Systems of Romance

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Systems of Romance

Systems of Romance, released in 1978, is the third album by British band Ultravox

Ultravox

Ultravox are a British New Wave music band that rose to prominence in the late 1970s/early 1980s. They were one of the primary exponents of the British electronic pop music movement of the early 1980s....
(an exclamation mark having been dropped from the moniker earlier in the year). It was the final recording for the group with original lead singer, lyricist and co-composer John Foxx

John Foxx

John Foxx is the stage name of England musician Dennis Leigh. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox, before embarking on a solo career in 1979....
, and their first album without guitarist Stevie Shears

Stevie Shears

Steve Shears, called Stevie Shears in the music scene, is a British guitarist who began his fame in John Foxx's bands Tiger Lily and Ultravox ....
, who was sacked from the band (in 1980 he joined Cowboys International

Cowboys International

Cowboys International were a Supergroup formed by vocalist and songwriter Ken Lockie that put out one album in 1979 and a handful of 45s before fading into obscurity....
) and was replaced by Robin Simon

Robin Simon

Robert Simon is a British guitarist born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire , in 1956, who was a member of both Ultravox and Magazine ....
, who played in this album and was featured for first and only time in an Ultravox album like that.

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Encyclopedia

Systems of Romance, released in 1978, is the third album by British band Ultravox

Ultravox

John Foxx

Stevie Shears

Cowboys International

Robin Simon

Electropop

Electropop is a form of electronic music that is made with synthesizers, and which first flourished from 1978 to 1981. Electropop laid the groundwork for a mass market in chart-oriented synthpop....
music that came after it.

Production and style

Co-produced by Conny Plank

Conny Plank

Konrad "Conny" Plank was a record producer and musician. His creativity as a sound engineer and producer helped to shape some of the most important and innovative recordings of postwar European popular music, covering a wide range of genres including Avant-progressive rock, Avant-garde music and electronic music....
and Dave Hutchins, Systems of Romance featured the band's heaviest use of electronics

Electronic music

Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology....
to date. More New Wave

New Wave music

New Wave is a genre of rock music which originated from the late 1970s. It emerged from punk rock as a reaction against the popular music of the 1970s....
orientated than the glam

Glam rock

Glam rock , is a sub-genre of rock music that developed in the UK in the post-hippie early 1970s which was "performed by singers and musicians wearing outrageous clothes, makeup, hairstyles, and platform-soled boots." The flamboyant lyrics, costumes, and visual styles of glam performers were a camp , theatrical blend of nostalgia references t...
- and punk

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock....
-influenced tunes that characterised their first two albums, Ultravox! and Ha!-Ha!-Ha!
Ha!-Ha!-Ha!

Ha!-Ha!-Ha! was the second album by British pop group Ultravox, at that time formally known as "Ultravox!", with an exclamation mark, as a nod to Neu!....
, its style was partly inspired by German band Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk

Kraftwerk is an influential electronic music band from D?sseldorf, Germany. The signature Kraftwerk sound combines driving, Repetitive music rhythms with catchy melody, mainly following a Western classical music style of harmony, with a minimalism and strictly electronic instrumentation....
, whose first four albums were produced by Plank. Among Ultravox's own repertoire, antecedents included Billy Currie

Billy Currie

Billy Currie is a musician and songwriter. He is best known as the keyboard instrument player with the New Wave music band , Ultravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s....
's distinctive synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequency....
work on "The Man Who Dies Every Day" and the romantic balladry of "Hiroshima Mon Amour

Hiroshima Mon Amour

Hiroshima Mon Amour is an acclaimed 1959 in film Drama film/romance film with a documentary or film essay element directed by France film director Alain Resnais, with a screenplay by Marguerite Duras....
", both from Ha!-Ha!-Ha!.

The opening song, "Slow Motion

Slow Motion (Ultravox song)

"Slow Motion" is a song by New Wave music and synthpop band Ultravox, and the first single from the then-forthcoming Systems of Romance album, released on 4 August 1978....
", was indicative of the band's direction on the new album. Though based around conventional rock guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
, bass

Bass guitar

The electric bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a plectrum.The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and Scale length, and usually four strings tuned to the same pitches as those of the double bass, whic...
and percussion

Percussion instrument

A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound by being hit with an implement, shaken, rubbed, scraped, or by any other action which sets the object into vibration....
instrumentation, it featured a number of rich synthesizer parts throughout the piece rather than simply a discreet solo or special effect. For drummer Warren Cann

Warren Cann

Warren Reginald Cann is a drummer and drum machine programmer, best known as a member of the United Kingdom New Wave music band Ultravox....
, "it perfectly represented our amalgamation of rock and synthesizer, many of the ideas and aspirations we had for our music gelled in that song".

