Last week, Steve Strange died of a heart attack at the relatively young age of 55 in Egypt (I'm not sure what he was doing there either, no.) Steve Strange, a.k.a. Steven John Harrington, is the front-man and most visible founding member of Visage, of course, which was the leading edge of the New Romantic movement in the very late 70s--although none of his music was actually released until 1980.
I've talked about it before, but I was led on a merry chase after Visage's eponymous first album on CD (only to have it appear, re-released and with bonus tracks just a few years later). It's fairly sad; after years languishing as a former pop star, Strange got the name Visage back together again, with a few of the original musicians and a few new guys, and released the album Hearts and Knives in 2013, which has at least a few great tracks. Actually, just two or three months ago, he released a new album, Orchestral, where he reworks a number of Visage tracks as, as you'd expect from the title, orchestral songs with vocals. For this In Memoriam post, I thought of posting "Shameless Fasion" or "Dreamer I Know" from this more recent material.
But I won't. Instead, I'm going to post "Fade to Grey". You kind of have to, right? It's by far the biggest hit and best known legacy of Visage. The song has actually had three singles releases; the first time, as a lead-single, released at the exact same time as their debut album Visage. This one charted in the top 10 in the UK, and #1 in some continental markets. It was released again to support a 1993 Greatest Hits compilation. I have this CD single, although frankly, the Bassheads remixes that it showcases are total bollocks; they're just terrible remixes. What can you say? It was 1993. Club music was going through a real nadir right then. This also featured the original version of the song (whoop-de-doo, since I also have it on the original CD, on the Greatest Hits CD, and on another 80s compilation too) but I still hold on to it because of the so-called 7" Remix. This at least sounds like "Fade to Grey", unlike the Bassheads abominations, but with a very notable difference: it trades out the beautiful fragility of the original for a thumpy "club nazi" approach. I quite like it, actually, but I have to admit that it absolutely does not replace the original; it's just an interesting alternative take on the concept. It was also re-released more recently as an orchestral single to support the Orchestral album.
The version I'm going to showcase today is actually a bootleg remix by Rob Dust. If the 7" Remix is a thumpy club nazi version, this one is even moreso, but I have to admit, I really love Rob Dust's trademark very lush and layered aggro remix style. I discovered him a few years ago with De/Vision's Popgefahr remix albums, where he did remixes for "Ready to Die" and "Twisted Story." His remix of the latter is possibly my favorite version of any song from that entire affair (although Renegade of Sound's "Plastic Heart" and the Melancholic Mix of "Flash of Light" are up there too.) He's also done some great bootleg Depeche Mode remixes, and some remixes of some German bands, most of whom I haven't heard of--but because they have Rob Dust remixes, they're among my favorite clubby dance tracks right now.
While not technically synthpop, the "dream pop" label, which was kind of an early prototype of what later came to be known as "shoegazing" has some commonalities with elements of synthpop. A lot of synthpop really celebrated their synthesizers; while others used the synthesizers to emulate real instruments in many regards. This is why it's hard to separate sometimes: in Dream Academy's one hit, "Life in a Northern Town," how much is synthetic and how much is a real instrument, albeit one not commonly associated with the pop music scene?
I remember thinking this in particular about Camouflage and their 1989 album Methods of Silence with it's dance chart hit "Love is a Shield." I remember particularly reading a review in which the reviewer claimed that in attempting to not sound like a synthie-pop knock-off of Depeche Mode, they introduced a real oboe sound, which ironically sounded even more like a synth-line.
"Life in a Northern Town" also prominently features an oboe, background strings, backing piano lines, and a lot of overdub and other effects, which is why it fits nicely in with the synthpop scene, even though the use of synthesizers by Dream Academy was somewhat limited. To the casual listener, this was simply a somewhat dreamy and Romantic (in terms of the literary and music movement moreso than with regards to the genre of literature famously read by women, although it could qualify to some degree under both definitions) new wave song not too unlike a lot of synthpop ballads.
It's not clear what northern town is being referred to in the title. The song is dedicated to late guitarist Nike Drake, who was from Tanworth-in-Arden, but the two music videos featured scenes mostly filmed in Hebden Bridge and Newcastle Upon Tyne respectively. Then again, maybe you're not really supposed to think that much about it anyway.
I've mentioned before that one of the things that has often made me appreciate music more was the hunt that I had to undertake to find them, back in the day prior to the internet, Youtube and more. These days, this really isn't much of a thing.
But, I'm going to do something a little different and highlight a song that I can't find on the internet anymore. It's not on Spotify (at least the original, unremixed version isn't, although a more danceable remix is.) It's not on youtube. The label that released the CD is defunct and the website is long gone. I can't find it for sale on Amazon, iTunes, eBay or anywhere else. Heck; even discogs.com is missing this compilation (although here it is on allmusic.)
Rather than listening to the track, you're going to have to actually go and find it. And it'll be challenging. I can't find it. But then again; I don't have to. I bought the actual CD that it was originally released on back in 1998 or 1999 or so. (As an aside, it just came up on my shuffle play on my phone while commuting today, which is what made me think of it again.)
