Celebrating its 45th anniversary today is the eponymous debut of Ultravox!, which was released on February 25th, 1977. Produced by Brian Eno, the album may have failed to make an impression in terms of sales, but it nonetheless struck a chord within the underground music scene in a way that would inspire the likes of Gary Numan, Japan and Visage and set a signpost that would ultimately point to the future of electronic music.
By the time this album was recorded, the band had been around in one form or another since early 1974. Initially known as Tiger Lily, by 1976 they’d developed enough of a reputation with their live shows that they started to find themselves garnering some attention and getting swept up in the rising tide of the “punk” phenomenon that was starting to garner headlines in the British press. This ultimately landed them a record deal with Island Records, even though they were still waffling on a band name. They were in the late stages of completing this debut album in October when they finally came up with the name “Ultravox!”. Though they may have adopted some of the superficial trappings of the punk scene, albeit more “glam” inspired, musically they were far beyond mere three chord thrashing, owing more of a debt to precursors like Roxy Music & Hawkwind and the German experimental scene as indicated by their name being augmented by an exclamation mark in homage to Krautrock pioneers, NEU!.
Thematically, the band’s then front-man, John Foxx, drew a lot of inspiration from writers like J.G. Ballard, which, again, put them beyond the simple nihilism of punk. It brought in a kind of dystopian futurism that would become an essential component within the post-punk and electronica scenes which would build on their groundwork. Foxx even proclaimed his intention to live “without emotion”, a sentiment he put to music in I Want to Be a Machine. With its 7+ minute runtime, it certainly didn’t align with the 3 minute trash of what was happening with the punks.
Ultravox! would last in more-or-less this incarnation until 1979 when Foxx departed and went on to a successful solo career. The band would undergo a rebuild with the arrival of Midge Ure and finally find its commercial feet, but early albums like their debut would end up being revered by those who were inspired by them.
