Visage - Visage
Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 4:32 amIt seems that music reviewers are forever trying to pin down definitive releases for particular genres. For instance, from the moment it came out, Nirvana's "Nevermind" was being hailed as the cornerstone of the short-lived style that came to be known as grunge. Of course, grunge was a comparatively brief style of music that really didn't produce tons of noteworthy bands, so giving Kurt Cobain that award was something of a no-brainer. Same goes for The Sex Pistols' "Never Mind The Bollocks", although some might argue that The Clash and The Damned both put out albums that were just as true (if not more so) to the punk ethos. It really boils down to preference and perspective in the end.
The situation becomes more problematic when dealing with a genre like New Wave, which hatched more offspring than a spider in the space of a few short years. Who really started the movement? Was it Adam Ant, who released his debut album back in '79? Could it have been Bowie, with his new-found fascination with synths, dance beats, and ultra-European imagery? It's hard to say, and if the truth be known, the creation of the New Wave movement was probably an unconscious synthesis of disco, glam, Kraftwerkish electronica, and post-punk by a bunch of people.
Some bands, of course, embodied the New Wave ideal more so than others; Duran Duran, Adam Ant, and A Flock of Seagulls are just a few of the names that will forever be attached to the genre, whether they like it or not. Of course, I will never attempt to refute the accomplishments of those bands, but I'll throw an obscure name out there beside them: Visage.
I've seen many articles and reviews that have referenced Visage's self-titled debut; some have even depicted it as a quintessential New Wave album, one that set the standard for the bands that exploded on the scene a year or two later (Soft Cell, for instance). True to the music biz's sense of irony, few people nowadays seem to remember or know of its existence, despite the fact that "Fade To Grey" hit number one in over twenty countries.
Visage was more of a project than a proper band. It was the brainchild of Steven Strange (ex-member of punk group the Moors Murderers) and drummer Rusty Egan (who played for a band called the Rich Kids). They convinced some of their more successful musician friends to record an album with them, and thus was born Visage.
Who were some of those musically-inclined pals who lent a hand to Steve and Rusty? Well, they included guitarist Midge Ure and violinist Billy Currie (who went on to slightly more success as the vocalist and keyboardist for Ultravox, respectively), as well as Magazine members John McGeoch, Barry Adamson, and Dave Formula (McGeoch eventually joined Siouxsie & The Banshees, while Adamson spent some time in Nick Cave's Bad Seeds). A pretty impression line-up, if you hatchet me.
Encouraged by the moderate success of the singles "Tar" and "Fade To Grey", Strange and friends released a full-length album in 1980, and it is outstanding. Oh sure, it sounds dated and slightly unfocused, but it's every bit as glamorous and European as the cover art would suggest (a suave-looking couple dancing while a silhouetted band plays in the background- very 1920's-ish). Shall we walk arm in arm through the individual compositions? Maybe if I do a good job, you'll slip me some tongue.
We kick off the album with the classy title track, clearly inspired by Gary Numan. It opens with stately piano and features lots of synth textures and electronic drum fills. There's probably a little more guitar present than in most New Wave songs, but the programmed drums groove along with the best of 'em. This is the sound that the Human League and Duran Duran made famous for about five minutes.
One of the best on here is "Blocks On Blocks", which has the same stiff charm that Depeche Mode captured in their early material. It's a carefully pieced together song with a grabby chorus and the same robotic cool that people bounced around to back in the early 80's. Vocally, Steven Strange sounds somewhat like the Human League's Phil Oakley, or maybe that guy who sang "Dancing In Heaven".
"The Dancer" has a guitar sound that almost qualifies it as a hard rock song, at least until the synths come in. A pleasantly dated instrumental, it has a driving, heavy beat that you can get down to, even if you are lacking feet and/or ankles.
The single "Tar" is a humorous anti-smoking pop song, a la Devo. The interesting use of vocal effects matches the odd lyrics, which include such phrases as "remember health warning/it's printed on the package" and "low tar/high tar". There's a jamming sax solo thrown in for reasons known only to the British. I remember reading in a Siouxsie biography that John McGeoch pulled down a few bucks from this album, but how much money could this stuff have possibly made?
The other "hit" from this album was "Fade To Grey", another nod to the Kraftwerk/Gary Numan way of doing things. Starting off with a soft little pitter-patter rhythm, it turns into an icy proto-techno mood piece that probably set rumps a-shakin' on London dance floors. A kid speaks French at one point, but I'm so mad at those god-awful people that I refuse to even attempt a translation. I'm thinking that Marc Almond and Martin Gore were both big fans of this song. It was re-released in the early 90's, and again climbed to the top of the British charts.
