Electropop Entrepreneur or Pretentious Popinjay?
Posted on 14. Nov, 2006 by DocDelete in Music
I stumbled across two interview with John Foxx recently whilst googling for new musical output. Of late he’s been more active than his previous incarnation in the 1980s, when he dreamt up such gems as Underpass. He was the front man of the original pre-Ure Ultravox – a band now seemingly deemed uncool. How many of Ultravox’s critics have listened to the original three albums? Ultravox!, Ha Ha Ha! and Systems of Romance consume punk with a huge pinch of salt, chew over it and spit it back at the listener replete with a smooth coating of glistening innovation. Go out and buy the remastered CDs now.
How can we describe John’s current music? Well, he creates some haunting soundscape material, represented by the Cathedral Oceans sequence, and is accredited for taking Kraftwerk’s electronic bent and bending it further with Ballardian pro-concrete lyrics. His “electropop” output is hardly “pop” at all, though the keynote single Underpass achieved small success everything since has existing in a hazy world outside of commercial restrictions, and intentionally so.
Personally I find some of his material so twee it doesn’t pass the window-down-while-driving test. I recall that Underpass was sent-up by a Radio One DJ at the time who said it sounded more like “Underpants”. Whether Mr Foxx aims at this cringeworthy-style deliberately as an ironic statement, or not, is open to speculation. However, most of his material enjoys a warm, cosy place in my collection. He has a knack for conjuring up the most unexpected mental landscapes, probably due more to his jarring use of words than his musical arrangement.
Read the interviews here
http://www.ballardian.com/john-foxx-interview http://www.sleepybrain.net/john-foxx-seductive-whirlpools-part-2/
with many thanks to Simon Sellars, the interviewer, for his efforts.
Does he relish spouting philosophical clap-trap? Is it some sort of elaborate Braniac persona that he’s created, in due deference to the Eno and Gabriel-types of the musicsphere? Or are these the genuine musings of a man that was born into the wrong skin, and has always been aware of this? You decide if you can stick with the transcripts…
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