Midge Ure Still “Amazed” by Ultravox’s Greatest Hits Compilation ‘The Collection,’ 40 Years Later

By 1984, Ultravox couldn’t move off the charts with four consecutive Top 10 albums in the UK from their fourth, Vienna, in 1980 through Lament. The band would also peak at No. 8 with their eighth album, U-Vox, in 1986, but before then, Ultravox released a compilation of their hit albums spanning this period.

The Collection featured 14 singles from Ultravox’s run of Chrysalis Records releases—Vienna (1980), Rage in Eden (1981), the George Martin-produced Quartet (1982), and Lament (1984)—and sold more than two million copies worldwide and went triple platinum in the UK.

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the band’s successful compilation is a Deluxe Edition box set of The Collection featuring the band’s iconic, “Vienna,” anti-war anthem “Dancing With Tears In My Eyes,” and other Ultravox classics, including “The Voice,” “Hymn,” and “All Stood Still,” along with “Love’s Great Adventure,” which was originally recorded as a new single around the original release of The Collection in 1984.

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Originally formed in 1974, and under the name Tiger Lily for several years, Ultravox made its way through the artier and electronic scene in London before releasing its 1977 self-titled debut, produced by Brian Eno and Steve Lillywhite.

By 1978, the band signed to Chrysalis and took a new direction following the departure of vocalist John Foxx and guitarist Stevie Shears and recruited Midge Ure and keyboardist Billy Currie, who had also parted ways with the new wave group Visage by the early ’80s.

Limited to 5,000 copies, the newly remastered Collection was also turned into a double album to enhance the audio of each track and is available in CD and 2-LP format, along with a 4-LP box version, including The Collection II, featuring 14 additional singles, along with unreleased and alternative versions of releases from 1986 to 2024.

“It’s quite amazing to us that this collection of songs still stands up today, some forty years later,” Ure tells American Songwriter. “The sounds, original productions and new remixes sit side-by-side in a timeless fashion.”

In 2025, Ure featured the music of Ultravox, along with songs from his 1978 through 1982 tenure with Visage, and solo material on his Band in a Box tour. It was the “closest” fans could get to seeing Ultravox live again, since a reunion with Currie and drummer Warren Cann is unlikely, according to Ure, following the death of Ultravox bassist Criss Cross in March 2024.

“It’s the closest that people are going to get to hear what Ultravox would have sounded like in the day,” Ure told American Songwriter in 2024:

“I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do it earlier, that I didn’t do it years ago,” Ure added. “There was some reticence. I thought people would see it as some glorified karaoke because it’s only two of us on stage, but honestly, these days, people don’t care. They don’t care that there’s no drummer, no bass player when they hear something that they thought they would never hear live.”

Photo: ‘Rage in Eden’-era Ultravox, 1982 by Brian Aris