The subject matter of "Quiet Men

Quiet Men

"Quiet Men" is the fifth single from New Wave music and synthpop band Ultravox. It was released in 1978 and was their last single on Island Records before the band signed to Chrysalis Records....
" grew out of an alternate persona developed by John Foxx, 'The Quiet Man', who embodied detachment and observation. Musically, like the earlier "Hiroshima Mon Amour", the track dispensed with conventional drums in favour of a Roland

Roland Corporation

is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ?33 million in capital....
TR-77 rhythm box

Drum machine

A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums and/or other percussion instruments. Drum machines are very useful instruments for a wide variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music....
. "Dislocation" and "Just for a Moment" eschewed all acoustic and synthetic drums, relying on treated ARP Odyssey

ARP Odyssey

The ARP Instruments, Inc. Odyssey was an analog circuit synthesizer introduced in 1972. Responding to pressure from Moog Music to create a portable, affordable "performance" synthesizer, ARP scaled down its popular ARP 2600 synthesizer and created the Odyssey, which became the best-selling synthesizer they made....
sounds for their percussive effects. The former song was imbued with a heavy proto-industrial

Industrial music

Industrial music comprises many styles of experimental music, including many forms of electronic music. The term was coined in the mid-1970s to describe Industrial Records artists....
flavour; the latter featured church-like vocal and keyboard effects that would be echoed on Foxx's second solo album, The Garden
The Garden (John Foxx album)

The Garden is a 1981 album by John Foxx, the follow-up to his debut solo album Metamatic, released the previous year. However its instrumentation and highly Neo-romanticism style is more comparable to Systems of Romance, his last album with former band Ultravox, released in 1978....
. "When You Walk Through Me" displayed psychedelic

Psychedelic music

Psychedelic music is a term that refers to a broad set of popular music styles, genres and scenes, that may include psychedelic rock, psych folk, psychedelic pop, psychedelic soul, Psybient, psychedelic trance, and others....
touches that Foxx also developed in his solo career; Cann later admitted to lifting its beat from The Beatles

The Beatles

The Beatles were a rock music and pop music band from Liverpool, England that formed in 1960. During their career, the group primarily consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr ....
' "Tomorrow Never Knows

Tomorrow Never Knows

"Tomorrow Never Knows" is the final track of The Beatles' 1966 studio album Revolver . It is credited as a Lennon/McCartney song, but was written primarily by John Lennon....
". "Some of Them" was one of the few tracks that harked back to the band's previous hard rock sound.

Release and aftermath

The album's September 1978 release was book-ended by two singles, "Slow Motion" in August and "Quiet Men" in October. Like Ultravox's previous albums, Systems of Romance received mixed reviews at the time and failed to chart. The band was dropped by their label Island Records

Island Records

Island Records was a record label that was founded by British record producers in Jamaica. It was based in England for many years, but is now owned by Universal Music Group and is operated in the United States through The Island Def Jam Music Group and in the UK through Island Records Group ....
just prior to a 1979 tour of the US. During the tour Foxx announced his intention to leave Ultravox when he returned to England. Guitarist Robin Simon also left, electing to stay in New York

New York City

The City of New York is the List of United States cities by population in the United States, while the New York metropolitan area ranks among the List of urban areas by population....
. Chris Cross

Chris Cross

Chris Cross was the bassist in the band Ultravox , until their demise in 1988. His brother, Jeff Allen, played the drums for East of Eden and Hello in the 1970s....
, Billy Currie and Warren Cann worked on other projects while recruiting a new lead singer/guitarist (Midge Ure

Midge Ure

Midge Ure Order of the British Empire is a guitarist, singer, Keyboard instrument, and songwriter. He had particular success in the 1970s and 1980s in a number of bands, including Slik, Thin Lizzy, The Rich Kids, Visage and most notably as frontman of the band Ultravox....
, in the event).

Influence

Systems of Romance has been cited as a major influence on electropop and on the New Romantic

New Romantic

New Romanticism was a fashion movement that peaked in the United Kingdom during the early 1980s. Originally part of the New Wave music movement, it has seen several revivals since then, and continues to influence popular culture....
movement of the 1980s. It was the sonic prototype for the re-formed Ultravox featuring Midge Ure who, in his own words, "loved that album". John Foxx's first record as a solo artist was the almost fully-electronic Metamatic
Metamatic

Metamatic is an album by John Foxx, released in 1980. It was his first solo album following his split with Ultravox the previous year. A departure from the richly-textured mix of synthesizers and conventional instruments on Systems of Romance, his last album with the band, Metamatics hard-edged electronica was more akin to Kraftw...
; however his next release, The Garden, took Systems of Romance as its starting point, to the extent of re-recording the earlier album's previously-unpublished title song, utilising Robin Simon on guitar, and displaying a similar sense of European romanticism. Gary Numan

Gary Numan

Gary Numan is an English singer, composer, and musician. He is considered to be one of the pioneers of commercial electronic music and has been described as the "King of synthpop." Numan is widely known for his chart-topping 1979 hits "Are 'Friends' Electric?" and "Cars "....
, himself often called the "godfather of electropop", described the record as his single biggest musical inspiration; he invited Billy Currie to tour with him in 1979 and contribute to his album The Pleasure Principle
The Pleasure Principle (album)

The Pleasure Principle is the third studio album, and debut album under his own name, by electronic music pioneer Gary Numan, released in 1979....
, prior to Ultravox's second incarnation.