I'd describe "Malpaso Man" as a New Wave Western; it is the same kind of goofy hybridization that Adam Ant did so well. It's overly percussive, synth spacey, and evidently a failed attempt to be humorous. Probably the only real misstep on the entire album, it includes such moronic lyrics as "hot sun, desert sand, one man/on his own, stands alone, never ran". It also has a guitar solo, which is not something you hear on every Visage song; that, however, does not save it from being the worst track on the album.
I can forgive "Malpaso Man" once I hear the spooky noodling and haunting keyboard line of "Mind Of A Toy". It picks up into a toe-tapping standard dance beat, and seems to be about a spoiled child throwing down a plaything. The lyrics hint at revenge by the "used, abused, and torn-apart" toy, which has a "wooden head and a broken heart". The chorus slightly ruins the creepy feel, but the scary music box sounds up the eerie factor at the end.
I definitely think of early Depeche Mode (specifically the song "Photographic") when I hear the driving "Moon Over Moscow". The faint, semi-Gregorian voice is a nice touch, and it features what might best be described as an "Ah ah ah" solo. It also happens to be the second of three instrumentals (the third being "The Steps").
A hint of intrigue and slight mystery are conveyed by "Visa-age" (probably due to lines like "a stamp on my passport/no time to look back"), which has nothing to do with credit cards. Similar to what Human League were doing on "Reproduction", this is where Strange urges us to "leave the trash of your life behind" to a backdrop of Devo noises. I do believe that I'm hearing real drums, but it's difficult to tell with these technophile types. It ends on a suitably ambiguous note, with someone whistling in the rain.
"Starring the Phantom of the Opera as 007" is how I'd subtitle "The Steps". A heartbeat, some slightly dark keyboards, and an evil-sounding finale all add up to a reminder that we are still listening to Europeans. I love it.
Some copies of this CD have a remixed version of "Fade To Grey" or something, but I was apparently short-changed. I never seem to receive the discs with bonus tracks, which has caused me to think of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com in conspiratorial terms.
Unless you're Anglo-phobic, anti-New Wave, or ashamed of early 80's dance music, there's no good reason for you to not own the first Visage disc. Steven Strange kept the project going long enough to make a follow-up album or two, but I don't know when or if I'll get around to investigating. This is an impressive effort that manages to be a stupendous New Wave album, as well as something greater. It's always nice to hear music that is dance floor friendly AND artistic, but that doesn't happen very often.
The situation becomes more problematic when dealing with a genre like New Wave, which hatched more offspring than a spider in the space of a few short years. Who really started the movement? Was it Adam Ant, who released his debut album back in '79? Could it have been Bowie, with his new-found fascination with synths, dance beats, and ultra-European imagery? It's hard to say, and if the truth be known, the creation of the New Wave movement was probably an unconscious synthesis of disco, glam, Kraftwerkish electronica, and post-punk by a bunch of people.
Some bands, of course, embodied the New Wave ideal more so than others; Duran Duran, Adam Ant, and A Flock of Seagulls are just a few of the names that will forever be attached to the genre, whether they like it or not. Of course, I will never attempt to refute the accomplishments of those bands, but I'll throw an obscure name out there beside them: Visage.
I've seen many articles and reviews that have referenced Visage's self-titled debut; some have even depicted it as a quintessential New Wave album, one that set the standard for the bands that exploded on the scene a year or two later (Soft Cell, for instance). True to the music biz's sense of irony, few people nowadays seem to remember or know of its existence, despite the fact that "Fade To Grey" hit number one in over twenty countries.
Visage was more of a project than a proper band. It was the brainchild of Steven Strange (ex-member of punk group the Moors Murderers) and drummer Rusty Egan (who played for a band called the Rich Kids). They convinced some of their more successful musician friends to record an album with them, and thus was born Visage.
Who were some of those musically-inclined pals who lent a hand to Steve and Rusty? Well, they included guitarist Midge Ure and violinist Billy Currie (who went on to slightly more success as the vocalist and keyboardist for Ultravox, respectively), as well as Magazine members John McGeoch, Barry Adamson, and Dave Formula (McGeoch eventually joined Siouxsie & The Banshees, while Adamson spent some time in Nick Cave's Bad Seeds). A pretty impression line-up, if you hatchet me.
