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Back in autumn 1980, a new fashion movement sprang out of London's clubs. Then, venues like Heaven, Camden Palace, and Billy's were toying with electronic music, one of many post-punk trends that was championed by the likes of Ultravox, Orchestral Manouvres In The Dark, Cabaret Voltaire and, of course, Gary Numan, who brought a new lease of life to electronic music with his massive singles hits a year before.

Of course, Kraftwerk, Roxy Music and David Bowie had already given this music a good boost during the mid-1970s. Bowie's Low and Heroes, which were recorded in Berlin, did say a lot about Berlin's decadence, which in itself, proved to be a leading factor in this emerging trend.

Many critics claim that New Romanticism was a manufactured scene featuring lots of posers, often creative people who had always been more interested in the sartorial aspects of dressing up than the anarchic statement of punk's anti-fashion and who were looking for new ideas to draw attention to themselves. Yes, there wasn't anything really innovative in this movement. Their image was drawn from Hollywood glamour, post-World War I Berlin, as
well as bleached-blond hair, evening suits, flared basque jackets, swashbuckling pirate suits, flamboyant frilly wear and luscious fabrics. As with glam rock, which was all the rage a decade earlier, New Romance was by and large, quite narcissistic. Its individualistic image contrasted sharply with punk rock's uniformity.

Soon, new clubs like Blitz and Billy's started running Bowie Nights and changed their weekend format to accommodate more new electronic sounds. Then the likes of Steve Strange and Boy George ran domestic jobs with this club. Mr Strange soon became a DJ and one Rustie Egan, a former member of Scots band The Rich Kids, was gaining a lot of attraction as he started championing the likes of emerging bands like Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode.

Thereafter, Boy George and Steve Strange also assembled their own bands and Ultravox streamlined their highly artistic style and scored a huge hit with Vienna. Visage quickly followed with Fade To Grey and for a while, around February 1981, New Romance held the upper hand in UK pop. Visage were arguably the most prominent and the most promising of the lot. Featuring a line-up that included Ultravox's Billy Currie, three members of Magazine, namely Barry Adamson, Dave Formula and the late John McGeoch, they were regarded as a supergroup and their debut album sold encouragingly. However, that was as far as they could go. In their wake, other fledgling electronic bands like Blah Blah Blah, The Berlin Blondes, Neu Elettrik, Illuminations, Naked Lunch, The The, Soft Cell and Blancmange emerged. The latter three all eventually managed to hit the big time, however, many others fell by the wayside. A good anthology that does tell a lot about these bands and this era is Some Bizzarre, Volume One, a compilation album which was the brainchild of one young talent called Stevo. Its raw, yet clinical sounds do say a lot about how electronic music made its way in this new glam scene, which contrary to its precedent, did not give much prominence to the guitar. It did, however, place a lot of emphasis on soul music. Soft Cell's number one hit Tainted Love late in 1981 was an old Eddy Cobb hit that had been covered by Gloria Jones six years earlier.

Ms Jones was the partner of the late Marc Bolan, who also was regarded as a hero by the likes of Adam Ant, who was also lumped with this movement, largely because of his pirate suits, rather than his music, which was essentially based on guitar and Burundi-double drumming.

As with many art school-based youth movements, New Romance clothing was quickly seized upon by commercial forces, and watered-down versions were being cheaply reproduced for high street shops. David Bowie's hit single Fashion late in 1980 may have been a clear indication of things to come but by the time Soft Cell had made the grade, New Romance was
already fading away. It may have been the fact that most bands either failed to emulate previous successes, or else they opted to open up, rather than be stuck in the subculture that nurtured them in the first place. Such were the destinies of some of the most successful bands thereafter, like Duran Duran, Depeche Mode and Talk Talk, who were arguably the most experimental of the lot. Others like Visage and Adam Ant had called it a day within a couple of years and would languish in the wilderness for many years. Steve Strange even dabbled with drugs and now he has been slowly rebuilding his career, writing his autobiography Blitzed!, and appearing on the Here and Now 80s Revival Tour. He has also worked on an updated version of Fade to Grey for a campaign against age discrimination at work. Adam Ant, also a drug washout, has found the going even harder.

In Malta, New Romance had an avid following and still instils a lot of nostalgia among 40-somethings, who regularly head for the various 1980s' nights that are hosted time and again. The encouraging Maltese presence in the UK for Duran Duran's comeback tour two years ago is further testimony to such an avid following.

Published on Times of Malta (Weekender - 11 February 2006)

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