John Foxx made his solo debut after three albums as front man of Ultravox! with this pioneering electro single.

I can never hear Underpass, the debut single by John Foxx, without hearing the chorus as “Underpants!”

It’s a disappointing memory of an artist whose icy synths, detached demeanour and deadpan vocal style were such a huge influence, most obviously and notably on Gary Numan.

I’d seen Ultravox! a couple of times, with and without their exclamation mark, by the time their lead singer left and went solo in 1979. It’s fair to say I preferred Foxx’s electronic explorations to the more chart-friendly beast his old band became with his replacement Midge Ure at the helm.

Dennis Leigh was an archetypal working-class Lancashire lad from Chorley, his mother a millworker and his father a coal miner and amateur boxer. He formed his first band, Woolly Fish, back in 1967 and, while studying at art school in Preston he embarked on a short-lived career as an acoustic singer-songwriter.

Winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art, Leigh moved to London in 1973 and began to experiment with tape machines and synthesisers, forming a band called Tiger Lily – one novelty single, a version of Ain’t Misbehavin’ – that evolved, after several name changes (Fire Of London, The Zips, The Damned) into Ultravox!

I remember seeing them at the Marquee in 1977 or thereabouts and buying their self-titled debut album, no doubt influenced by the presence of Brian Eno alongside producer Steve Lillywhite.

Two more albums followed before Foxx’s departure. I was a huge fan of his debut album Metamatic, which produced two hit singles – Underpass and No-One Driving – but for some reason I didn’t follow his career closely after that.