Visage (band)

Visage
General information
origin	London , England
Genre (s)	New wave , synth pop
founding	1978, 2004
resolution	1985, 2015
Website	www.visage.cc
Last occupation
bass	Steve Barnacle (1982–1984, since 2013)
guitar	Robin Simon (since 2013)
singing	Lauren Duvall (since 2013)
former members
Drums, saxophone	Rusty Egan (1978-1984)
Guitar, bass, synthesizer	Midge Ure (1978-1982)
Synthesizer, violin	Billy Currie (1979-1983)
guitar	John McGeoch (1979-1981)
synthesizer	Dave Formula (1979-1983)
bass	Barry Adamson (1979)
saxophone	Gary Barnacle (1983-1984)
guitar	Andy Barnett (1983-1984)
Vocals, synthesizers	Steve Strange (1978– † 2015)

Visage was a new wave - band from London . At the time of her greatest commercial success in the early 1980s, she was assigned to the new romantic scene and best known for her world hit Fade to Gray .

Band history

1978: foundation

The band formed in 1978 in the London nightclub "Billy's". The club on Meard Street in Soho was operated by 19-year-old Welshman Steve Strange . The DJ Rusty Egan hosted regular evenings with electronically influenced dance music . Egan was also the drummer for the band Rich Kids at the same time . The 25-year-old Scot Midge Ure worked there as a singer , guitarist and synthesizer . Unsatisfied with the musical direction of the "rich kids," whose frontman Glen Matlock was friends with Strange, Egan and Ure looked for ways to make electronic pop music influenced by Kraftwerk and David Bowie and teamed up with Strange, who was previously at The Moors Murderers and The Photons had their first musical experience as a singer. As a trio , they initially recorded project demos as Steve Strange with the Rich Kids unused studio time ; including a cover version of In the Year 2525 by Zager and Evans .

Billy's was a club that was frequented by many musicians from the London scene at the time, and so in 1979 the new band members Barry Adamson , John McGeoch and Dave Formula from the band Magazine joined them, and most recently Billy Currie , keyboardist and violinist at Ultravox and Gary Numan . About Billy Currie joined Midge Ure Ultravox, whose singer John Foxx had previously dropped out after the band lost their record deal with Island Records in January 1979 . When “Billy's” got too small in 1979, the club moved to Great Queen Street in Covent Garden , called itself “Blitz” and was considered to be the origin of the New Romantic fashion movement , because Strange was notorious as a bouncer there, only to let in the fashion-conscious guests known as Blitz-Kids.

The sextet planned as a pure studio project due to the obligations of the members in other bands (Adamson was not considered a full member) gave itself the name Visage and first signed a recording contract with Radar Records . According to Strange, the meaning of the name Visage (French for “face”) also stood for Visual Age (English for “age of visuality”) and thus underlined the roots in glam rock . Visage released the first single Tar in September 1979.

1980–1981: Commercial breakthrough

The fall of 1980 marked the commercial breakthrough. Strange appeared alongside several other Blitz kids in David Bowie's video Ashes to Ashes and the debut album Visage was released in November on the major label PolyGram . Richard James Burgess of the band Landscape programmed sounds for some of the songs on the debut album at Fairlight . Burgess also coined the term New Romantic and produced the first two studio albums for the New Romantic band Spandau Ballet .

Visage was recorded in Martin Rushent's Genetic Sound Studio in Reading (Berkshire) and mixed in Mayfair Sound Studio in London.

The second single Fade to Gray was released at the same time as the album. It became a worldwide club hit in early 1981 and rose to the top of the charts in 21 countries (including number one in Germany for seven weeks ). The album and single both received silver records in Great Britain and even gold status in Germany . Fade to Gray marks the beginning of the commercial breakthrough for electronic pop music of the early 1980s and the new romantic movement, which also became known in the mainstream in this way . Trouser Press attested the debut as "always danceable and gripping songs".

The music and base sequence for Fade to Gray was written by Billy Currie and Chris Payne during sound checks on Gary Numan's Pleasure Principle tour. Midge Ure contributed the lyrics, Egan's Luxembourg friend Brigitte Arens sang the French lines.

With the singles Mind of a Toy and Visage , two more tracks were released from the album. The former was able to place itself in the top 10, at least in Germany.

1981–1982: dwindling success

Due to the obligations of many band members in their own bands (Ure and Currie for Ultravox, Formula for Magazine and McGeogh for Siouxsie and the Banshees ) and the departure of Adamson to Pete Shelley and later The Birthday Party , the timing for recordings for the second studio album was arranged as difficult.

