Visage - Visage

The song "Fade to Grey" I always figured came out in the mid '80s, and it was one of those rare examples of a nearly perfect balance of new wave and techno elements. It wasn't until fairly recently that I found out this was actually recorded back in 1979 and released in 1980. I'm guessing the band waited just to have their album come out in the new decade. To add to my pile of trivia, both Midge Ure and Billy Currie would go on to join a resurrected Ultravox. Oddly though, Midge wasn't the front man here; it was Steve Strange who sang lead.

I know I keep repeating myself when writing about this era of new wave, but I have always loved the integration of organic and synthesized instrumentation. The presence of acoustic drums along with early drum machines, and guitar and bass is a wonderful blending of two worlds. The results have always had more tension and energy than much of the later techno work that was to come. I can't say it isn't dated, but it has aged really well.

Most of the time I think of myself as a rock guy. I have always been drawn to rock, and the more guitar the better - but there was always something really cool about this era of new wave. It had the power chords, but it also felt like the future had finally arrived.

I read a lot of science fiction when I was a kid. I specialized in digesting everything by Heinlein, and to a lesser extent Clarke and Asimov ... the '80s were the future and as Daniel Amos would lament when the fabled decade finally arrived, "It's the eighties so where's our rocket packs?" However, for a little while in the early '80s a lot of bands thought it had arrived, and they were doing their best to show us what the future would look like.

As to the album, this has been spinning a couple of times through and I'm still partial to "Fade to Grey," mainly because it was a song I was already familiar with, but the whole album is really cohesive. I was struck a little when I felt the songs were a tad generic - then I realized quite quickly that much of what I was comparing this to had come after ... so it wasn't so much a chicken and the egg as it was the chicken who laid the egg.

What I found cool was how much of a band effort this album was, at least on paper at any rate. The majority of the songs were attributed to the entire band. Of course, the reality was probably less democratic ... but for this one at least it reads like a collective of equals.

The musicians on the album were:*

Steve Strange – lead vocals
Midge Ure – guitar, backing vocals, synthesizers
Billy Currie – electric violin, synthesizer
John McGeoch – guitar, backing vocals, saxophone
Rusty Egan – drums, backing vocals, electronic percussion
Dave Formula – synthesizer

*the album only lists the names, the credits I pulled from the bands wiki

This was an incredible score, and it was in pristine shape ... no, I didn't get it for a buck, but it was less than I expected. Now I'm on the lookout for their follow-up Anvil, which is supposed to be even better.