While the label New Romantics was coined in an interview to describe Spandau Ballet, Steve Strange and Rusty Egan, scenesters who managed The Blitz and Billy's, two massively popular nightclubs in the very late 70s and early 80s, are usually credited with having invented it. Rusty was the DJ who collected appropriately themed Roxy Music, David Bowie and Kraftwerk tracks, and Steve was the doorman who wouldn't let anyone in who didn't have the right "look." If one wants to get what the gist of the movement is all about, checking out this video from the band that they formed, Visage (pronounced "viz-AHZH") to explore the New Romantic sound and imagery, would be the ideal way to find out what New Romanticism was all about. In theory, anyway.
According to this video, New Romanticism, therefore, presages Lady Gaga's approach by almost thirty years. It's style, image and bizarreness over everything, with gender ambiguity present in heavy doses. Eh… maybe that theory doesn't really work. I don't know that I'd call those hallmarks of, say, Duran Duran, Japan or Ultravox, who are also poster children for New Romanticism. Heck, Midge Ure and Billy Currie, two of the musicians most responsible for Ultravox's sound, were also among those most responsible for Visage's sound, too.
The song "Fade to Grey" itself is also no stranger to controversy; there's a rather heated disagreement amongst the band members (and even Gary Numan's gotten involved) about who actually wrote the song, or came up with the various elements of it. And then there was a breach of copyright lawsuit involving Kelly Osbourne's single "One Word" which is very transparently a reworking of "Fade to Grey."
Visage is one of those bands that got very little airplay in the US, and besides, whatever airplay it did get would have been too early for me to have been paying attention to it anyway, since I was just a kid at the time. But I heard about them later, and Visage led me on a very merry chase, trying to find the CD that was supposedly still in print but which nobody had or could special order. After looking for months… possibly even years, I finally was able to track down a copy in 1988 or so of the initial eponymous (I really like that word, by the way) CD by Visage, and shortly thereafter their second album The Anvil on vinyl. I think the difficulty of that hunt partly influenced how much I liked and valued my Visage stuff.
Even though, ironically, just two or three years later Virgin re-released most of the Visage catalog on CD, making it extremely easy to find. Oh, well.
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Silent Morning by Noel
Noel's "Silent Morning" is often binned to the genre Latin Freestyle. I actually didn't know this because 1) I'd never heard of Latin Freestyle until a few days ago, and 2) it sounded an awful lot like every other dance track getting 12" releases in 1989. Noel himself is a Puerto Rican New Yorker, who sings, and according to the music video, dances quite well too (the dancing I can see being called freestyle, but not the music itself.) Hopefully he doesn't also belong to a gang called The Jets, because that would just be ridiculously stereotypical.
Apparently, Noel actually released more material than just this. I never heard of it, though… I bought the 12" single back in the day on vinyl, because that's all that was available that I ever saw.
Apparently, Noel actually released more material than just this. I never heard of it, though… I bought the 12" single back in the day on vinyl, because that's all that was available that I ever saw.
If You Leave by OMD
Because I grew up in a relatively small town, long before the public advent of the Internet, I often discovered non-mainstream pop cultural trends much later than other regions did. In fact, much of this type of music that I'm blogging about here was stuff that I didn't hear about until the late 80s when it achieved sufficient mainstream success to show up on MTV and in regular pop radio stations. After that point, I often had a backcatalog to catch up on from bands that had been around for a while but which I hadn't yet heard of (which was kinda fun in its own right), or with unknown word of mouth or related bands to check out. I was much less risk averse in my music preferences back then; I bought quite a few things just based on an offhand comment from someone who appeared to like the same kinds of music as I did.
Of course, that extreme of a position doesn't apply to OMD (or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as they're more properly called); I first heard of them when John Hughes made them famous in the USA by having them sing the definitive song from his movie Pretty In Pink. So by the time I was ready to hunt down some backcatalog, they had a pretty comprehensive one, considering that they were one of the very earliest synthpop bands out the gate, releasing material as early as 1979.
Longtime fans (or anyone with the capability of picking up the entire back catalog, really) will tell you that OMD's evolution over time is an interesting one to watch. They started off rather light and breezy with their first album, which gave us the singles "Messages" and "Electricity." "Enola Gay" was also originally meant to have been included on their eponymous freshman effort, but it got bumped, which was a shame, because it sounds more like it belongs with the line-up of the first album. The second album, Organization, was instead much darker; more melancholy and dreamlike in tone.
