Vienna by Ultravox: classic or dud?

I'm filled up with aggression
Want to smash your television
Saturday night you watch TV
Saturday night does nothing for me

Dead cities dead cities
Dead cities dead cities

See the man in the electric chair
They beat him up and shave his hair
There is no future to behold
In the city of dead you'll be there

Dead cities dead cities
Dead cities dead cities

Im getting wasted in this city
Those council houses are getting me down
Go up town, see who's there
There's nothing to do, it's getting me down

Dead cities dead cities
Dead cities dead cities

Snarling and gobbing and falling around
I really enjoy the freedom I've found
My mate's beside me, lying on the ground
His ears are bursting with the volume of sound

Dead cities dead cities etc. to fade

"Yellow Pearl" to be precise.

Still, I love Ultravox's performance of this at Live Aid.

There was a Mojo article about this a couple of years ago. What I remember is that Midge kept playing Kraftwerk albums in the tour bus and Lynott would get pissed off.

"Perfect Strangers" is totally ace.

but maybe it has and i am not aware of it.

As for the album, it was kind of ambitious and didn't fulfill its ambitions one hundred per cent, but I still find it a nice listen.

Just let me add that "Quartet" is their most underrated album and possibly even their best.

absolutely. the first album i ever bought (or had bought for me). i was six.

this song is beyond classic, and if you don't agree then you have cauliflowers for ears.

VIENNA IS THE BEST ULTRAVOX ALBUM YES IT IS EXCEPT IF YOU ARE GOING TO GET THE "COLLECTION" GREATEST HITS

Also I listened to Midge Ure's early band The Rich Kids yesterday - their album "Ghosts of Princes In Towers" from 1978. It was actually really cool, sortof a mix of glam and punk.

great song.

OHHH VIEEEENNNNAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

This song is forever associated with quickly finished diners so we could watch the video as it came on Toppop (dutch national pop show).

I'm enjoying this record quite a bit, if not Midge Ure's contributions to it.

omg those warbly synths all over this album

I'd like this record more if it was (a) instrumental; or (b) John Foxx had stuck around. Ure sings like a high school choir student auditioning for a Barbra Streisand album.

It means nothing to me...

I have been listening to this song on repeat all week.

The lyrics to New Europeans are almost Bernard Sumner-esque:

In a quiet street washed by the rain, the room within the home.
A lonely man sits cheek to cheek, with unique designs in chrome.

That prompts unpleasant thoughts.

"Unique" is too polysyllabic for Bernard.

A photograph of lovers lost lies pressed in magazines
Her eyes belong to a thousand girls, she's the wife who's never seen
Their educated son has left in search of borrowed dreams
His television's in his bed, he's frozen to the screen

Proto-Bernard, surely. Especially the "frozen to the screen" bit, he means glued to the screen but it doesn't scan...

Seems more like what would happen if Gary Numan's dad wrote lyrics.

The ARP Odyssey solos on this record absolutely kill -- Currie really created a totally unique solo instrument.

pitch bend until it sounds like freaking theramin

I don't care that much for the title track, to be honest. Too much Midge, not enough Billy.

Why didn't anybody tell me about the genius of Ultravox, I want to scream. I am listening to Vienna the album for the first time.

why HASN'T this song been sampled?!? it would be PERFECT.
but maybe it has and i am not aware of it.

It has been 'quoted' by Take That in their 2010 single "Eight Letters"-- which is embarrassingly but not surprisingly how I came to listen to Ultravox for the first time

which is embarrassingly but not surprisingly how I came to listen to Ultravox for the first time

seems fairly surprising to me tbh, I doubt many people came to Ultravox via ver That

anyway I'm not sure if Ultravox have ever played in Vienna (the city) before but they are coming here in October – will be so great to hear the song played in the city that inspired it

If you like the Vienna album, then you should get a lot out of Systems Of Romance (from the John Foxx era of the band) and Rage In Eden. All three were produced by the legendary Conny Plank, and still sound absolutely wonderful. Midge-era Ultravox post-Rage In Eden are a bit hit-and-miss in my opinion, but there's the occasional gem there; and the pre-Vienna stuff is definitely ALL worth checking out!

It is SO WEIRD I missed this band. I went through a "let's get into Conny Plank" period ten years ago, tracked down pre-reissue "In the garden" etc. but never thought to listen to Ultravox and they're basically everything I like in one band

It's funny, because I think the title track of the Vienna album is my LEAST FAVOURITE thing on there! I don't think it's a dud by any means, but I listen to that album for stuff like 'Astradyne', 'New Europeans', 'Private Lives', 'Passing Strangers' and 'Western Promise'.

Never heard this album cos the title track always put me off. Dumb really cos I do like the albums immediately before and after it.

If you like Systems Of Romance and Rage In Eden, I see no reason why you wouldn't like the Vienna album EVEN if you didn't like the title track. I think you'd get quite a lot out of Side One in particular. 'Vienna' itself doesn't appear until WELL into Side Two (it's the penultimate track on the album), and it flows in from the preceding track ('Western Promise'), so it does make a little more sense in the context of the album. It's still my least favourite thing on there, though. Easily.

In a way, I kinda resent 'Vienna' being such a big hit, because it tends to be the ONE Ultravox song that the majority of people know. I don't really think it truly represents the album of the same name, and nor do I think it truly represents the GOOD part of the Midge Ure era (1980-1981). It definitely doesn't represent the Foxx era.