U-Vox

U-Vox
Ultravox studio album
Publication (s)	October 1986
Label (s)	Chrysalis Records
Format (s)	CD, LP
Genre (s)	Rock , new wave , synth-pop
Title (number)	9
running time	42:49
occupation	Vocals / guitar / keyboard: Midge Ure Bass / keyboard / vocals: Chris Cross Drums: Mark Brzezicki Keyboard / violin: Billy Currie
production	Ultravox and Conny Plank
Studio (s)	Conny Plank's Studio, at Cologne Hot Food Studio, London Musicfest Studio, London West Side Studio, London Windmill Lane Studios , Dublin Air Studios , London
chronology Lament (1984) U-Vox Revelation (1993)
Single releases September 26, 1986 Same old story November 19, 1986 All fall down June 8, 1987 All in one day

U-Vox is the eighth studio album by the British band Ultravox . The album was released in October 1986 by Chrysalis Records and is assigned to the New Wave genre. It also marks the first production without the previous drummer Warren Cann and the last collaboration of the remaining three band members for a period of 23 years. In the mid-1990s, keyboardist Billy Currie reactivated the band name for two more albums with changing musicians. In 2009, the original line-up came together for the comeback tour Return to Eden and released the eleventh studio album Brilliant three years later .

In 2000, as part of the EMI Gold series, a rare remastered edition with five bonus tracks was released. On September 4, 2009, a double album came out as a Remastered Definitive Edition . In addition to a remastered version of the original album on the first CD, it contains a second CD with some B-sides of the single releases, live recordings and previously unreleased songs.

History of origin

After Set Movements World Tour for the promotion of the previous album Lament the band dating a six-month break, which by Chrysalis Records with the release of the UK with three platinum records excellent compilation album The Collection and the single Love's Great Adventure has been bridged.

The singer and guitarist Midge Ure initially devoted himself to other projects. In November 1984 he wrote the hit single Do They Know It's Christmas? With Bob Geldof . for Band Aid and was busy in the first half of 1985 with the preparations for the benefit concert Live Aid at London's Wembley Stadium , at which Ultravox also performed. In the further course of the year, the production of his first solo album The Gift with the subsequent world tour of the same name left no scope for further activities. Keyboardist and violinist Billy Currie and bassist Chris Cross set up home studios. During the absence of their front man, the two band members and drummer Warren Cann began work on the new album in Currie's Hot Food Studio in January 1986.

After Ure's return, latent tensions within the band became evident. Different views on the musical direction resulted in Ure's attempt to find a path back to the roots of songwriting and the associated type of instrumentation, which had made the first joint album Vienna a success. Cann, however, had increasingly focused his interest on the possibilities of artificial sound generation. During sample used it as a Iron Lung (dt. Iron lung ) designated electronic console consisting of drum machine , mixer , trigger and sequencer . The technology-driven departure from (analog) drums was, in Ure's opinion, the trigger for the breakup with Cann. In retrospect, Ure sees the expulsion of the founding member only as the culmination point of a development that can no longer be stopped anyway and for which Cann was merely the "scapegoat". The heterogeneous and, in his opinion, uninspiring composition of the songs - with the exception of All Fall Down , which was written and arranged by Ure himself - made him doubt the band's future prospects in view of his successful solo projects.

Conny Plank , who died about a year after the publication of U-Vox , was hired again as a co-producer for the first time after Rage in Eden . The recordings for the album took place in Curries and Ures studios in London and in Plank's studio near Cologne . In All Fall Down also the Irish music group appeared The Chieftains with whose contribution was recorded in Windmill Lane Studios in Dublin. With the mix is first started in the branch of AIR Studios on the Caribbean island of Montserrat . However, Plank was not satisfied with the automation settings of the local mixing console made by Solid State Logic . The mix was then completed in London with the participation of Ure's in-house engineer Rik Walton and sound engineer John Hudson at Mayfair Studios. Mark Brzezicki of the Scottish rock band Big Country replaced Cann on drums. With his military style of playing he helped the compositions to liveliness, but at the same time Ultravox lost an important part of the unmistakable sound.

Before rehearsing for the subsequent world tour, both Ure and bassist Chris Cross announced their planned departure from Ultravox after the concert tour was over. Although the musicians and management never officially spoke of a breakup, the band members went their separate ways from 1987 onwards. After a few solo albums, Currie used the band name in the 1990s for two more productions with moderate success.

