Visage - Fade To Grey

One of my all time fave singles, a classic electronic single from the early 80's which really brought the New Romantics into the charts. Released in November 1980 just as the Blitz kids where getting a name for themselves as the club to be seen at in London. The New Romantics, all dressed up heavily made up and frilly shirts and incredibly smartly dressed used the club to meet up to dance to the latest electronic sounds coming from Europe and the UK. Rusty Egan ran the club along with Steve Strange and thought it would be good to have a house band who could play the tracks the clubbers wanted to hear.

The single was written by Midge Ure, Chris Payne and Billy Currie. Chris and Billy were part of Gary Numan's backing band and Midge was about to join Ultravox which was Billy's old band! The idea of the song came from Steve after looking over the Berlin wall to see how grey everything looked, Midge gave Steve singing lessons so he could be the voice and the face for the band. The single hit the charts early 1981, became an instant classic and peaked at number 8 in the UK but got to number 1 in Germany. It came off the album Visage which featured another 2 hits, Mind Of A Toy and Visage!

The song was helped by the now classic but simply made (by todays standards) video shot by Godley & Crème. It showed off the use of make up and how image could strongly be used to sell a product too as well as the music. Video was still in it's early stages but proved just how useful they could be. The single had a re-issue in 1993 as part of a greatest hits album but managed to scrape to number 39.

Kate Bush - Wuthering Heights

In celebration of Kate receiving her C.B.E from the Queen today I thought I'd post probably her most well known single here today. Released in January 1978 this single slowly climbed the UK charts and got to Number 1 early March and was there for 4 weeks. This was the first number 1 single by a female to be sung and written by the same person. Originally the record company wanted her to release another track as the first single but Kate insisted it was to be Wuthering Heights and luckily for her, an EMI engineer came into the meeting and said how good Wuthering Heights was and it should be the first single. It was released in a small run in a picture cover and it is worth about £30!

The single is based on the book by Emily Bronte but it was the film she watched first, then read the book afterwards. The single had 2 videos (still a new thing in those days) the first and most well known was the studio dancing video with the smoke and film effects, the other was shot out doors with a similar dance routine but this was used for America but has been shown here. The song came off her first album The Kick Inside which hit number 3 of 1978. At the time of release, you either liked her or hated her, I didn't like the single first off, I couldn't get into it until it was dropping out of the charts, then I suddenly got it and thought it was an amazing track, so different to anything around at that time. Here's the single, in the classic EMI bag!

Classic Pop

My new fave magazine, Smash Hits for grown ups as I've described it before now. I used to collect Smash Hits and the first issue I have goes back to 1979 but stopped buying it when it went towards a younger generation. So I've been looking for a really good magazine for years and last year this mag made it's debut on the shelves and is a great read. The latest issue number 4 came out yesterday (4th April) but bought it today and I'm slowly making my way through it. It's always good to read about the old bands and to know that they are still around (in some form anyhow) and are still interested in their output and also that they are still around even to this day! A great read, go check it out!

The Buggles - Video Killed The Radio Star

A fantastic pop song from 1979, was originally from an album released in 1978 by Woolley & the Camera Club called English Garden. Written by Trevor Horn, Geoff Downes & Bruce Woolley this synthpop classic is about nostalgia and technology, about a radio star who's career is cut short by television. Released on Island Records in September 1979 the single climbed to number 1 in November of that year. Although the song was from 1979 is has been featured on many 80's compilations. Surprised at the single's success the band had to rush back into the studio to record a follow up single and came up with The Plastic Age and the album The Age Of Plastic, although the single hit the charts nothing came close to the success of Video!

When MTV started in America in August 1981 Video Killed The Radio Star was the first video to be shown on the new station, very much true to the single's title! The band released another album but split up, Horn and Downes joined Yes for a while and Trevor Horn became a top producer in the first half of the 80's to work with the likes of ABC, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Dollar! Here's the single which still is a classic and still sounds great!