One of the albums to benefit directly from the surge in record shop visits in late 1984, as people piled in to purchase Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, was Ultravox’s The Collection: a genuinely long-awaited greatest hits compilation. A celebration – and sadly, a career-staller – it was a perfect distillation of their highly commercial new romanticism.
Of all the high-concept, high-drama swishing around in early 80s pop, there was always something extremely grandiose about Ultravox, especially at the singles end of their output.