Cover design

The company of British graphic designer Michael Nash was responsible for the artistic design of the album and single covers. With the exception of the third single, the leitmotif consists of the lettering U-Vox , in which the letters are designed in the form of parallel stripes similar to a barcode . For the album cover, a striking red was used as the background color and silver font, while the later CD editions have a lighter shade (white font on a pink background). Color variations were used for the singles Same Old Story (orange and black letters on a blue background) and All Fall Down (yellow and black letters on a green background). On the other hand, the cover of the single All in One Day shows over 500 faces of famous people.

Originally, the cardboard album cover was surrounded by an additional plastic cover, which was also provided with horizontal stripes. When placed one on top of the other, the writing took on the background color, so that the album title only appeared after the outer cover had been removed. During the packaging process, however, one of the casings was systematically rotated by 90 degrees; as a result, the album went on sale with a checkered pattern as lettering.

instrumentation

In addition to the combination of rock and synthesizer sounds known from previous albums, Ultravox broke new ground by using real brass instruments and borrowing from folk and classical music. The second single All Fall Down and the accompanying music video were created in collaboration with the folk band The Chieftains. The last song on the album All in One Day was designed by producer George Martin as arranger and conductor and recorded with orchestral accompaniment.

In Same Old Story Beggar & Co Horns appeared as brass in appearance. Guest musicians on The Prize included Gary Barnacle, John Thirkell, Pete Thoms and Derek Watkins . The saxophonist Barnacle and the trumpeter and flugelhornist Thirkell had worked for Level 42 , among others . Barnacle was also on the third and last Visage album Beat Boy involved, the trombonist Thoms at the 1989 released album Read My Lips by Jimmy Somerville . Watkins was best known in Germany as a member of the James Last orchestra .

Carol Kenyon provided the backing vocals for Same Old Story and The Prize . Bass player Kevin Powell provided support in Sweet Surrender .

Track list

1. Same Old Story - 4:38
2. Sweet Surrender - 4:34
3. Dream On - 4:47
4. The Prize - 5:37
5. All Fall Down - 5:09
6. Time to Kill - 4:26
7. Moon Madness - 3:28
8. Follow Your Heart - 4:53
9. All in One Day - 5:09

The Remastered Definitive Edition contains on the second CD:

1. Same Old Story (Extended Version) - 7:00
2. 3 - 4:01
3. All in One Day (instrumental) - 6:13
4. All Fall Down (Extended Mix) - 7:41
5. Dreams? - 2:31
6. All Fall Down (Instrumental) - 5:36
7. Dream On (Recorded Live at Wembley Arena, Nov 6, 1986) - 3:50
8. The Prize (Recorded Live at Wembley Arena, Nov. 6, 1986) - 4:58
9. All Fall Down (Recorded Live at Wembley Arena, Nov. 6, 1986) - 5:41
10. Stateless - 2:52
11. Same Old Story (Recorded Live at Glasgow Barrowlands, Nov. 1, 1986) - 4:32
12. Sweet Surrender (Recorded Live at Glasgow Barrowlands, Nov. 1, 1986) - 3:02
13. All in One Day (Recorded Live at Glasgow Barrowlands, Nov. 1, 1986) - 6:46
14. Time to Kill (Recorded Live at Glasgow Barrowlands, Nov. 1, 1986) - 2:53
15. All in One Day (Work in Progress Mix) - 6:31

Publications and chart successes

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

U-Vox   DE 49 11/10/1986 (3 weeks)   CH 29 11/16/1986 (1 week)   UK 9 10/25/1986 (6 weeks)

Singles

Same old story   UK 31 09/27/1986 (6 weeks) All fall down   UK 30th 11/22/1986 (5 weeks) All in one day   UK 88 06/20/1987 (3 weeks)

The album entered the UK charts at number nine and stayed in ratings for a total of six weeks. In Germany, it reached 49th place, the worst highest ranking of all the band's albums in the hit lists, while in Switzerland an album was charted for the first time (29th). Further chart positions in Sweden (16th) and New Zealand (49th) were added.