Of course, in the US, we didn't really know this, because we never got a release of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark or Organization; we got a release that combined tracks from the two albums onto a single one. Bleagh. OMD continued this darker direction for Architecture & Morality, as well as picking up a mellotron, which was not an instrument normally associated with the synthpop movement at all, but which added a very lush sound to their work. After this, OMD suffered a critical and commercial stumble with their even more experimental Dazzle Ships, which ushered in a strategic change in direction towards more overt poppish songs on their next albums, Junk Culture, Crush, and Pacific Age. Of course, when I was discovering OMD, they were smack dab in the middle of that more "commercial" synthpop phase, releasing songs like "Tesla Girls", "So In Love," "Secret", "Forever Live and Die," "We Love You" and, of course, "If You Leave" and "Dreaming."
Personally I like much of the "poppier" sound, and since I found them that way, I can hardly with a straight face accuse them of "selling out." This evolution is easy to see, though, even without all the albums in front of you. The greatest hits compilation that came out in the later 80s (and which was the best way to pick up "If You Leave" and "Dreaming" which were off-album singles) shows it clearly enough. But apparently, the band itself was sharply divided over this direction. While they were (usually) a four-man band, there were really only two "core" members, Andy McClusky and Paul Humphries, who never varied, and who did most of the direction, song-writing, singing, and other work, while the other guys were studio and concert musicians who weren't as involved on the creative side. Humphries left the band, along with the other ancillary members, and McClusky carried on on his own with the name OMD for three more albums, including 1991's very successful Sugar Tax, but the writing was on the wall already. McClusky had been the champion of abandoning the more experimental stuff and focusing on commercial success. Ironically, shortly after he did his first "solo" effort with the name OMD, the market for synthpop evaporated almost overnight, so his next two releases were much less successful, and he eventually abandoned working as OMD altogether.
That's not necessarily the end for OMD, of course… the classic line-up has recently reformed, done some very successful touring, and just released a new CD a few weeks ago. Which I haven't had the opportunity to listen to yet, but I'm curious how OMD will sound after all these years and all these changes. I initially fell in love with OMD's signature sound because it was both accessible and danceable (frequently) but also often haunting, ethereal, romantic, or otherwise very different in sound than bands like, say, Depeche Mode (which is interesting, because they toured with Depeche Mode more than once, including performing with them at the Pasadena Rose Bowl 101 concert.) In fact, I often loved OMD songs for the same reason that I loved Book of Love songs, and both of them stood as fairly unique offerings in the 80s synthpop line-up. Depeche Mode and Erasure, in particular, were often imitated but OMD was always something pretty singular.
Of course, that extreme of a position doesn't apply to OMD (or Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark as they're more properly called); I first heard of them when John Hughes made them famous in the USA by having them sing the definitive song from his movie Pretty In Pink. So by the time I was ready to hunt down some backcatalog, they had a pretty comprehensive one, considering that they were one of the very earliest synthpop bands out the gate, releasing material as early as 1979.
Longtime fans (or anyone with the capability of picking up the entire back catalog, really) will tell you that OMD's evolution over time is an interesting one to watch. They started off rather light and breezy with their first album, which gave us the singles "Messages" and "Electricity." "Enola Gay" was also originally meant to have been included on their eponymous freshman effort, but it got bumped, which was a shame, because it sounds more like it belongs with the line-up of the first album. The second album, Organization, was instead much darker; more melancholy and dreamlike in tone.
Of course, in the US, we didn't really know this, because we never got a release of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark or Organization; we got a release that combined tracks from the two albums onto a single one. Bleagh. OMD continued this darker direction for Architecture & Morality, as well as picking up a mellotron, which was not an instrument normally associated with the synthpop movement at all, but which added a very lush sound to their work. After this, OMD suffered a critical and commercial stumble with their even more experimental Dazzle Ships, which ushered in a strategic change in direction towards more overt poppish songs on their next albums, Junk Culture, Crush, and Pacific Age. Of course, when I was discovering OMD, they were smack dab in the middle of that more "commercial" synthpop phase, releasing songs like "Tesla Girls", "So In Love," "Secret", "Forever Live and Die," "We Love You" and, of course, "If You Leave" and "Dreaming."
Personally I like much of the "poppier" sound, and since I found them that way, I can hardly with a straight face accuse them of "selling out." This evolution is easy to see, though, even without all the albums in front of you. The greatest hits compilation that came out in the later 80s (and which was the best way to pick up "If You Leave" and "Dreaming" which were off-album singles) shows it clearly enough. But apparently, the band itself was sharply divided over this direction. While they were (usually) a four-man band, there were really only two "core" members, Andy McClusky and Paul Humphries, who never varied, and who did most of the direction, song-writing, singing, and other work, while the other guys were studio and concert musicians who weren't as involved on the creative side. Humphries left the band, along with the other ancillary members, and McClusky carried on on his own with the name OMD for three more albums, including 1991's very successful Sugar Tax, but the writing was on the wall already. McClusky had been the champion of abandoning the more experimental stuff and focusing on commercial success. Ironically, shortly after he did his first "solo" effort with the name OMD, the market for synthpop evaporated almost overnight, so his next two releases were much less successful, and he eventually abandoned working as OMD altogether.
