It's rated five bottles. What's so good about Ultravox!? 

Really simple. First, great songs, unique construction and clever use of synths; second, powerful, heady stuff. Pretty much essential. My favourite is the middle LP, but I have always loved the other two.

You could argue that, given that the band was riddled with elements of what would become electronica and dance, but with dub reggae, glam and funk also welded into place, Ultravox! offered a step forward, beyond punk, yet before punk had even happened. 

They're not just a fucking important band, but they're a damn fine band.

There are box sets and there are box sets. If you don't have anything by Ultravox!, or, if you like, you found the “Vienna”-era band a tad gooey on the nerves, this set brings their first three LPs together plus an extras disc. 

Ultravox! were a huge influence on all the modern synth-rock stuff from the early '80s onward, and including the later - and current - dance stuff. Gary Numan wouldn't quite be Gary Numan, OMD wouldn't have been OMD, and pretty much every band of the period which used synths seems to nod in their direction (hell, the people who became the Human League saw an early Ultravox! show and were suitable impressed...).

Hell, John Taylor of Duran Duran said: “John Foxx? Class cannot be erased. Foxx's Ultravox! were the Velvet Underground of my generation.”

Here's Numan; “I was a big fan of John Foxx when he was in Ultravox in the late 70s. Ultravox were like the blueprint for what I was trying to do in the early years and John Foxx was my hero. I thought he was a fantastic, enigmatic front man. I really loved what he did.”

However, one thing rather rankles. The last disc, while possessing some fabulous riches, should surely have been spread over the three discs. For a start, this would have allowed us to avoid the repetition of songs; irritating even in a rarities disc - they've almost all been released before, though they're still hard to find.

Second, and I think more important, we are told how damn fine the band were live. There are four live tracks, each from a different gig. The production quality is huge. The tracks are wonderful ... But... where are those four gigs? Even one gig would've made a huge difference to the set. But either way... if you don't already have these LPs, you need them. Simple as that.

Before John Foxx left them for more a “Metamatic” introspection, he bequeathed the band the name, and when they got back to the UK, they snaffled Midge Ure (okay, it seems inevitable now, what with Slik's singles doing well thanks to the Bay City Rollers' songwriters, but hell,. What if he'd accepted McLaren's offer and became Midge Rotten?) and splattered their tunes all over everywhere. Ure's career,

Ultravox (without the !) aside, has been pretty damned public - he was with Glen Matlock's The Rich Kids (one great LP, that), Visage (oh, dear), had a more than creditable small paw in Thin Lizzy (I'm not making this up) and bears half the blame for Band Aid and that dreadful song about starving people not knowing it's Christmas. He's also had a very successful solo career and been a TV personality. So, decent fella, odd taste, famous and (I hope) rich to boot.

Dennis Leigh changed his name to the more familiar John Foxx before (his second band) Ultravox!, got signed to Island (in late 1976), releasing their first (self-titled) LP in February 1977 (produced by Brian Eno). Leigh/ Foxx had been writing songs since 1973 or so, taking on board modern influences from Ballard, Warhol, the Velvets, Roxy Music, Bowie and the New York Dolls.

The liner notes quote Foxx; "I came to London in 1972/3 and was deeply disappointed. There was no underground scene at all. Without that, everything dies. It stayed the same until the New York Dolls arrived - brilliant, grubby, trash-glam. They really elbowed that flat old scene off the stage ... It was a lovely feeling then, because it was before punk ... the media called it that. None of the people involved in it felt that it was actually called that at all. It was a resurrection of good feelings amongst young or semi-young people who wanted to make something for themselves that they could enjoy." 

Remember that old cliche about punk being about “something different”, even when everyone had to wear a fucking uniform? From 'The Quietus' (7 November 2008):

"I felt total affinity with Punk, but I was disappointed that it got so conservative so quickly - it really strangled itself. An old man before it was a youth. Born 1975 died 1977. Never realised its potential."

Finally, in 1974, finding like-minded folk in Chris Allen - Foxx and (later) Chris (Cross) both shared an enthusiasm for modernity, Krautrock and the adventure of music. “Why the synthesiser?', asked many guitar-heads, before adding, “Are you a poofter?”

Er, no, that's got nothing to do with it. The synth, once the price came down, was the easiest way to make the most horrible, huge disgusting racket, as well as expressing great delicacy and beauty, often with only a finger or two. Here's Foxx, another quote from “The Quietus” (as above):

“The point was to find out what these strange new instruments could do that hadn't been done before - I figured that new instruments had always radically altered music in the past - for instance the electric guitar. Here was the next major shift - the synthesizer. It could make violent extremes of sound, from subsonics to bat calls. At that time we wanted a total experience. It was a sort of sonic terror allied to the most extreme guitar feedback possible plus a battery of megawatt strobe lights. No-one walked away unchanged from those mid-period concerts. On the other hand, we were equally into romantic lyrical beauty. The synths could do both... All the bands wanted sonic mayhem by all and any means. Synths supplied that in a new way." 

'Ultravox!' came out in late February 1977 (featuring a dub reggae-ish “Dangerous Rhythm”, two months before The Clash's “White Man”; the Clash weren't the only folk who dug that groove). “Ha! Ha! Ha!” was released in October 1977, and “Systems of Romance” (their last LP with Foxx) in September 1978. Note: The Human League's first record “'The Dignity of Labour”) emerged in 1979, Numan's Tubeway Army two months after “Systems of Romance”, and OMD's first single in May 1979.

Ultravox! were ‘80s before the ‘80s, modern before modern. 

Now, Foxx was born in 1947. He was 29 when punk was christened. He's 70 now. He still makes music, and film, and ... Oh, fuck it. Look

And finally, after all that, will you enjoy this box set?

Shit, yes. Metal heads and synth thugs alike will dig this. Even Bob Short might like it. 

I just want to hear those bloody live gigs.