In the fall of 1981, all musicians except McGeogh came together for the recordings of the second album The Anvil in the Maifair studios. The album had cover photos by Helmut Newton and the design was done by Peter Saville .

With The Damned Don't Cry , the first single from the album was released in March 1982, which followed a little later. However, with the exception of the UK , sales were disappointing and the band began to break up. Melody Maker found: "more dance music than committed statements".

Midge Ure said in an interview on the RTL chart show that his exit was a reaction to the increasingly ridiculous madness of Steve Strange. The eventual trigger for this was an appearance in New York in which Strange was riding a camel down Fifth Avenue . But Strange's heroin abuse may also play a role, as Strange fired the band's management , Chris Morrison and Chris O'Donnell, who also looked after Ultravox.

1983–1985: last album and dissolution

The third and final album Beat Boy was recorded in Trident Studios in London in 1982 and 1983 after Ure, Formula and Currie left with the new band members Steve and Gary Barnacle as well as Andy Barnett, but only one year due to legal disputes with the fired management later mixed and released in October 1984.

Formula and Currie still participated in the composition of the song Only the Good (Die Young) , but were no longer members of the band at the time the album was released.

The new band members should turn the studio project Visage into a live band. The commercial success failed to materialize, so that the band broke up in the spring of 1985.

2004: re-establishment

In 2004, after overcoming his heroin addiction, Strange teamed up with musicians from the British electro band Seize and Ross Tregenza von Goteki and founded Visage II. There were several live performances with new songs, including in German-speaking countries at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen 2005 in Leipzig and at the The music show Die Hit-Giganten produced by Sat.1 . However, an announced new album did not appear.

On January 8, 2013, Visage presented its new official website in addition to other appearances on online platforms such as Twitter , Facebook and SoundCloud . At the same time, the current line-up consisting of Strange, former band member Steve Barnacle and Robin Simon (ex-guitarist of Ultravox) and singer Lauren Duvall was announced. A new album entitled Hearts and Knives was released on May 24, 2013. The single Shameless Fashion is available as a free download on the band's Facebook page.

occupation

• on the album Visage : Steve Strange (vocals), Rusty Egan (drums, percussion, saxophone, backing vocals), Midge Ure (guitar, keyboards, bass, backing vocals), Billy Currie (electronic violin, keyboards), John McGeogh (guitar ), Dave Formula (keyboards), Barry Adamson (bass)
• on the album The Anvil additionally: Gary Barnacle (saxophone) and Perry & Lorraine (backing vocals)
• on the album Beat Boy : Steve Strange (vocals, keyboards), Rusty Egan (percussion, keyboards, backing vocals), Steve Barnacle (bass), Andy Barnett (guitar), Gary Barnacle (saxophone), Marsha Raven (backing vocals)

Discography

Albums

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1981	Visage	DE1 gold (34 weeks)DE	AT11 (10 weeks) AT	-	UK13 silver (29 weeks)UK	US178 (4 weeks) US	First published: November 1980 Producers: Midge Ure, Visage
1982	The Anvil	DE41 (5 weeks) DE	-	-	UK6th silver (16 weeks)UK	-	First published: March 1982 Producers: Midge Ure, Visage
1984	Beat boy	-	-	-	UK79 (2 weeks) UK	-	First published: October 1984 Producer: Visage

gray hatching : no chart data available for this year

More albums

• 2013: Hearts and Knives
• 2014: Orchestral
• 2015: Demons to Diamonds
• 2016: Darkness to Diamond

Compilations

year	title	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1983	Fade to Gray: The Singles Collection	-	-	-	UK38 gold (11 weeks)UK	-	First published: November 1983 Producers: Midge Ure, Visage

More compilations

• 1995: The Damned Don't Cry
• 1997: Visage
• 2010: The Face: The Very Best Of
• 2013: Fade to Gray: The Best Of
• 2016: The Wild Life (The Best Of 1978-2015)

