More Ultravox

It’s clear that I need to find time very soon to sort my non-classical LPs so I can locate the Ultravox ones—these videos I’m finding on YouTube have me really wanting to get reacquainted with them. Here are a few more that anyone who liked “Vienna” may also enjoy.

I wouldn’t rate Ultravox as great lyricists, but they came up with evocative images and phrases very well-suited to their sound and general ambience. We were talking here not long ago about the yearning that’s a prominent feature of so much pop music; well, you can sure hear it in these songs, especially the last one.

Two more from the Vienna album; first, “Passing Strangers,” with not too bad a video:

Moments caught across an empty room...
Hope turns to dust, shattered by light

And the haunting “Mr. X”:

Perhaps he died in a car crash years ago...
I’ve got a funny feeling I know who he is

And from Lament, which I think is overall not quite as good an album as Vienna, one of my very favorite Uvox songs, “One Small Day.” This is one that really needs to be kind of loud, but the audio volume on this clip is lower than on the others, so you may want to turn it up a bit:

One day
Where I didn’t die a thousand times
Where I could satisfy this life of mine
One small day
One day
Where every hour could be a joy to me
And live a life the way it's meant to be
One small day

Ultravox: Vienna

This song is from one of my very favorite pop music albums, Vienna by Ultravox (1980). In general I hate music videos, and rarely watch one all the way through; if I want to hear the music, I look at something else while the video plays. But I rather like this one. There are places and stories in my imagination that look a lot like the street scenes here (not the interior scenes, especially). (Romantic? Who, me?)

I found two distinct versions on YouTube, one in mixed color and black-and-white:

And one in more or less black-and-white throughout which may just be a very murky version of the color one:

I would prefer it entirely in black-and-white, if it were really sharp. But you can see a lot more in the first one.