British electronic musician John Foxx has been a major influence on countless art pop, new wave, minimal synth, and techno acts since the 1970s. His icy synths and sophisticated song structures, as well as his surrealist lyrics and detached, jolting vocal style, have inspired mainstream and underground artists across the decades. Initially known as the original lead singer of Ultravox, he left the band in 1979 and released Metamatic, a solo debut containing two Top 40 hits, in 1980. He stepped away from music after 1985's In Mysterious Ways but returned in 1997 with an ambient work entitled Cathedral Oceans, as well as the synth pop album Shifting City (with Louis Gordon). Foxx continued with both song-based solo albums and ambient and experimental collaborations with artists like Harold Budd and Robin Guthrie. He later formed John Foxx and the Maths, whose albums include 2011's Interplay and 2020's Howl.