➢➢ Shapers of the 80s ➣➣

➤ A rave for Alison Moyet’s comeback single – ‘my happiest studio experience’

Posted on 18 Feb 2013 | 1 comment

Alison Moyet,Changeling,,download,pop music,Guy Sigsworth, ,comeback ,single

Hello again, Alison Moyet: three-times Brit winner and Grammy nominee

➢ PJ’s verdict today: “Completely amazing in the 2010s – What we have before us in The Changeling is an extraordinary, very modern-sounding and effortlessly stylish comeback tune that teases Moyet’s first album in six years. You will note that her voice sounds completely sensational but that’s to be expected really isn’t it? The smart, decadent production is the work of Guy Sigsworth…”

➢ Utterly free download of Changeling, the first track to be premiered from a new album by 80s icon Alison Moyet – The Minutes is Alison’s first artist album since 2007 and was produced by Guy Sigsworth, known for his work with Robyn, Björk, Goldie and Madonna. The singer says: “I avoided listening to anything during the process of writing and recording this album, choosing instead to be lead by my own melodic voice, the one I now find myself with 30-years-in. Guy Sigsworth returns me to a programmer’s world and marries it with perfect musicality. I have been waiting for him. We have made an album mindless of industry mores that apply to middle-aged women and have shunned all talk of audiences, demographics and advert jazz covers. This has easily been my happiest studio experience.”

➢ 2012, NME names synth-duo Yazoo’s Only You as the 8th Greatest Song in Pop History

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Tagged Alison Moyet, Changeling, comeback, download, Guy Sigsworth, single

➤ A glamorous date with Margot Fonteyn and a feast of fabulous frocks

Posted on 2 Feb 2013 | Leave a comment

Margot Fonteyn,Fashion Museum ,,Fabulous Frocks,Bath

Shall we dance? Dame Margot Fonteyn’s ostrich feather evening coat by YSL at the Fashion Museum in Bath

❚ WOW FACTOR TIMES 50! The ostrich feather evening coat seen in close-up (above) and matching crystal and feather cocktail dress by Yves St Laurent (below) were owned by the English prima ballerina Margot Fonteyn and worn to go nightclubbing in the 1960s with her stage partner Rudolf Nureyev, the charismatic Russian dancer who had defected to work in the West. They are showing from today until end of the year in the exhibition, 50 Fabulous Frocks which have been chosen from a world-class collection of originals to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the council-run Fashion Museum in Bath. Dame Margot was a great supporter of the earlier Museum of Costume and donated a number of her personal clothes in the 60s.

F-A-B: YSL crystal and feather cocktail dress and 17th-century silver tissue dress (Fashion Museum, Bath)

Rosemary Harden, principal curator of the museum, wants to show the richness of its collection through personal wardrobe moments and key landmarks in fashion history “ranging from our oldest piece, an exquisite 17th-century silver tissue dress, to one of the latest Burberry creations”.

The display also includes a gold embroidered Georgian court dress and a delicate 1870s gauze bustle day dress alongside an Ossie Clark trouser suit, the Chanel suit and stars of 20th-century couture – Schiaparelli, Poiret, Vionnet, Dior – plus today’s most desired names such as Erdem and John Rocha.

The Fashion Museum originated with Doris Langley Moore, a designer, collector, writer and scholar who gave her famous private collection of costume to the city of Bath. Recently it was listed by CNN as one of the world’s Top 10 fashion museums.

➢ 50 Fabulous Frocks runs from Feb 2 at the Fashion Museum, Bath

➢ Bath in Fashion 2013 is a week-long festival (April 13–21) showcasing celebrities such Norman Parkinson in a centenary exhibition, an illustration masterclass with David Downton, talks with Michael Jackson’s costume designer Michael Bush, and Sir Roy Strong. Plus catwalk shows and craft workshops

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Tagged Bath, exhibitions, Fabulous Frocks, Fashion Museum, Margot Fonteyn

➤ The world asks, Who is Boy George these days? And he answers

Posted on 30 Jan 2013 | Leave a comment

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“It did all right, Culture Club, but, you know, move on” – Boy George the ex-singer

“Dance music is probably the most exciting it’s been in years” – Boy George the deejay

Philip Sallon partying with blue-faced George in 1980 when he was an obsessive record collector. (Photographed by Paul Sturridge)

❏ Feb 20 update: The new slimline beardie, tachioed George interviewed at the Brits:

“Twitter were very nice and got my name back [from somebody else] but Facebook won’t do it – so I actually don’t own my Facebook page. I’m Angela Gina Dust”

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Posted in Clubbing, Media, Pop music

Tagged Boy George, Culture Club, DJ, Memorabilia, Philip Sallon, Video

2013 ➤ Want to know the future of nearly everything? Vice magazine has the answers

Posted on 21 Jan 2013 | Leave a comment

Vice magazine, future, forecasts, Football , Africa, Drugs , Architecture,Crime, internet, fashion, clubbing,politics,culture,guitars, cool

Boombox clubber: “attempting to look like their MySpace profile”

