This 1988 CD EP release is something of a curio as it contains two mixes by Visage that have for whatever reason been rather forgotten about in the digital age. Not that you would know from the sleeve design, as it doesn’t provide any details on the specific mixes included. But these two mixes of interest are the original extended 12” mix of ‘Fade To Grey’ and the ‘Dance Dub’ mix of ‘Beat Boy’.
This original 12” mix of ‘Fade To Grey’ first emerged not on the 1980 UK 12” single but on the West German 12” single release. (The UK 12” single featured the same single edit as the 7” mix). The West German 12” release (Polydor 2141 318) – see discos.com entry – featured an extended mix of ‘Fade To Grey’, though its fair to say that this 12” extended mix has since been eclipsed and replaced as seemingly the ‘definitive’ 12” mix of the song by the later ‘Dance Mix’ version that first appeared on the US ‘Visage’ Mini-Album (Polydor, PX-1-501) released in July 1981, as featured in a previous post. For example, on many various artists compilation CDs in recent decades whenever there is a 12″ or extended mix of ‘Fade To Grey’ it is almost always the ‘Dance Mix’, or, even more confusingly, a slightly shorter edit of this ‘Dance Mix’. (See ‘Postscript’ below for more detail on this.) The most recent example of this is from Rusty Egan’s 4-disc ‘Rusty Egan Presents Blitzed!’ collection (view the discogs.com entry), which features the full-length ‘Dance Mix’ version of ‘Fade To Grey’ in all its glory – it truly is a superb mix.
Meantime, the ‘original’ 12″ mix as featured on this CD single is quite a different affair. It lacks the downright irresistible straight-ahead funkiness of the Dance Mix and has in the past come in for the occasional comment that its basically just the single mix repeated twice.
To be fair, it’s not quite as straightforward as that. What it is is basically the first three minutes of the single mix and then it jumps back to the start of the first verse (which is about 35 seconds in on the single mix) and then plays out as per the remainder of the single mix. So, there’s none of the edits and rhythmic nips and tucks of the Dance Mix to be found.
As an aside, the single mix and album mix are largely the same other than the very start, with the solo synth notes and electronic blips 1, 2, 3, 4 count-in before the CR-78 rhythm box and synth notes kick in, which is where the 7” mix starts.
The other mix ‘of interest’ to be found here is 1984’s ‘Beat Boy’ in its 5’23” duration ‘Dance Dub’ mix that was originally included as the B side of the 12” single release (view discos.com entry). ‘Beat Boy’ is a whole different proposition to the majesty of ‘Fade To Grey’, by this point what constituted Visage had changed radically and the sound of ‘Beat Boy’ was crashing Art of Noise style sampled drum brats and rock guitar. Your mileage may vary on how much the appeal of this mix may or may not be of interest!
The remaining two tracks to be found on this CD EP are great tracks but are both easily enough found elsewhere, as ‘Mind Of A Toy’ and ‘The Damned Don’t Cry’ are both the familiar album mixes.
Postscript
I mentioned above that on many various artists compilation CDs in recent decades whenever there is a 12″ or extended mix of ‘Fade To Grey’ it is almost always the ‘Dance Mix’, or, even more confusingly, a slightly shorter edit of this ‘Dance Mix’. There look to be two variants that crop up and I would guess that the reason for this is that the ‘Dance Mix’ has a very long outro section that is largely rhythmically near instrumental and bereft of melody – which would be ideal for DJs looking to fade in a suitable tempo-matching track back in the day, but which in later times has perhaps been snipped for brevity. Both edits look to be just early fade-outs of the ‘Dance Mix’.
The longer of the two edits seems to faded out from around the 6’10” mark and is over by 6’22”. I first came across this edit on the 1992 Old Gold (OG 6520) CD EP that features the Dance Mix versions of ‘Mind Of A Toy’, ‘Fade To Grey’ and ‘Visage’ – view the discogs.com entry for this and the 1990 various artists compilation ‘The Best Of Synth Gold – Extended Mixes’ [Old Gold OG 3802]. It is also on the 2020 Visage compilation CD ‘Fade To Grey – The Singles Collection (Special Dance Mix Album)’ [Rubellan / Republic / UMC Special Markets RUBY10CD / B0031381-02] but it doesn’t fade out as it segues into ‘Mind Of A Toy’ Dance Mix.
The shorter of the two edits of the ‘Dance Mix’ lops off a minute or so of the track. First time I came across this was on the 2002 compilation CD ‘The Sound Of The Crowd’ [Universal 584 363-2], but I have also come across this edit on the 2005 compilation CDs ‘Electric 80s’ [Sony BMG Music Entertainment 82876705382] and ’12″/80s’ [Family Recordings 9826602].
I’m sure there are plenty more out there as ‘Fade To Grey’ is featured on so many multi-artist compilation CDs by now.