A total of three singles were released from the album: Same Old Story on September 26, 1986 (before the album was released), All Fall Down on November 19, 1986 and All in One Day on June 8, 1987. The first two singles, for The music videos that have also been produced only achieved single-digit chart positions in Poland and did not get above middle positions in Great Britain. The single All Fall Down , the most successful single at position 30 , was part of the then popular series of politically tinged songs that addressed the arms race in the final phase of the Cold War .

tour

Shortly after the album was released, the U-Vox tour began in Poland at the end of October 1986 . After concerts in Great Britain and Italy, two stations in Austria and nine appearances in Germany followed from the end of November to mid-December. In the first months of the following year, the world tour via Scandinavia and France finally led to Japan, Australasia and North America.

During the concert series, Pat Ahern - also with Big Country from 1989 to 1993 - sat on drums instead of Mark Brzezicki. The band also received support from Swedish guitarist Max Abbey, keyboardist and violinist Craig Armstrong and Colin King from the Messengers for backing vocals. Ure met Abbey in his role as a music producer for his band Strasse. Armstrong had already accompanied Ure to The Gift on tour in 1985 .

reception

Alex Ogg from Allmusic rated the album 2 out of 5 points. In contrast to extensive reviews of earlier works by Dave Thompson , Ogg restricts himself to calling the synthesizer-dominated musical style outdated. He only attests to the ingenuity of the single All Fall Down , while the other two releases are criticized as "superficial echoes" of earlier releases.

In fan circles, the album is also disparagingly called (Dreaded) Pink Thing with reference to the cover . After the departure of Warren Cann, who had a decisive influence on the sound for many musical fans, the album does not have the character of a typical Ultravox production.

Midge Ure and Billy Currie themselves described the musical legacy in the form of the last joint studio album from the 1980s in interviews from 2009 and 2010 as unsuccessful. The critical review is considered one of the reasons for the recording of another studio album after the band's comeback.

literature

• Christian Graf and Burghard Rausch: Rock Music Lexicon . Europe / band 2 , lake zombies . Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-596-12388-7 (pp. 751-1515).
• Robin Eggar: Midge Ure, If I Was… The Autobiography . Virgin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7535-1077-4 , pp. 124, 176-179 (British English).

Web links

• U-Vox at Allmusic (English)
• Lyrics of U-Vox on LyricWiki
• Booklet of the Remastered Definitive Edition by U-Vox (PDF; 15.9 MB)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Certified Awards Search. British Phonographic Industry , accessed September 14, 2014 (English, search term: Ultravox). 
2. ^ Robin Eggar: Midge Ure, If I Was ... The Autobiography . Virgin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7535-1077-4 , pp. 175 (British English).
3. ^ ^{A b} Robin Eggar: Midge Ure, If I Was ... The Autobiography . Virgin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7535-1077-4 , pp. 176 (British English).
4. ↑ Mark Forster: British Drum Icon - Mark Brzezicki. MikeDolbear.com, accessed January 2, 2013 . 
5. ^ Robin Eggar: Midge Ure, If I Was ... The Autobiography . Virgin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7535-1077-4 , pp. 177 (British English).
6. ^ Robin Eggar: Midge Ure, If I Was ... The Autobiography . Virgin Books, 2005, ISBN 0-7535-1077-4 , pp. 124 (British English).
7. ↑ Ultravox - U-Vox in the German album charts. charts.de
8. ↑ Ultravox - U-Vox in the Swiss album charts. hitparade.ch
9. ↑ Ultravox - U-Vox in the British album charts. officialcharts.com
10. ↑ Ultravox - Same Old Story in the British single charts. officialcharts.com
11. ↑ Ultravox - All Fall Down in the UK single charts. officialcharts.com
12. ↑ Ultravox - All in One Day in the British single charts. officialcharts.com
13. ^ AD Amorosi: Midge Ure reunites with Ultravox, writes his autobio and embarks on a solo tour.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Philadelphia Inquirer , January 4, 2013 (English)  
14. ^ U-vox or the "Pink Thing". Ultravox Official Website - Forums, February 26, 2006, accessed January 2, 2013 . 
15. ↑ Beatrix Gutmann: Midge Ure: "German fans are very loyal". In: DerWesten.de , May 7, 2010
16. ↑ Jim Powell: The Billy Currie Interview. (No longer available online.) In: 2uptop.com. 2009, archived from the original on December 7, 2012 ; accessed on January 2, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.