Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx Chart Info

Hi there.

Definitely, as Mark pointed out, John had some kind of commercial success in Italy, although AFAIR he never entered the charts.

For reasons unknown, "Metamatic" was never released in Italy and therefore had limited availability as an import-only record, with the strange exception of "A New Kind of Man" that was used as the ending music for the "Sapphire & Steel" TV series and later released as a single.

"The Garden" and "The Golden Section" were published in Italy and during 1982/83 John enjoyed (!) his maximum exposure on Italian media: he was interviewed several times for music magazines, made at least one TV appearance, had his videos (notably "Dancing Like a Gun" and "Underpass") broadcast a few times.

I remember a rave review of "The Garden" where the reviewer praised John's return to a more organic sound after the "stark and ice-cold Metamatic"...

The collaboration with Antonioni didn't bear much fruit in commercial terms since the movie "Identificazione di una donna" wasn't very successful, to put it mildly.

In December 1983 John gave 4 concerts all over Italy (BTW I went to the Milan gig and managed to sneak backstage and meet him and Robin Simon ;-) and he was very well received, with venues almost full and audiences who knew his work both with Ultravox and as a solo artist.

Unfortunately "In mysterious ways" again wasn't published in Italy and John (almost) disappeared from the Italian music scene.

BTW I recently discovered that an Italian artist (Faust'O) released in 1980 a song titled "Hotel Plaza" that, although musically different, is a blatant rip-off of our beloved "Plaza".

Comments welcome: Faust\'O - Hotel Plaza

Ciao,
Luca

Hi all. It's a shame but seems John didn't chart anywhere outside the UK. I've searched a lot in the recent years but lokks like he was a cult, but no star to any measure... I have actually been very sure that he managed to chart in Germany and Japan, but no, he didn't.

Though I've once seen a bizarre chart (?) list of Belgium charts (entry dates but no chart positions or weeks on chart), and "Europe after the rain" has been present. E-mailed the guy who ran that site but recieved no reply, so the question remains unsolved...

I still think he may of charted in the US very early on, but im sure there was nothing over there from '82 onwards.....

I've always thought that outside the UK - and I imagine the US - 'charts' don't really have such a big influence and are not such an important factor in achieving success or fame at least in Continental Europe. It's more about radio play and TV appearances, or at least it was in the 80s and best part of the 90s; I think John was more drawn to Italy for example more out of love for the country, the art and the people as opposed to 'chart' or any kind of commercial success.
Mind you he did have an artist's 'tiff' last year when he called off his gigs becuase they were advertising as 'A night with Ultravox' LOL .. such a touchy subject eh?!

There are so many different charts these days that it is really all meaningless. And radio is not the medium it used to be here either (except for college radio stations that have always been cutting edge).
Heavy video play is what does it these days unfortunately.

Looking for it now, K.

Right .. it's the same in Europe too these days .. video killed the radio star eh?

....and so called "reality" shows have killed the videos ..

I miss the age of the music video.

I discovered so many artists through seeing the song videos on various shows. Now, unless you have cable where you can watch rap music videos all day long, you rarely see music videos on terrestrial telly. It's a shame.

But perhaps it is a trend which has largely now gone out of fashion - a bit like the single.

It's no longer profitable for artists like John to release singles, sadly.

Some artists like Numan, slowed down on producing videos for singles years ago. Artists who are never played on tv tend to put their videos as bonus tracks on cd singles, but for those who dont release singles either, theres no place to show their videos so even less point to make them. The net is sometimes the one way.