If you were to ask me what my favorite song from the '80s was, I'd be hard pressed to give you a good answer. I might be able to come up with a half way decent top 10 of the '80s tho', and there's absolutely no doubt that Visage's Fade To Grey would make that list - probably top 5. They were a "New Romantic" act, fronted by club kid slash photogenic weirdo Steve Strange. The band was made up of half of Ultravox (Midge Ure and Billie Currie) and 3/4s of Magazine (John McGeoch, Barry Adamson and Dave Formula). Musically they created icy, danceable synthpop and muscular synthrock, topped off with the fey vocals of Steve Strange. They recorded three LPs, the first a lot better than the others, and then they were no more. The rest of the guys went on to many other musical pursuits, and last I heard, Steve was living with his Mum somewhere in suburban London. Fade To Grey was released in 1980, and is a song that I think still sounds good today. I was seduced by it's use of the synthesizer, the drum machines, the mysterious French vocals - "devenir en gris", and the song's super catchy melody. From it's opening hi-hat hiss and rolling synth bass to the slamming drums that kick in the spoken word break, it still makes me shake my thang and crank up the volume every time. Enjoy the extended-ness of it all!
Fade To Grey (Extended)
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