➢ So, Vice Future Week – what is it? – Alex Miller, Editor-In-Chief, Vice UK, writes: “Well it’s a series of blogs (or essays – that’s how I’ve explained it to people who I’m intimidated by) about THE FUTURE.” Right ºOº. Fortunately, the essays mostly prove compelling, so here are a few online soundbites from Alex’s more focused commentators…

➢ In The Year 2022: Looking Back at the Decade – “The Islamic Republic of Catalonia seemed new and scary to a lot of people, but Islamic city-states are hardly an innovation in Spain. Prime Minister Boris Johnson was such a laughline ten years ago, like Mayor Boris Johnson before, that I think most people were prepared for it…”

onesie,fashion,Vice magazine, future, forecasts,

Soft fashion: weighing us down

➢ Things That Need to Die Before British Culture Can Move Forwards – “British culture is in a weird place right now. Teenagers are buying their drugs on the internet, but getting their clothes from Hollister. Hardbody MCs are beefing with each other about the merits of Ed Sheeran, and Mail Online’s Sidebar of Shame is a cultural staple on which careers are born and killed… There are many facets of our culture that are really weighing us down. The albatrosses slowly breaking our necks, the clips on our cultural wings. So let’s name those things: gentrified fun… cocaine… bedroom vanity… consensus cool… soft fashion…”

➢ The Future of Fashion – “I’d like to think I’d be braced for the following bombs to drop in the next decade: China is set to rise from consuming only ten per cent of the world’s international luxury goods, to 44 per cent… The internet means that very specific city-based subcultures are catching on globally… Shops “will become more like showrooms”… The effect new browser systems will have on fashion will be similar to how East London venue Boombox was “a nightclub full of people attempting to look like their pictures on MySpace”. People will “try to look 3D, or like a computer”…”

Vice magazine, future, forecasts, politics,consensus, cool

Inevitable: Prime Minister Boris Johnson and consensus cool. (Illustration by Julia Scheele)

➢ The Future of Guitar Music – “Guitar music, despite my best efforts, isn’t dead… Somehow, according to industry insiders at Radio One, NME and (that most respected and time honoured bastion of rock’n’roll) Kiss FM; without it ever having gone anywhere, the guitar is on its way BACK… Last year, Jack White, Linkin Park, Bruce Springsteen and Matchbox Twenty all scored Billboard number one albums in the US, while The xx, The Vaccines, The Killers and Muse all enjoyed number one records over here…”

➢ Other topics at Vice include Future of Football… Africa’s rise… Drugs… Architecture… Crime…

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Tagged Africa, Architecture, cool, Crime, Drugs, Football, forecasts, future, guitars, internet, politics, Vice magazine

➤ A couple of slaps in the Visage

Posted on 19 Jan 2013 | Leave a comment

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❚ OOPS! RECENT RUSTLINGS IN THE DOVECOTE suggest all is not well between founder members of the 80s synthpop band Visage who gave the world The Anvil and a couple of other albums and confirmed Steve Strange as king of the pop posers.

Talks about talks to make their first album since Visage fell apart in 1984 have been going on for a year or more but the three founding members – synth pioneer Midge Ure, drummer Rusty Egan and vocalist Steve Strange – haven’t seen eye to eye since last summer. Then in November differences went public when Strange performed their biggest hit Fade to Grey on German TV [see video above] and in the ensuing interview he claimed that Midge Ure was still collaborating. At the three-minute mark Strange says: “We’re in the studio now doing a new fourth album with Midge Ure – Midge is writing the songs with me.” When a Tweeter asked if this was true, Ure’s denial was immediate: “He is deluded if he thinks that. He knows that isn’t happening.”

Before Christmas Egan suddenly went public with a serious allegation about Strange’s handling of a substantial Visage royalties payment (accumulated revenue intended for all members of the 80s band) which he had allegedly received in 2004. I asked Egan whether his move was a little unwise, and he replied: “Sorry to say but as Steve Strange is blaming the hold up of Visage on me. I just can’t listen to any more of his complete rubbish. There is NO VISAGE ALBUM. There is Steve Stange [sic] and some blokes cashing in on the success of Ultravox.”

The same day Strange tweeted [below]: “there are 2 sides 2 every story”.

Dozens of fans piled into Facebook to comment and in the first week of January Strange typed erratically: “thank you all 4 bringn 2my attention it s,ilegall slanderous lies by an ex member of Visage. As an agreement,we as a 4 piece ?4igned an agreement not 2 mention ,this story ? As this person is talkn in. public a lega restraining order is soon to be put in place .tThis Visage album will not be derailed .”

Only days later Strange announced to the world on Facebook “The New Visage Line up” in a glam studio portrait [below] which showed him beneath a marcel wave alongside Lauren Duvall, Steve Barnacle and Robin Simon. Strange commented on the pre-Christmas allegations: “There s always got ? Too be , the voice of doom n gloom. Not a band reunion a new lineup.” [sic]

This week a despairing Facebook follower asked Egan why the pair couldn’t resolve their differences. Yesterday Egan replied: “the way was to make a visage record and Steve repay ——* royalties. We failed.”
[* word deleted by Shapersofthe80s]

➢ 2010, Feast of remixes on new ‘Very Best’ of Visage album