Steve Strange’s role was not to be a dazzling instrumentalist – it was to make connections and deploy an aesthetic. And that’s what he was brilliant at
There were more famous new romantic bands than Visage, and maybe even one or two singles as good as Fade to Grey, but the late Steve Strange’s group embodied the style more than anyone else. That’s only what you’d excpect: he was the scene’s literal gatekeeper, and his door policy on the Blitz Club he hosted reserved entry strictly to “the weird and wonderful”. “People accuse the Blitz of being elitist,” says the club’s website. “They were right.”
A little elitism, flash and glamour was probably what turn-of-the-80s London needed. It was most likely inevitable that the capital’s clubland would turn towards colour and high fashion. But it was London’s luck to attract someone with the drive and sensibility of Steve Strange. In the ferment of 1980s youth movements – mod revivalists, two-tone acts, disaffected new wavers – the Blitz Kids stood out for the daring (and sometimes the absurdity) of their style, and for their commitment to it in the face of public gawping. Strange led from the front, made up as a damaged pierrot, a porcelain-faced old man, a sailor, a convict, or a dandy.
Related: New Romantic pioneer pioneer Steve Strange dies
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by Tom Ewing via Electronic music | The Guardian
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