That's not necessarily the end for OMD, of course… the classic line-up has recently reformed, done some very successful touring, and just released a new CD a few weeks ago. Which I haven't had the opportunity to listen to yet, but I'm curious how OMD will sound after all these years and all these changes. I initially fell in love with OMD's signature sound because it was both accessible and danceable (frequently) but also often haunting, ethereal, romantic, or otherwise very different in sound than bands like, say, Depeche Mode (which is interesting, because they toured with Depeche Mode more than once, including performing with them at the Pasadena Rose Bowl 101 concert.) In fact, I often loved OMD songs for the same reason that I loved Book of Love songs, and both of them stood as fairly unique offerings in the 80s synthpop line-up. Depeche Mode and Erasure, in particular, were often imitated but OMD was always something pretty singular.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
New York by MicroChip League (MCL)
A final update for today before I close up shop and get too busy to get back online, but here's MicroChip League's cover of "New York." This was an extremely dark song, with pounding percussion machines, an angry, growling synthline in a very low register, a heavily vocoded spoken vocal treatment, a bunch of samples, and generally a darker, more aggressive feel than synthpop generally had. This song, in fact, almost sounds more like an electronic body music (EBM) track than a synthpop track. I got this, again on 12" vinyl, at the same time that I got C.C.C.P.'s "American-Soviets" and the A Split Second EP that included "Rigor Mortis" so I've always associated the three songs with each other, even though that was an artificial association.
How to Be a Millionaire by ABC
One of the earliest smart, slick, synthpop bands to break in the 80s was ABC, who had a string of early hits including "The Look of Love", "Poison Arrow", "Be Near Me" and, of course, this song.
Although the music press in the UK in particular often lumped ABC with the New Romantics, properly speaking, they sound much more like the undifferentiated synthpop of the earliest 80s, and therefore are probably more similar to Dare-era Human League or Heaven 17 than they are to Visage or Spandau Ballet.
Although the video below is cartoonized, it does, actually, pretty accurately reflect the actual look of the band members of ABC, cementing them in place as one of the most ridiculous looking groups to come out of the 80s, perhaps needing to share that "honor" with A Flock of Seagulls and some of the more ridiculous of the New Romantic styles.
Although the music press in the UK in particular often lumped ABC with the New Romantics, properly speaking, they sound much more like the undifferentiated synthpop of the earliest 80s, and therefore are probably more similar to Dare-era Human League or Heaven 17 than they are to Visage or Spandau Ballet.
Although the video below is cartoonized, it does, actually, pretty accurately reflect the actual look of the band members of ABC, cementing them in place as one of the most ridiculous looking groups to come out of the 80s, perhaps needing to share that "honor" with A Flock of Seagulls and some of the more ridiculous of the New Romantic styles.
I Beg Your Pardon by Kon Kan
Another dance floor classic who's musical merit otherwise might be suspect is Kon Kan's 1989 anthem "I Beg Your Pardon." While not strictly speaking a one-hit wonder, I doubt very many folks would remember any other Kon Kan songs, and even I have to admit that this is the only one I think is worth remembering. This is another one that crosses in and out of various closely related electronic music subgenres with some facility, defying easy characterization, and mocking the concept that these songs can be so easily classified in the first place. Is it synthpop? Is it Hi-NRG? Dance? Something else?
It also happens to be another song of which I'm the proud owner of a 12" single on vinyl that I currently lack the capacity to listen to. Ah, well.
Great memories of dancing to this song back in the day, too, stomping as loud as we could during the pounding bridge with the heavier percussion effects.
It also happens to be another song of which I'm the proud owner of a 12" single on vinyl that I currently lack the capacity to listen to. Ah, well.
Great memories of dancing to this song back in the day, too, stomping as loud as we could during the pounding bridge with the heavier percussion effects.
Male Stripper by Man 2 Man
Or by Man 2 Man meets Man Parrish, depending on how it's credited. If there was any question that a lot of the synthpop popularity was fueled by gay audiences, this song helps to put that notion to rest. This track was of the Hi-NRG variety of electronic dance music, that ultimately has its roots more in disco than in synthpop per se... although obviously by the mid 80s, it was hard to tell the difference in most respects.
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