There was something about Berlin. At school I did not understand how the Soviet Union blockaded Berlin as I assumed that it was on the border between East and West Germany as it was split between the NATO powers and the Warsaw Pact nations. When I finally saw a map then I realised how it had happened. The fact that West Berlin was an isolated enclave within another country, surrounded by a wall and the most vulnerable point in the Cold War gave it a “live for now because tomorrow it could be over” feeling.
Berlin had become the in place to record after David Bowie’s trilogy of albums in the late 70s (Bowie is yet to come on the list). Ultravox had been fronted by John Foxx (https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1461 ) for some unsuccessful albums. He was replaced by Midge Ure, formerly of the Rich Kids and a mover in the New Romantic music scene. He was part of Visage – the New Romantic supergroup – at least for their first album.
They recorded the album Vienna, which is possibly the ultimate early 80s synth album.
It is austere, even cold in its musical design. That is not to say that all the songs are like the title track. Some are almost like rock tracks, just played with electronic instruments. The start of side 2 has the first three tracks mixed together – the very downbeat Mr X (the only track Midge Ure is not the vocalist on), merging into the much more rock Western Promise, ending with the cold beauty of Vienna. The integrity of this as a listening experience (along with many other albums) is what is so disappointing about modern streaming where the emphasis is on tracks, quite apart from the fact that I can curate my own playlists and do need someone telling me what to listen to. The title track is a classic, but the album builds (on both sides) both musically and thematically, with track sequencing being very important (Black Sabbath’s Mob Rules has two different running orders and the there is a different feel to them).
The song Vienna is about a lost love but the image I got of it was of that post World War 2 reconstruction of the cities on the front line of the Cold War, as Vienna was. The type of thing you can see in the film The Third Man. (I used to think Orson Welles was overrated and then I actually saw Citizen Kane and realised that he was a grand talent).
Ultravox released another album recorded in Berlin later in 1981 – Rage in Eden. Nothing wrong with it, but it did not touch the heady heights of its predecessor.
Like the music scene in general in the mid-80s Ultravox got a bit blander and less individual with the album Quartet, though controversy was stirred by a video of the single Visions In Blue with ample nudity (a cheap way of getting publicity with two topless women soaping each other down). Lament is their best post Vienna album and gave them their second biggest single – Dancing With Tears In My Eyes – a depiction of a man trying to get home after a warning about the start of a nuclear attack (a common fear of the eighties – see post like https://wordpress.com/post/fivemilesout.home.blog/1965 ).
There was another album before Ure left for a solo career; then a post Ure album that passed almost unnoticed.
Like a lot of eighties bands they reunited in the 21st century for the nostalgia tours. Ultravox made a new album and bucked the trend of these being rubbish by releasing Brilliant (and that name is a hostage to fortune) which was very good.
The best song to reach number 2 that never made number 1? It was voted that. For one week it was kept off the top by the recently deceased John Lennon’s Woman and for three weeks by the awful Shaddup Your Face by Joe Dulce. Undoubtedly. Distinctive, with an atmospheric video recorded in Vienna and London.
Vienna
Playlist (21 & 22 by Ure solo, 23 by Ure & Mick Karn):
- Astradyne
- New Europeans
- Passing Strangers
- Sleepwalk
- Mr X
- Western Promise
- Vienna
- The Voice
- We Stand Alone
- The Thin Wall
- Reap the Wild Wind
- Serenade
- Mine For Life
- Cut and Run
- We Came to Dance
- White China
- One Small Day
- Dancing With Tears in Our Eyes
- A Friend I Call Desire
- All Fall Down
- If I Was
- Call of the Wild
- After a Fashion
Five Miles Out 