In the newest UK official album Top 100 there's a new entry at #48 - a deluxe reissue of the LP "Rage in Eden" by Ultravox. Midweek chart showed an even better result - #16! I'm sure we all agree that's more than respectable for the album that only recently celebrated its 41th anniversary. That also gives me a chance to present the chart collection of my favourite musicians. Ultravox are perhaps the most underrated band of their era, constantly trashed or overlooked by the press and "tastemakers" and yet they are among the very influential, perhaps the most influential of the bunch, be it music, cover design, videos etc, creating templates, setting the bars and so on. It's really quite hard to overstate their importance to the music of the last 50 years or so.
And they even managed to become pretty successful commercially almost all around the world. Their main undoing was not being able to conquer the all-important US market - much lesser bands are much better known and celebrated for having a string, or even one or two hits there. Still, their legend lives on and resonates with generations of listeners - first the 2020 reissue of "Vienna" entered the UK Top 50, now "Rage in Eden", their most artistic and experimental album. That's quite a feat.
I also included in this file chart information about the satellite acts. First for their frontmen, John Foxx and Midge Ure. The former himself created at least one highly influential album ("Metamatic"), which is now rightly praised as a milestone in the development of electronic music, while the latter had an illustrious carrier that yielded him several international hits and a growing respect with both colleagues and the public. Also, there's an info on Visage, an act of, if not equal, then clear and distinct importance and influence itself, despite sharing members with Ultravox. Of course here is the case of one huge hit trumping everything else, but their first two albums are widely held in high regard and their reissues still meet with waves of appreciation. Even their reappearance in early 2010s as a touring and recording act drew attention and received quite a bit of praise.
All in all, a very creative bunch of guys that did more than their fair share to change the music as we knew it, for better and for worse, but undoubtedly with all the best intentions in the world! Let's see how they fared in their day and beyond.
(Download and open in Microsoft Word for the bestest viewing experience😊)
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