced its worst famine in a century, which would leave up to 1.2 million people dead.
To support the relief effort, Bob Geldof formed the supergroup Band Aid and enlisted Midge Ure to co-write and produce their single Do They Know It’s Christmas? It sold 3.7 million copies, with all proceeds going towards Ethiopian famine relief.
Ure and Geldof also co-organised the transatlantic Live Aid concert in July 1985, which raised £145m, plus its 2005 follow-up Live 8.
More than 75 acts took part in Live Aid, including Ultravox who sang Reap the Wild Wind, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, One Small Day and of course Vienna.
Future music icons such as U2 and Madonna also made their mark at Live Aid, now seen as a turning point in public taste away from synth pop and back towards rock.
Midge Ure subsequently left Ultravox in 1987 to pursue a solo career. The full band reunited in 2008 before finally calling it quits in 2013.
Ultravox left us with a groundbreaking series of albums, singles and music videos. Their influence can be heard directly in bands such as Ladytron, The Editors and Adult, and indirectly in any musician who mixes guitars and strings with glorious electronica.
It’s an impressive legacy. On the 40th anniversary of Vienna in 2021, Ure reflected: “We had one foot in the future, one in the past, and were trying to make something timeless.”
- Still not convinced that Ultravox invented the 80s? Try their greatest hits album The Collection from 1984.
- Or for a deeper dive covering every era of Ultravox, head to This Is Ultravox on Spotify.
