Put The Needle On The Record - Week #7

Put The Needle On The Record Week #7 John Foxx - Metamatic

I think we all have albums we haven't played in years and this feature, hopefully, will encourage you to play the featured album we choose each week.

For this weeks feature we go back to January 1980 and the first solo album by John Foxx, who was of course the original lead singer of Ultravox. I can remember clearly buying this album at HMV in Manchester and I remember I had a dreadful cold!!

This is such a unique sounding album, it sounds cold and clinical and even to this day, nearly 45 years after its original release, it sounds futuristic.

For me this album deserves to be ranked as a classic 80s album.

The album featured just 2 singles, "Underpass" (which reached number 31 in the UK singles chart), a 12 Inch promo was also released which featured a different version of the album track "He's A Liquid" and "No-One Driving" (reached number 32 in the UK singles chart). "No-One Driving" was released as a double 7 Inch vinyl, which I still have, featuring the lead track, as well as, "Glimmer", "This City" (how this didn't make the album I will never know, it is one of THE best John Foxx tracks and is certainly in my Top 3 Foxx tracks) and "Mr No". The version of "No-One Driving is a remix of the original version of the song.

Mark Reeder produced 3 remixes of "Underpass" that are simply brilliant, I definitely recommend you check those out.

The album peaked at number 18 in the UK albums chart.

Track listing

Plaza
He's A Liquid
Underpass
Metal Beat
No-One Driving
A New Kind Of Man
Blurred Girl
030
Tidal Wave
Touch And Go

So if you have the album in your collection and have n't played it in a while, dig it out and give it a spin! By the way I play the featured albums each week when I put this feature together!