Visage Frontman Steve Strange dies aged just 55

Not my genre but definitely my era and a massive part of the 80s new romantic scene in the UK , pioneer Steve Strange has died at just 55 in a hospital in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt following a heart attack.

I doubt there's a person out there who hasn't heard Fade To Grey and for me it's one of the difining songs of the 80s and my youth .

His agent, Pete Bassett, said he would be remembered as "a hard-working, very amusing and lovable individual who always was at the forefront of fashion trends".
"Up until last year he was putting together a book of fashion styles based on the New Romantic movement and it comes as a great shock.
"We understood that he had certain health problems but nothing we knew was life threatening.
"His friends and family are totally shocked, we had no idea anything like this was likely to happen."
www.bbc.co.uk...

Truly a sad day.
RiP

Shame.
Im sure the humongous amount of drugs he did contributed to his early death.

R.I.P. Steve you were a pioneer...

R I P, what a shame!

Fade to grey, such a bloody good song, still sounds great today, long live 80s electric!!!

I'm more of a Rock genre person, but 'Fade to grey' is a classic.

RIP Steve.

a reply to: gortex

I find the entire new romantic era to be a little tiresome and empty, but it is always a shame when a creative mind passes from this world. I hope he rests in peace, and that those who mourn him are able to help him live in memory and sensation, through his music.

As a British kid growing up in the 1970s I remember "Fade to Grey" as sort of the defining sound of the early 1980s. It's roots lie with many members of Ultravox.

It was definitely a time when a very different type of music was filtering through the airwaves. The dinosaurs of the 1960s and early 1970s had almost faded away. Even punk sounded old hat by then. Futuristic themes, left wing politics and synthetic sounds all fused together to take popular music seriously left field for a while.

In fact if you look at that video for Fade to Grey it was probably made on a very tight budget but shows so much imagination and innovation for it's time.

I sure miss those days when music still seemed to offer something new to me. Once big synths, samplers and computers (like the Fairlight) were becoming common place popular music seemed to become stagnant around the mid to late 1980s. The production techniques reached a peak in that decade and everything made ever since has seemed to be a rinse and repeat of the 60s,70s and of course the 80s.

So rest in peace Steve Strange.

Sad news.


Don't know much about the Music to be honest...


But he was down to Earth enough to follow me on Twitter.





Read a couple of recent tweets to him and people were telling him to get well soon & he should be ok.

Sad.

RIP Fella.

31st January, it looks like he was taken ill and went to hospital in Egypt.

Probably related.

a reply to: gortex

Isn't it strange that in today's world we consider 55 too young to die. Go back 50 years or so and it's considered normal.

Still sad to see someone who creates culture die so suddenly.

R.I.P.