Visage were a British synth pop band formed in London in 1978. The band became closely linked to the burgeoning New Romantic fashion movement of the early 1980s. Founding members Midge Ure and Rusty Egan started working on Visage to produce music to play at the clubs Egan was DJing at. Egan alongside Steve Strange was hosting David Bowie and Roxy Music club nights at Billy’s nightclub in London’s Soho at the time and Egan was eager to find new music to play, ultimately opting to create music himself with Ure. Strange was then brought into the band to provide the face and voice of Visage with the line-up being completed with the addition of Ultravox keyboardist Billy Currie and three-fifths of the post-punk band Magazine – guitarist John McGeoch, keyboardist Dave Formula and bassist Barry Adamson.
The band signed to Radar Records, a new independent label run by Martin Davis Visage released their first single “Tar” on Radar in September 1979, though the single failed to chart. By this time, however, Strange and Egan had relocated their themed club nights to the Blitz club in Covent Garden and the New Romantic movement had begun in earnest. In mid-1980, David Bowie himself visited the club and asked Strange and three other regulars to appear in the video for his single “Ashes to Ashes”, which helped to propel the New Romantic movement into the mainstream.
Although Visage’s debut album had been completed for several months, it was not released until November 1980 when the band was now signed to the major label Polydor. The band’s second single, “Fade to Grey”, was released at the same time. The single became a hit in early 1981, making the top ten in the UK and several other countries, and reaching no. 1 in Germany and Switzerland. The album also became a Top 20 hit in the UK and was certified Silver by the BPI.
After further hits with the singles “Mind of a Toy” and the title track “Visage”, Strange struggled to reunite the band’s members again to record a second album due to their commitments with their respective bands; Ure had now joined Currie in Ultravox, Formula and Adamson with Magazine and McGeoch had joined Siouxsie and the Banshees. Nonetheless, in the autumn of 1981, Visage went into the studio and recorded ‘The Anvil’ as a five-piece band without McGeoch and only limited guest work from Adamson. The album was released in March 1982 and became the band’s only Top 10 hit in the UK Albums Chart, producing two top-twenty singles with “The Damned Don’t Cry” and “Night Train”.
The Anvil earned a Silver disc in the UK. Following this, Ure quit from Visage to concentrate on his work with Ultravox, who were now even more successful than Visage. Creative differences with Strange and Egan were also cited as reasons for his departure at the time. Although still recording, Visage then took a two-year hiatus from releasing any new material due to contractual difficulties with their management company. Polydor issued a “best of” compilation, Fade to Grey – The Singles Collection, which included all of the singles released to date and the previously unreleased “In the Year 2525”. Although the album was certified Gold in the UK for pre-release sales to stores, it only peaked at No. 38 in the UK Albums Chart after its release in November 1983. In 1984, with their contractual problems resolved, Visage returned with their third and final album, Beat Boy. Released in October 1984, the album was a critical and commercial failure, peaking at No. 79 in the UK. Two singles from the album, “Love Glove” and “Beat Boy”, also failed to make the UK top 40.
