Ultravox's atmospheric "Vienna" is one of 1981's most surprising UK hits

Ultravox : Vienna

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In January of 1981, Ultravox released the UK#2 single "Vienna", produced by krautrock pioneer Conny Plank . The band had been looking to Europe for inspiration and discovered their signature song. Rip It Up And Start Again author Simon Reynolds describes the song in this way: 

 Ultravox...plunged into full-blown Teutonica with the quasi-classical "Vienna". Wreathed in the sonic equivalent of dry ice, this ludicrously portentous ballad --inspired by a vague notion of a past-its-prime Hapsburg Empire sliding into decadence--reached number two in the U.K. charts in the first weeks of 1981 and hovered there for what seemed like an eternity.

"We weren't trying to write a successful song," Midge Ure told the boys at Sodajerker On Songwriting recently. "We were trying to write a piece of music. So three minute limitations and pop sensibilities had kinda gone out the window. And it sounds like a stupid thing to say after the success that "Vienna" was, but at the time it was so remote, so obscure and such a bizarre thing to even contemplate putting out as a single. Who the hell would play it on the radio? But they did! I think the timing was right. People needed to hear something that was released straight after Christmas and New Year when everyone's fed up hearing Wizzard and Slade and later Band Aid. So they were desperate for something new when it got its chance to be played on the radio , it resonated with people ."

Classically trained Billy Currie was responsible for the music. Chris Cross came up with the bass line and Warren Cann with the drum sound that bring the song into this century. Ure walked into the rehearsal room with the lines "the feeling is gone, only you and I, this means nothing to me". 

Though the single may come across as bombastic and bigger than life, it was recorded with a drum machine, a synthesizer bass, a piano, a couple of synth lines and a violin. The listener fills in the atmosphere.

Sadly, the song that blocked Vienna from topping the charts was Joe Dolce's "Shaddup Your Face". Criminal!

 

Ultravox ushers in The New Romantic sound with Vienna

Ultravox : New Europeans

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On July 11, 1980 Ultravox released its best known album, Vienna, ushering in a new Eurosynth sound that would be called New Romantic. For Vienna, the new line-up of Ultravox returned to Germany to record with Systems Of Romance producer Conny Plank. The album cover would be shot by Dutchman Anton Corbijn.  Now featuring Kraftwerk fanatic Midge Ure as its new singer, the band made its artistic statement on the song "New Europeans": 

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's a European legacy, a culture for today 

By looking to Germany for inspiration, as Bowie had done earlier, Ultravox tapped into a vein. With the music of Gary Numan, Bowie, Ultravox frontman turned solo artist John Foxx, Human League, up and comers Spandau Ballet and Visage (another band Ure and Ultravox's Billie Currie were members of), a new scene developed where androgyny, a spoiled kind of artistocracy and loads of synthesizers all intersected. These were the Blitz Kids, named for a London music venue where electropop bands performed. 

This was filmed in November, 1980. Steve Strange appears 5:00 in. Spandau Ballet at 7:00.

The music had nothing to do with American-based blues and it worked on almost every level.

The instrumental opener "Astradyne" sounds like the birth of the movement that would eventually give us Duran Duran. Chrysalis Records, however moved the song to the end of the A side for the US release , preferring to start things off the first single from the album, "Sleepwalk". 

The next track is "New Europeans", the first song to really pop off the album for me. 

The album's most famous song is its title track, described in this way by Rip It Up And Start Again author Simon Reynolds:

Ultravox...plunged into full-blown Teutonica with the quasi-classical "Vienna". Wreathed in the sonic equivalent of dry ice, this ludicrously portentous ballad --inspired by a vague notion of a past-its-prime Hapsburg Empire sliding into decadence--reached number two in the U.K. charts in the first weeks of  1981 and hovered there for what seemed like an eternity.

Fun fact: the song that held "Vienna" from the top spot was "Shaddup Your Face" by Joe Dolce.

From Robert Christgau a grade of C:

First they wanted to be machines, now they want to have roots--it's new, it's different. "A European legacy, a culture for today," sings former Rich Kid Midge Ure through a signifying synthesizer, and he's not being ironic--new Europeans may be jaded, but they avoid irony except in totally frivolous contexts. So they buy electronic instruments, rendezvous in Köln with Conny Plank, and manufacture dance music for the locked pelvis. One strange thing, though--sounds like "Western Promise" should be called "Algiers."

From Smash Hits:

On both "Mr. X" and the apocalyptic "All Stood Still", the synths run the show. I was still playing the latter on my college radio show when "Dancing With Tears In My Eyes" was climbing the charts in the U.K.

"Sleepwalk" introduces a new Ultravox sound that sells

Ultravox : Sleepwalk

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On June 16, 1980 Ultravox released the UK#29 hit "Sleepwalk". When John Foxx left the band a year earlier to pursue a solo career, Ultravox had dissolved. Then keyboardist Billy Curie met journeyman Midge Ure while working on the Visage album with Steve Strange. They decided to regroup and "Sleepwalk" is the first song Ulktravox ever recorded to feature Ure. Produced by Krautrock pioneer Conny Plank, the song helped Ultravox Mach II land a record deal with Chrysalis. It is also our first peek at the band's new sound which would propel the forthcoming album Vienna to UK#3.

-Smash Hits

40 Year Itch: The Guru Manipulator Goes Live

On November 3 1973 Miles Davis performed tunes that would show up on his live albums Agharta , Pangaea and Dark Magus.  Davis' group included Dave Liebman on sax and flutes, Reggie Lucas on Electric Guitar, Pete Cosey on electric guitar and percussion, Michael Henderson on bass, Al Foster on drums and James "Mtume" Forman on conga and percussion. This is heavy music, with one platform shoe immersed in dark funk ( the one that leans on the wah wah pedal)...and the other in space jazz.



The critics panned a lot of what Davis was doing these years...calling the music "sloppy". Davis himself was in pain. He had arthritis in his hips, ulcers and medicated himself with far too much alcohol and cocaine. After a Newport Jazz performance in 1975, Davis would retire from the public eye for six years.