[Review] Ultravox: Systems of Romance (1978)
The band got more stylish, their music more stylized, as the machines got the upper hand of man.
Kronomyth 3: Kraftwrok.
The Rolling Stone Guide could dismiss an entire career with one sentence. I always envied the awesome power of that. One line in particular stands out: For technocrats and energy brats. I forget who that was about, but I admired how it so neatly fenced in a very large number of us. Wasn’t every synthesizer band preaching technocracy? And these glammed-up kids who wore their Roxy Music and David Bowie affectations on their sleeves, sartorial and sullen, weren’t punks but poseurs. Gary Numan, Icehouse, OMD, Japan: technocrats and energy brats. Which didn’t preclude them from making some excellent, eye-opening music. What they did was take the intellectual and artistic advances of the German electronic movement and apply it to the human condition. It was romantic youth rejecting a dispassionate world with even deeper dispassion. It was a parable for modernism that showed nature and furniture, self and other were equally valid reference points in a world where personal identity could be easily lost. But mostly it was music that spoke to a neu (and neutered) generation. Rock and roll rattled the status quo, but Ultravox rejected experience altogether. Just for a Moment, Dislocation, Quiet Men and Maximum Acceleration were a new breed of rock song that spoke not to the invincibility of youth but to the invisibility of youth. As a kid who wanted nothing more than to be invisible, Systems of Romance spoke to me in a way that few albums did. Yes, I missed the punk-rock energy of their first two albums, but it was an even exchange for angry, edgy robot music. Unfortunately, John Foxx left after this album, effectively ending the band’s association with the punk movement.
Original elpee version
A1. Slow Motion (3:21)
A2. I Can’t Stay Long (4:13)
A3. Someone Elses Clothes (4:19)
A4. Blue Light (3:04)
A5. Some of Them (2:26)
B1. Quiet Men (4:03)
B2. Dislocation (2:47)
B3. Maximum Acceleration (3:49)
B4. When You Walk Through Me (4:10)
B5. Just for a Moment (3:03)
All songs written by Ultravox.
CD reissue bonus tracks
11. Cross Fade
12. Quiet Men
The Players
Warren Cann (drums, rhythm machine, voice), Chris Cross (synthesizer, voice), Billy Currie (keyboards, violin), John Foxx (voice), Robin Simon (guitar, voice). Produced by Ultravox, Connie Plank, Dave Hutchins; engineered by Connie Plank and Dave Hutchins.
The Pictures
Sleeve concept by John Foxx. Group photography by Adrian Boot.
The Plastic
Released on elpee and cassette in September 1978 in the UK (Island, ILPS/ICT 9555), Australia and New Zealand (Island, L36761), Germany (Island, 26453XOT) and Japan (Island, 20S-63) and in December 1978 in the US (Antilles, AN-7069) with lyrics innersleeve.
- Re-issued on compact disc in 1992 in the UK (Island, IMCD 148) and on December 5, 1992 in Japan (Island, PHCR-18748).
- Re-issued on expanded compact disc in 2006 in the UK (Island, IMCD-326), Europe (Polydor, 983795) and Japan (Universal, UICY-93075) with 2 bonus tracks.