Encouraged by the moderate success of the singles "Tar" and "Fade To Grey", Strange and friends released a full-length album in 1980, and it is outstanding. Oh sure, it sounds dated and slightly unfocused, but it's every bit as glamorous and European as the cover art would suggest (a suave-looking couple dancing while a silhouetted band plays in the background- very 1920's-ish). Shall we walk arm in arm through the individual compositions? Maybe if I do a good job, you'll slip me some tongue.
We kick off the album with the classy title track, clearly inspired by Gary Numan. It opens with stately piano and features lots of synth textures and electronic drum fills. There's probably a little more guitar present than in most New Wave songs, but the programmed drums groove along with the best of 'em. This is the sound that the Human League and Duran Duran made famous for about five minutes.
One of the best on here is "Blocks On Blocks", which has the same stiff charm that Depeche Mode captured in their early material. It's a carefully pieced together song with a grabby chorus and the same robotic cool that people bounced around to back in the early 80's. Vocally, Steven Strange sounds somewhat like the Human League's Phil Oakley, or maybe that guy who sang "Dancing In Heaven".
"The Dancer" has a guitar sound that almost qualifies it as a hard rock song, at least until the synths come in. A pleasantly dated instrumental, it has a driving, heavy beat that you can get down to, even if you are lacking feet and/or ankles.
The single "Tar" is a humorous anti-smoking pop song, a la Devo. The interesting use of vocal effects matches the odd lyrics, which include such phrases as "remember health warning/it's printed on the package" and "low tar/high tar". There's a jamming sax solo thrown in for reasons known only to the British. I remember reading in a Siouxsie biography that John McGeoch pulled down a few bucks from this album, but how much money could this stuff have possibly made?
The other "hit" from this album was "Fade To Grey", another nod to the Kraftwerk/Gary Numan way of doing things. Starting off with a soft little pitter-patter rhythm, it turns into an icy proto-techno mood piece that probably set rumps a-shakin' on London dance floors. A kid speaks French at one point, but I'm so mad at those god-awful people that I refuse to even attempt a translation. I'm thinking that Marc Almond and Martin Gore were both big fans of this song. It was re-released in the early 90's, and again climbed to the top of the British charts.
I'd describe "Malpaso Man" as a New Wave Western; it is the same kind of goofy hybridization that Adam Ant did so well. It's overly percussive, synth spacey, and evidently a failed attempt to be humorous. Probably the only real misstep on the entire album, it includes such moronic lyrics as "hot sun, desert sand, one man/on his own, stands alone, never ran". It also has a guitar solo, which is not something you hear on every Visage song; that, however, does not save it from being the worst track on the album.
I can forgive "Malpaso Man" once I hear the spooky noodling and haunting keyboard line of "Mind Of A Toy". It picks up into a toe-tapping standard dance beat, and seems to be about a spoiled child throwing down a plaything. The lyrics hint at revenge by the "used, abused, and torn-apart" toy, which has a "wooden head and a broken heart". The chorus slightly ruins the creepy feel, but the scary music box sounds up the eerie factor at the end.
I definitely think of early Depeche Mode (specifically the song "Photographic") when I hear the driving "Moon Over Moscow". The faint, semi-Gregorian voice is a nice touch, and it features what might best be described as an "Ah ah ah" solo. It also happens to be the second of three instrumentals (the third being "The Steps").
A hint of intrigue and slight mystery are conveyed by "Visa-age" (probably due to lines like "a stamp on my passport/no time to look back"), which has nothing to do with credit cards. Similar to what Human League were doing on "Reproduction", this is where Strange urges us to "leave the trash of your life behind" to a backdrop of Devo noises. I do believe that I'm hearing real drums, but it's difficult to tell with these technophile types. It ends on a suitably ambiguous note, with someone whistling in the rain.
"Starring the Phantom of the Opera as 007" is how I'd subtitle "The Steps". A heartbeat, some slightly dark keyboards, and an evil-sounding finale all add up to a reminder that we are still listening to Europeans. I love it.
Some copies of this CD have a remixed version of "Fade To Grey" or something, but I was apparently short-changed. I never seem to receive the discs with bonus tracks, which has caused me to think of Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com in conspiratorial terms.
Unless you're Anglo-phobic, anti-New Wave, or ashamed of early 80's dance music, there's no good reason for you to not own the first Visage disc. Steven Strange kept the project going long enough to make a follow-up album or two, but I don't know when or if I'll get around to investigating. This is an impressive effort that manages to be a stupendous New Wave album, as well as something greater. It's always nice to hear music that is dance floor friendly AND artistic, but that doesn't happen very often.