In fact, since 50 Shades of Grey was released after this group had already stopped working, Google isn't even particularly helpful. You'll get all kinds of wrong results. Good luck!
Shades of Grey was a southern California team made up of two brothers. I actually have not only this song, a Synthphony Records compilation called The United Synthpop of America Vol. 1 (of 1, as it turns out, although there was also a United Synthpop of Europe release) but both their one album and their one EP.
The vocals are a little pitchy, but it's almost as if that was a deliberate stylistic choice. "Perfect Wine" is a beautiful, hauntingly melodic and even romantic track, and is largely considered; or at least it was so back when the synthpop fan scene was smaller much smaller--probably the best song of the group. Although Shades of Grey always seemed to have pretty good buzz in the scene, they weren't very prolific, and they've been gone for a long time now, it seems; 2001 was their last release that I can find.
I'm always a sucker for a good remake of an 80s synthpop classic, right? German semi-industrial outfit Die Krupps has remade Visage's "The Anvil" but they've partially used the lyrics from "Der Amboss"--the German language originally promo only version of the song, as well as the title.
The studio version of the song features "Client B"--one of the musicians of British girl-synthpop outfit Client. Great song either way. I really love the energy and edge to this live version though.
The italo-disco genre is unusual. Not only did it eventually spread throughout Europe and evolve into what we today call "Eurodance", but even when it was somewhat localized, not all of the artists were really Italian (Taffy was from New York, for instance. The lead-singer for Baltimora was Irish--although the rest of the band was Italian. Fancy was German. And Sandy Marton was Aleksandar Marton, born in Zagreb in what was then Yugoslavia and what is now Croatia. Produced and marketed in northern Italy as part of the italo-disco fad, in 1984 Sandy Marton had a hit in several countries (#1 in Italy, but it also charted in Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, and Switzerland.) "People From Ibiza" is generally his only well-known song today. His single output was compiled into a single album, released in 1986, but he never really had another hit like "People From Ibiza." A few of his other songs charted (although not particularly highly) in Italy, and "Exotic and Erotic" charted in a few markets. The lyrics tell a rather muddled story of a soldier who gets drunk and conned by a "honey trap" style exotic tropical girl in Singapore.
While the lyrics (as in most italo-disco songs) are muddled and barely intelligible to native English speakers, also as is typical of the genre, the song itself is infectious, cheery, and fun, as well as highly danceable. No doubt meant to be little more the disposible 80s club music, Marton has--as has much of the italo-disco genre in general--picked up an enduring cult following in the years since, and I--well, heck, I guess I belong to the cult. I think italo-disco is fun, and I still have a fair bit on my phone. Sure, it's a bit on the breezy, disposible side compared to synthpop from the same time-frame, but in reality, the two genres share much more than they don't.
I first heard "Exotic and Erotic" as part of a "megamix" called Lo Mejor de Gapul, which was a spanish language and probably bootleg compilation put together in 1987 or so. Since this was the "seed" from which I discovered and eventually hunted down most of the italo-disco genre that I have, the tracks on that original megamix were the first ones I found. In that sense, "Exotic and Erotic" holds an important place in my own journey to discover the entire genre.
Sandy Marton himself, though, is probably not really very important, even in the relatively small pond of italo-disco artists. It's generous to call him more than a one-hit wonder.
A Flock of Seagulls are mostly now the butt of a series of jokes about being a one-hit wonder with really bizarre hair. In reality, when their first eponymous album came out in 1982, it was rather highly regarded as a bit of a concept album--and the video for "I Ran (So Far Away)" was reportedly so ubiquitous on early MTV that they played it literally every ten minutes. Of course, this kind of ubiquity can really sink a band, but in reality, they had more than one hit (although none as big as "I Ran" certainly.) I picked up their Greatest Hits (on cassette tape) a few years after the fact, so without preconception, I actually didn't necessarily like "I Ran" the best of their songs--"(It's Not Me) Talking" and even moreso "Space Age Lovesong" were always my favorites. In fact, I've seen some really good cover versions of "Space Age Love Song" from guys like Count to Infinity, and a "pseudo-cover" called "Dream of a Disco" by Marsheaux.
A Flock of Seagulls postdates the "classic" synthpop stage, but they also still exist in a period in which music which is retroactively called synthpop actually featured a fair number of non-synthesizer instruments. In fact, they were a regular band with a regular guitar player, bass player and drum player, while the lead singer was also a keyboard player. While many patently non-synthpop bands had pretty much the exact same line-up, A Flock of Seagulls were clearly New Wave and sound like synthpop, whereas someone like Journey, for instance, does not. Possibly the guitar and bass players simply weren't talented enough to "showcase" their performances, so they faded more into the background, making the keyboard elements appear to stand out in comparison.
