Crucial Music: John Foxx- Metamatic (1980)
One of the reasons I wanted to start a blog was to shine a spotlight on some of the albums, movies, and books that I found interesting, influential, etc... Stuff that people may be quite familiar with, know about, but otherwise tend to overlook for their importance; an importance that may stem from my own idiosyncratic tastes, but still have an air of the "crucial." Hence, the first installment of "crucial music."

It is fitting in many ways that John Foxx's first solo album post-Ultravox would kick off this segment. Early Ultravox had a monumental effect on my formative years; the first three albums: 'Ultravox! (1977),' 'Ha Ha Ha (1977),' and 'Systems of Romance'(1978) seemed to capture in their quirky, mechanical beats, detached lyrics, and peculiar melodies everything I loved about dark music. Only David Sylvian and Japan came any closer to fully embodying that spirit.

I argue that 'Metamatic' is Foxx's most realized work; saturated in the grey, existential cyberpunk tones of J.G. Ballard, drowned in colorless monotone drum machines that hypnotize, and wrapped in a haze of 4AM, you can't get much better than this. From the very beginning, 'Plaza' hits the veins like a sweet taste of heroin.