Singles

year	Title album	Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements (Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes)					Remarks
		DE	AT	CH	UK	US
1980	Fade to Gray Visage	DE1 gold (30 weeks)DE	AT3 (16 weeks) AT	CH1 (12 weeks) CH	UK8th silver (17 weeks)UK	-	First published: November 1980
1981	Mind of a Toy Visage	DE10 (19 weeks) DE	-	-	UK13 (8 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 1981
	Visage visage	DE41 (6 weeks) DE	-	-	UK21 (7 weeks) UK	-	First published: July 1981
1982	The Damned Don't Cry	DE39 (7 weeks) DE	-	-	UK11 (8 weeks) UK	-	First published: March 1982
	Night Train The Anvil	-	-	-	UK12 (10 weeks) UK	-	First published: June 1982
	Pleasure Boys Fade to Gray: The Singles Collection	-	-	-	UK44 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: November 1982
1984	Love Glove Beat Boy	-	-	-	UK54 (3 weeks) UK	-	First published: August 1984

More singles

• 1979: Tar (release: September)
• 1981: Moon over Moscow
• 1982: The Anvil (release: November)
• 1982: Whispers
• 1984: Beat Boy (release: November)
• 2009: Fade to Gray Mixes 2009
• 2013: Never Enough
• 2013: Frequency 7
• 2013: Dreamer I Know
• 2013: Shameless Fashion
• 2014: Hidden Sign

Video albums

• 1986: Visage

Awards for music sales

Note: Awards in countries from the chart tables or chart boxes can be found in these.

Country / Region	silver	gold	platinum	Sales	swell
Awards for music sales (country / region, awards, sales, sources)
Germany (BVMI)	-	2 × gold2	-	500,000	musikindustrie.de
United Kingdom (BPI)	3 × silver3	gold1	-	470,000	bpi.co.uk
All in all	3 × silver3	3 × gold3	-

literature

• Christian Graf: Rock Music Lexicon . Europe, band 2 , L-Z. Taurus Press, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-922542-22-0 (pp. 435-866).
• Christian Graf and Burghard Rausch: Rock Music Lexicon . Europe / Vol. 2, Lake Zombies. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag , Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-596-12388-7 (pp. 751-1515).
• Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up And Start Again . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2007, ISBN 978-3-85445-270-6 (Chapter 17 Electric Dreams: Synthiepop ).
• Lothar Berndorff and Tobias Friedrich: 1000 ultimate chart hits . Moewig, Hamburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-86803-272-7 (pp. 370-371).
• Steve Strange: Blitzed! The Autobiography of Steve Strange . Orion, London 2002, ISBN 978-0-7528-4720-7 .

swell

1. ↑ With the loss of their inspirational and majestic leaders, Visage decided to disband in 2015. In: therealvisage.com. Retrieved December 26, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Visage UK Discography 1978–1993. In: Discog.info. August 15, 2009, accessed December 13, 2009 . 
3. ↑ Steve Strange talking about the New Romantic movement on Nationwide, March 1981. In: bbc.co.uk. July 10, 2009, accessed December 13, 2009 . 
4. ↑ Adventures in synth. In: guardian.co.uk. Retrieved December 17, 2009 . 
5. ^ FASHION / The British supermarket of style: Street style has been our biggest fashion export. Now, neatly divided into tribes, it's become a museum exhibit at the V&A. Paul Rambali mourns its fate. Sarah Callard talks to those who gave seminal pieces to the show. In: independent.co.uk. Retrieved December 16, 2009 . 
6. ↑ Rushent, who had already been the producer of the Buzzcocks , would later have a significant influence on synth-pop as the producer of The Human League .
7. ↑ Certified Awards Search. In: bpi.co.uk. Retrieved September 14, 2014 . 
8. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Graf, p. 790
9. ↑ See Berndorff, Friedrich, p. 370
10. ↑ Steve Strange Biography. In: bbc.co.uk. November 17, 2008, accessed December 13, 2009 . 
11. ↑ Jonathan Gross in the liner notes for Fade to Gray - the Singles Collection : When I last spoke to Rusty Egan, he said that if Visage would be a band, it would be a real band.
12. ↑ concert report. In: terrorverlag.de. May 14, 2005, accessed December 20, 2009 . 
13. ↑ Visage: The 80s icons are back with a new album after almost 30 years. In: klatsch-tratsch.de. April 5, 2013, accessed April 8, 2013 .  
14. ↑ US albums: Joel Whitburn : Joel Whitburn presents the Billboard Albums . 6th edition. Billboard Books, New York 2006, ISBN 0-89820-166-7 .
15. ↑ ^{a b c} Chart sources: Singles Albums UK US

Web links

• Official website
• Visage at Allmusic (English)
• Visage at Discogs (English)
• Visage at laut.de
• Lyrics of Visage on LyricWiki
• Singles Discography on 45cat.com
• Discography on rateyourmusic.com
• Charts and data at chartsurfer.de