Put The Needle On The Record - Week #33

Put The Needle On The Record Week #33 Ultravox - Vienna

For this weeks feature we go back to July 1980 and the Ultravox album "Vienna".

I was a big fan on the first era of Ultravox, with John Foxx as the singer, especially the album "Systems Of Romance", which is one of my all time favourite albums, a groundbreaking album, after the band was dropped by their label after the "Systems Of Romance" album, John went on to start his solo career with another fabulous album from 1980. "Metamatic". Ultravox were not deterred" and continued with a new vocalist, Midge Ure and in 1980 they released the stunning album "Vienna", one of THE greatest ever albums released in the 80s.

I clearly remember buying this record on the day of release, I also bought the 12 inch Public Image single "Flowers Of Romance" on the same day....from my second home, HMV on Market street in Manchester. I think the cover of the "Vienna" album is a masterpiece in its own right, excellent photography.

This is one of those rare albums where every track on the album could have been released as a single, aside from the singles released, the tracks "New Europeans" "Western Promise" and "Private Lives" would easily have merited being released as singles. This album is very close and indeed quite possible my favourite album of all time, it is certainly in my Top 5.

The album featured 4 singles, "Sleepwalk" (which reached number 29 on the UK Singles chart, it deserved to do better), "Passing Strangers" (which amazingly only reached number 57 in the UK Singles chart), "Vienna" (which reached number 2 in the UK Singles chart and stayed in that position for 4 weeks, Joe Dolce's "Shaddap You Face", the biggest injustic in pop history - how the hell did that stop "Vienna" from reaching number 1) and "All Stood Still" (which reached number 8 in the UK Singles chart).

The album also reached number 3 in the UK Album Chart.

It is very sad that we lost Chris Cross from the band this year.

Track Listing

Astradyne
New Europeans
Private Lives
Passing Strangers
Sleepwalk
Mr X
Western Promise
Vienna
All Stood Still

Interestingly the Northern American edition of the album had a different track listing that looked like this:

Sleepwalk
Passing Strangers
New Europeans
Private Lives
Astradyne
Mr X
Western Promise
Vienna
All Stood Still

If you have this album in your collection, dig it out and give it a spin!