Looking Backwards Towards the Future

With a foreword by Moby.

A comprehensive biography of Ultravox, a band dragged British post-punk into the electronic age while refusing to play by anyone else’s rules.

Looking Backwards Towards the Future: The Story of Ultravox is the first authorized biography of post-punk mavericks turned commercial superstars, Ultravox. Written with the knowledge, permission and cooperation of the band's surviving core members, it offers the definitive account of one of Britain's most eccentric, unusual and uncompromising groups.

Drawing from a vast archive of research materials, and incorporating exclusive input from the band, as well as from their peers, their label and management teams, and those closest to them, Looking Backwards Towards the Future promises to tell the many and varied stories of the band: from fractures and fallouts to ambition and ego.

From their experimental, art-school beginnings as post-punk outsiders, to their rebirth as chart-conquering heroes, Ultravox always remained unique, idiosyncratic and intractable. Consistently derided by the media throughout their career, they were unwavering in their pursuit of an eccentric trajectory of their own design, achieving enviable success, and millions of records sold, but always on their own terms.

Formed by John Foxx as an art school project in 1974, and forever a step outside contemporary trends and expectations, Ultravox made three albums, including the highly influential Systems Of Romance, before Foxx departed in 1979. Ultravox then recruited a new singer, Midge Ure, with whom they enjoyed 16 UK hit singles - including ‘Vienna’, ‘Dancing With Tears In My Eyes’ and ‘Love’s Great Adventure’ - and seven hit albums between 1980 and 1986.

Ultravox unexpectedly reunited in 2008 for a triumphant reunion tour and one final album.