ANDREW DINELEY
Tar, Visage’s paean to smoking and the band’s sole release on Radar Records, with its image of Steve Strange emerging into the light conveying shades of Expressionist horror
‘New Romanticism’ as a label was never really accepted by any of the artists that rose to fame during the period. Almost everyone felt encumbered by the term – a phrase that came to be used by the media to compartmentalise what was really a self-sufficient, disparate band of talented people. But from pirates to pierrots, from Little Lord Fauntleroy to Little Bo Peep, this colourful clan quickly moved from the underground to mainstream. Many of the architects of this cult with no name used it to launch themselves, others provided the crucial soundtrack, and there were those who used it to establish longer-term careers.