Then again, bands like New Order had pretty much this same line-up too (although in their case, it was the guitar player, not the keyboardist, who did the vocals.) And Depeche Mode, who in 1980 and beyond for a few years, were an exclusively electronic band, now use an awful lot of guitars. In reality, synthpop seems to be a somewhat nebulous category of music, wherein music that sounds just like synthpop (like some work by Cher or Madonna) is not called as such, whereas music that doesn't (a la recent Depeche Mode) still is. Exactly how this came to be is not entirely clear to me, although it is clear (although I can't put my finger on exactly why) that A Flock of Seagulls sounds like the same kind of music as synthpop, even as it is heavily guitar-driven in most respects. In any case, here's "Space Age Love Song."
Last night I finished watching the documentary Depeche Mode: The Dark Progression which focuses, after maybe half an hour of set-up and historical context, on the four-album arc of Black Celebration through Songs of Faith and Devotion; about a decade straddling the mid-80s to the mid-90s, and clearly Depeche Mode's zenith in terms of commercial success and influence.
I got this--a little bit by surprise--by Netflix, and I had been simultaneously listening to a bunch of bootleg remixes by a guy named Naweed Wahla (you can hear most of them on youtube.) At the same time a brand new album is due out tomorrow, I think, and they're kicking off a tour to support it (coming to North America in August, and starting with my hometown!) The DVD was actually quite good, even though it was an "unauthorized" one--footage of interviews with producers, biographers, and other artists who toured with them were all included (Gareth Jones, David Bascombe, Jonathan Miller, Andy McClusky, Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby, and a few others.) One thing Gareth Jones mentioned is that he thought the album Some Great Reward was transitional--from his perspective (and it was the middle of three that he produced) it was clearly in between Construction Time Again and Black Celebration in terms of what the band was doing technically with sampling and whatnot. However, it occurs to me that every Depeche Mode album is transitional. Depeche Mode's enduring popularity and importance is, at least partly, based on the fact that they don't retread the same ground over and over again. They vary their approach subtly--enough to keep their fanbase usually--but they vary it nonetheless. They're always evolving.
To be honest with y'all, my favorite DM is about the time that I discovered them; in the late 80s. Although I was familiar with the song "People Are People" and actually liked it a lot, I didn't follow up from that to pay attention to who sang it, or get any more material of theirs. In about 1988 or so, I ended up with a copy of Music for the Masses and I was reading Dracula for the first time at the same time--so while I read, I listened to DM. That right there was a perfect match. I quickly fell in love with the darker sound of Depeche Mode, and as I delved into their back catalog, I liked best the two albums that were closest to Masses in time. Speak And Spell hardly counted; it might as well have been a different band altogether (and in many ways, it was.) A Broken Frame had Martin Gore just barely starting to stretch his wings musically, while still trying to imitate (sometimes) the successful pattern of Vince Clark. Construction Time Again had Gore doing much more of his own thing, but it still felt unrefined and in need of maturation to get to where it needed to be. But with the triad of albums, Some Great Reward, Black Celebration and Music For the Masses, Depeche Mode had fully "flowered" as a dark sounding, musically mature group, with some real artistic chops, who's albums were much more than simply the sum of all the songs on them. To be honest with you, I even got a bit pretentious about their artistic merits myself. A failing to which I'm still not completely immune.
Depeche Mode had, up to that point, been quite productive, but after taking a relatively lengthy break, they came out with their most successful album to date in 1990, right in the middle of my senior year in high school (lead single "Personal Jesus" had been out in the late summer or fall, and "Enjoy the Silence" came out right near the beginning of the year, if I remember correctly.) When the full album came out, I actually didn't like it much. To me, the somewhat hoaky sounding "Pleasure, Little Treasure" had been the direction that the entire album followed. It eventually grew on me--helped no doubt by the fact that "Enjoy the Silence" is probably their best song ever--as well as some really cool b-sides and later remixes--but it took literally years to do so, and I still don't like it as much as I do Masses. The subsequent Songs of Faith and Devotion was more of what I didn't like about Violator--except fused with gospel and grunge and all kinds of other influences that I didn't like even more. Then Alan Wilder left the band, and the era of "classic line-up" Depeche Mode came to an end. The band continued, of course, but greatly diminished, as Alan Wilder's role as the technical innovator and only "true" musician in the band had to be filled by a rotating line-up of producers who lacked the consistency of vision and talent that Alan brought.
Although I don't like Construction Time Again on the front end or Violator and Songs of Faith And Devotion on the back end as much as I do the three albums sandwiched in between them, I do see the six albums that were made with the "classic line-up" of Alan Wilder, Martin Gore, Andrew Fletcher and Dave Gahan as the most iconic and emblematic of Depeche Mode's entire storied career, and I don't think that I'm alone in that view. Because Depeche Mode stands so alone, and casts such a long shadow over everybody else in the entire electronic music biz even today, I didn't have a lot of Depeche Mode on my phone, so I actually hadn't listened to them much recently, and I was keenly feeling the void. Deciding to put the classic line-up CDs in my car and go through them in successsion one after another, lingering as long on one album as I want, I've been feeling the love once again for my first and greatest love in electronic music once again.
Another curious aside; because of Depeche Mode's status, influence and popularity, as well as now long they've been around, and because technology nowadays makes this relatively easy, bootleg remixes on youtube (and elsewhere) are very common. Here's one for one of my favorite songs from Masses, "Behind the Wheel."