Track listing

"Slow Motion
Slow Motion (Ultravox song)

"Slow Motion" is a song by New Wave music and synthpop band Ultravox, and the first single from the then-forthcoming Systems of Romance album, released on 4 August 1978....
" (Chris Allen
Chris Cross

Chris Cross was the bassist in the band Ultravox , until their demise in 1988. His brother, Jeff Allen, played the drums for East of Eden and Hello in the 1970s....
, Billy Currie
Billy Currie

Billy Currie is a musician and songwriter. He is best known as the keyboard instrument player with the New Wave music band , Ultravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s....
, John Foxx
John Foxx

John Foxx is the stage name of England musician Dennis Leigh. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox, before embarking on a solo career in 1979....
, Robin Simon
Robin Simon

Robert Simon is a British guitarist born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire , in 1956, who was a member of both Ultravox and Magazine ....
, Warren Cann
Warren Cann

Warren Reginald Cann is a drummer and drum machine programmer, best known as a member of the United Kingdom New Wave music band Ultravox....
) – 3:29
"I Can't Stay Long" (Currie, Simon, Allen, Cann, Foxx) – 4:16
"Someone Else's Clothes" (Foxx, Currie) – 4:25
"Blue Light" (Allen, Currie, Foxx, Simon, Cann) – 3:09
"Some of Them" (Foxx, Currie) – 2:29
"Quiet Men
Quiet Men

"Quiet Men" is the fifth single from New Wave music and synthpop band Ultravox. It was released in 1978 and was their last single on Island Records before the band signed to Chrysalis Records....
" (Foxx, Currie, Allen) – 4:08
"Dislocation" (Currie, Foxx) – 2:55
"Maximum Acceleration" (Foxx) – 3:53
"When You Walk Through Me" (Foxx, Simon, Currie) – 4:15
"Just for a Moment" (Currie, Foxx) – 3:10

Chris Cross's writing credits are under his real surname of Allen.

Bonus tracks on 2006 CD re-release

"Cross Fade" (Cann, Allen, Currie, Foxx) – 2:53
"Quiet Men (Full Version)" (Foxx, Currie, Allen) – 3:55

The 'Full Version' of "Quiet Men" is not longer than the original but features a different mix with more instruments.

Personnel

John Foxx
John Foxx

John Foxx is the stage name of England musician Dennis Leigh. He was the original lead singer of the band Ultravox, before embarking on a solo career in 1979....
– vocals
Billy Currie
Billy Currie

Billy Currie is a musician and songwriter. He is best known as the keyboard instrument player with the New Wave music band , Ultravox, who achieved their greatest commercial success in the 1980s....
– keyboards
Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is any musical instrument played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include various types of organ s as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic musical instrument....
, violin
Violin

The violin is a Bow string instrument with four strings usually tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest and highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which also includes the viola and cello....
Warren Cann
Warren Cann

Warren Reginald Cann is a drummer and drum machine programmer, best known as a member of the United Kingdom New Wave music band Ultravox....
– drums
Drum kit

A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and sometimes other percussion instruments, such as cowbell s, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single drummer....
, rhythm machine
Drum machine

A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument designed to imitate the sound of drums and/or other percussion instruments. Drum machines are very useful instruments for a wide variety of musical genres, not just purely electronic music....
, vocals
Chris Cross
Chris Cross

Chris Cross was the bassist in the band Ultravox , until their demise in 1988. His brother, Jeff Allen, played the drums for East of Eden and Hello in the 1970s....
– bass
Bass guitar

The electric bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a plectrum.The bass guitar is similar in appearance and construction to an electric guitar, but with a larger body, a longer neck and Scale length, and usually four strings tuned to the same pitches as those of the double bass, whic...
, synthesizer
Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing a variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequency....
, vocals
Robin Simon
Robin Simon

Robert Simon is a British guitarist born in Halifax, West Yorkshire, Yorkshire , in 1956, who was a member of both Ultravox and Magazine ....
– guitar
Guitar

The guitar is a musical instrument with ancient roots that is used in a wide variety of musical styles. It typically has six Strings , but Tenor guitar, Seven-string guitar, Eight-string guitar, Ten-string guitar, Eleven-string guitar, Twelve-string guitar, Thirteen-string guitar and doubleneck guitar string guitars also exist....
, vocals