Metamatic Forums John Foxx John Foxx 30th Anniversary Foxx

Yes, Happy Anniversary to Metamatic!

hahahahaha! Absolutely!

I'm a day late, but congratulations to Metamatic and all who sail in her!

The 'celebrations' (??) continue

AFAIK, 31st January marks the 30th anniversary of John Foxx first appearance on Top of The Pops, when David 'Kid' Jensen introduced Underpass.

Repeated on Steve Wright's TOTP2 on 28th January 2003.

Perhaps I should get out more...

No, no, no, I like these 'celebrations'.

Keep 'em coming...

This has been a great thread. I've enjoyed reading these early perceptions of Foxx Vs. Numan.

The title of the “first commercial album made entirely with synthesisers” (implying it was between “Principle” and “Metamatic”), had of course been taken many years earlier. We could argue all day as to which "popular" record was the first. Wendy Carlos’ “Switched On Bach” perhaps? We certainly can't ignore the German innovators either, Kraftwerk or even Moroder.

I think more specifically, we're talking about the scene that was labelled "new wave" or "futurist" at the time. Like most "scenes" there's a tendency to ignore what came before and in this case there's the assumption that new wave began in 1979 wiping the slate clean.

“Principle” pipped “Metamatic” at the post by four months, (although both albums were being written and recorded at around the same time in 1979). There’s a possibility that this may have been down to the labels... Beggars Vs Virgin? None of us actually know which album was completed first. We only know which one was scheduled for release. Numan had cracked the number one slot with “Are “Friends” Electric?” earlier and so the promotion money would have been on him.

Personally, I suspect that Numan’s commercial success may have been significant in Foxx’s relationship with Virgin as a solo artist. Once he had opened the floodgates with “Replicas”, (Numan's Systems of Romance?) and scored that all-important number one slot, Foxx would have found it easier to get the green light to begin writing and recording “Metamatic”.

I suspect that the production values on “Metamatic” may have also been re-shaped during the recording process. Having heard the anthemic Polymoog melodies that dominate "Cars", I think these strikingly similar sounds may have also been applied to Underpass and No-One's Driving in the four month gap before “Metamatic” was released.

Then again, this in conjecture based on hindsight. I don't think we'll ever know which came first, (“Cars” or “Underpass”) or which influenced and which followed the formula.

I've always felt that the black shirt & tie, blazer, white face and eyeliner look that Foxx used on TOTP and the “No-One Driving” photo shoot did spark comparisons. Perhaps with hindsight, (again) it would have been better had he used his "grey suit" look instead. Who knows? Perhaps he wanted to but Virgin put pressure on him to look like a Numan clone. Either way, it didn't dispel the confusion amongst the Numanoids who may have felt Foxx was “ripping off their hero”.

As a Numanoid who came to Foxx with “Underpass” myself. I was more concerned with the music and a bit too young and naive to worry about image cloning. I was wearing the same uniform and make-up myself. I found “Principle” immediately accessible whereas Foxx's records were initially difficult for me to get my head round however, persistence paid off and within months “Metamatic” became, (and still is to this day) my favourite album of all time.

Interesting thoughts Vox Humana.

I started with Numan too, but I really didn’t see John as jumping on the bandwagon, or replicating, or indeed replacing him, though curiously he did just that for me, but this was with The Garden, and ‘miles away’ from Gary’s sound.
Johns second solo album was responsible for shifting me away from Gary after the fantastic Telekon album, so I would have to say that Replicas and The Pleasure principle sowed the seeds for my love of Metamatic, but Metamatic painted such a complete picture for me that it could not be rivalled and there was nowhere to go after that, except for to follow John via the Miles Away single, and out into The Garden.

Metamatic still probably unconsciously acts as the basis for most of the electro things I like presently, many of the ‘effects’ moments on it, a fleeting shriek, or a fading whirr, maybe lasting only a few seconds in length, but the atmosphere in those moments always felt longer in the mind, stretched out in time, and probably explains why I like minimalist or drone sounds, but not forgetting of course love for the more strident or percussive sounds in the album, which suggest both a harder, and a pop electro, Gary’s early work has a hand in that too, but I think that Metamatic brought it more into focus.

Initially, (well for the first couple of play’s) I was a bit unsure about The Pleasure Principle, it was not instantly as accessible for me as Replicas had been, and I was looking for continuation of more of the warmer atmospherics that existed on Replicas tracks such as Down In The Park, or When The Machines Rock, but I found Metamatic immediately accessible, it was just so much more richly textured, and the wry and knowing humour was a leap on from Gary’s dry sideways gaze. Of course the genius now about The Pleasure principle is its clinically reduced nature, it’s the great summer Blockbuster Cinema Box-Office Hit of synth music, but Metamatic will always be the European Cinema Arthouse champion of synth music, both equally good things.

February 4th, 1977 saw the release of the debut single by Ultravox!

That's 33 years ago! I was 12, and sadly too young to notice or care...

The band played at Barabrella's in Birmingham that night.

One of the MySpace sites has become '30th anniversary news' (was Glimmer..) ..wonder what that means..

http://www.myspace.com/johnfoxxglimmer

Dug this up the other day. The first thing I ever read about Metamatic, a review in Record Mirror covering Japan's Quiet Life as well. I'd heard of Ultravox through Numan's mentions of them but that was it.



Kind of vague and pretentious, but after reading it I knew I had to hear the album.

*cough*
A big, gleaming kind of whammy this weekend...

Burning Car was first released as a single in the UK on June 27th 1980.

30 years on Sunday

Burn!...Burn!... Burn!...

My favourite among the 'singles'.
Closely followed in fact by

Stars on Fire which first came out 25 years ago on Thursday, 24th June 1985.

And, not only but also, 20 years ago this weekend, most of the known world overlooked the release of

Remember by Nation 12 on Rhythm King

Hark, is that The sound of a celebration... I can hear