Artist:
Ultravox!Album:
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! and
Systems of Romance Genre:
Post-punk and
Synth-popYear:
1977-1978Back in the early 00s I was mostly familiar with the far more upbeat, melodic 80s synth driven Ultravox line-up that were now fronted by newcomer Midge Ure along with their commercial breakthrough album/song
Vienna (1980), that and a few of the following hit singles such as
Hymn (1982) and
Dancing With Tears in My Eyes (1984).
Anyway, all of a sudden I now had began to discover the earlier and much more chaotic and raw John Foxx version which was quite the "shock" for my ears, as I was probably expecting something more in touch with the 1980s sound and instead I got something very different, still I did enjoy some of it. In fact, the more I heard of it, the more I seemed to like their earlier releases.
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! is not an album that is "easy" listening at first, that's for sure.
The sounds coming out of that record showcases a band who feels very frustrated and angry, probably very much at their own record company, who they felt was not very good of backing up their own clients but also because the debut album had become pretty much ignored by both critics and buyers as well and where the music press seemed to be still completely obssessed with the punk movement.
But instead of treating the punk genre and lifestyle as an "enemy", John Foxx and Ultravox would embrace it and use the aggressive nature for all its worth, of course along with their own unique vision of trying to blend in their own musical heroes into this huge mix and as an result their second album turned out to become a very different in both sound and attitude than to their self titled debut, only released a few months earlier.
With only 8 songs and a length that finishes just above the 30th minute mark,
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! is an insanely fast paced and very, very heavy album which holds aboslute nothing back. This is right up there with the very best of what punk or post-punk had to offer at the time.
It is an raw, powerful and extremely catchy record but most importantly it is one that makes place for the bands most crowning musical achievment, where the hauntingly beautiful sounds of
Hiroshima Mon Amour gives the listener a clear vision of what to come, not just by Ultravox but one that would have a big impact on closing down the gap between music genres such as glam, kraut, prog and punk-rock and which more importantly played a huge part on influenceing a whole new bunch of young acts who had gotten tired of the punk music and who also shared Ultravox passion for acts such as Kraftwerk, Neu! Roxy Music, David Bowie and Brian Eno but had yet to found the "missing" link, well, until now.
With
Systems of Romance you can almost feel the change, not only by the obivous turn towards a more mature and stylished sound but also by looking at the album cover which showcases that we are in for something else.
Not many years ago I would have put this record as my favorite Ultravox album, no question about that.
The huge walls of sound coming at you from the opening number that is
Slow Motion, however, I had not heard it for a long time and just as with their debut album, I began early on noticing that it had not held up that well, in fact I was to be very disappointed, especially when compared to my recent and very successful re-visit of
Ha!-Ha!-Ha!.
Long gone are producer Steve Lillywhite along with the great and very talented guitarist Stevie Shears. Gone was also the once witty, sharp lyrics but more importantly the catchy
"FUCK OFF!" sound was just not there and now
Systems of Romance sounded suddenly very "bland" as a whole, where most of the lyrics and melodies was just not that great anymore and beside a few good ones, the rest of the material seemed often either uninspired or it just lacked that extra 30-40 percent to boost a could have been so much better cut into a really good song, but instead a lot of the time it seemed like unfinished "left overs" and where even the closest I could come to naming a "filler" on
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! with
While I'm Still Alive, that one would easily stood out here as one of the best numbers, and that for me pretty much sums up what a letdown it was to hear
Systems of Romance after such a long time.
Sure, there are no "bad" songs on it, however there are just too damn many forgettable ones, which often have some interesting musical stuff thrown in, that or the chorus is kind of catchy but overall it is for me (and I hate to use the word weak when it comes to John Foxx/Ultravox but I have to be honest) the most disappointing and yeah, weakest album of the trilogy released between 1976-1978.
Now, the good news is that there is not hard to figure out why it became such a big favorite amongst younger artists such as Gary Numan, Duran Duran, The Human League and likely a whole lot of other british musicians on the lookout for that one huge sound or song which might just turn out to become a "game changer" and
Systems of Romance comes with a couple of those and what an experience it must have been to either be at a nightclub or in a record store then suddenly discovering the sounds of
Slow Motion or
Quiet Men.
However for me the real stand out and I do mean STAND THE FUCK OUT! on this record is the minimalistic, nightmarish, mechanical beast that is
Dislocation.
What a tune that one really is. Hearing it again, it still sounds like nothing else I have heard.
A very cold, clinical and unsettling piece of music that even Kraftwerk would be proud of (or so I think) and one which I have always felt would have fitted much better if it had been included on John Foxx first solo album,
Metamatic (1980).
This song is masterpeice and for me easily the best thing about
Systems of Romance.
The only "downpart" is that it is too damn short. It should have gone on for at least another 30-50 seconds or more.
Looking back, I have no trouble seeing how their second album
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! was one where I kind of got a bit "stuck", as the record itself did kind of the same thing, being tied in between two more "accessible" albums, where the debut was to include a solid mix of all kind of different music genres, all come together and where the band seemed not to have yet found their style and was still trying to get their act together but also prove they were a force to be reckoned with, or at least creatively.
Then you have the third and final record of the original Ultravox line-up, which was to feature a completely different musical approach to their earlier releases.
One which would also sadly mark the end of an shortlived but very influential period of time and while never really finding their own "place" within the world of music at the time or coming any close of a becoming "sellable" product, Ultravox (with or without the exclamation mark) did in the short period between 1976-1978 release three very important albums which in return would go on to find a whole new audience where as many young artists in search for something else, would turn to John Foxx and Ultravox as an huge inpsiration of the sound they were looking for.
Ha!-Ha!-Ha! 9/10
Standout tracks: ROckWrok, Fear in the Western World, Distant Smile, The Man Who Dies Everyday and Hiroshima Mon Amour
Systems of Romance 5,5/10
Standout tracks: Dislocation, Slow Motion, Quiet Men and Just for a Moment