Ultravox

In the late '70s and early '80s Ultravox proved themselves innovative and influential many times over, as they moved through shifts in style and personnel. They started out under the name Tiger Lily as a glam rock band, forming in London in 1973 with singer John Foxx (born Dennis Leigh), guitarist Stevie Shears, bassist Chris Cross (born Chris St. John), keyboardist/violinist Billy Currie, and drummer Warren Cann. They released one single as Tiger Lily in 1975, and by the following year they had become Ultravox. While they were part of the first wave of punk in the U.K., their self-titled 1977 debut LP mixed punky intensity with a strong glam/art-rock influence. In this way, they pushed punk's boundaries and set the scene for post-punk before the latter even existed. Ultravox's second album, Ha! Ha! Ha!, came out later the same year. By 1978, Robin Simon had replaced Shears, and the increased presence of electronics on Systems of Romance proved enormously influential to the synth-pop movement that was soon to come, especially Gary Numan, who based much of his early sound on the band and employed Currie on both his breakthrough 1979 album The Pleasure Principle and subsequent tour. Despite their influence, Ultravox's first three albums never made any commercial headway, and Island Records dropped them in '78. Foxx moved on to a solo career, and Simon followed his exit. Ex-Rich Kids singer/guitarist Midge Ure replaced them both, and in 1980 a drastically different Ultravox emerged on Vienna, moving solidly into the electronic camp while innovating an elegant but danceable style that came to be known as New Romantic. The style swept the nation, influencing a whole generation of bands, and Ultravox found fame for the first time, with the album hitting No. 3 in the U.K. and the title track achieving legendary status. The darker, more intense 1981 follow-up, Rage in Eden, was extremely successful as well. The poppier Quartet was produced by George Martin, and marked the band's first commercial inroads into America. 1984's Lament brought one of the band's biggest hits, "Dancing With Tears in My Eyes." Ultravox fired Cann in 1986 and he was replaced with Mark Brzezicki of Big Country on U-Vox. The band broke up in '88, and in 1992 Currie brought Ultravox back with an entirely new cast of bandmates, releasing a pair of poorly selling albums. They called it quits in 1996, but the original band reconvened in 2008 and began touring, eventually releasing 2011's Brilliant.