New Romantic

Foppish shirt, powdered facial whiteout, pulsating synth backdrop . . . and, of course, a passion for extravagant romanticism. Such were the trappings of the theatrical yet streetwise artists who created and defined the New Romantic movement in London's clubland, then turned U.K. TV's music show Top of the Pops into a weekly carnivale during the early '80s, before spearheading the Second British Invasion of the U.S. ABC's suave, sophisticated single "The Look of Love, Pt. 1" blends lush romanticism with a sense of decadent glamour; Visage's "Fade to Grey" invites a superior degree of poseur-ability; and Spoons gives the scene a Canadian blush with 1982's excellent "Nova Heart." Follow the trail of electro-pop, make-up, and glamour to Next Steps.

Vince Clarke was a lynchpin figure in the musical direction of the New Romantic movement — he was a founding member of Depeche Mode, but became more visible as the keyboard presence in Yaz ("Don't Go") alongside Alison Moyet, before going on to form Erasure. Limahl marked his solo breakaway from Kajagoogoo by scoring a global hit with the theme song from the 1984 movie The Neverending Story; Boy George went even bigger in the States the same year, spending three weeks at the top of the charts with Culture Club's "Karma Chameleon"; and Vancouver's Images In Vogue made its first impression on the Canadian charts with 1983's "Lust for Love." Canada goes fully electro in our New Romantic Deep Cuts.

There was plenty of cross-pollination within the ranks of the New Romantics, which is why you'll find common threads across a fairly disparate array of styles. Gary Numan ("Are 'Friends' Electric?") affected a look of po-faced androgyny that owed a debt to David Bowie ("Boys Keep Swinging"), while a more cheerful vein of pop links the chirpy tunes of Altered Images ("Happy Birthday") and Scritti Politti's "Wood Beez (Pray Like Aretha Franklin)." On the proto-electro fringes of the movement, a couple of Canadian outfits made a big impression — Trans-X's "Living On Video" was a massive international hit in 1983, while Rational Youth's "City of Light" got the futurists' feet moving.

If you had the soul (and flouncy shirts) of a consumptive 19th-century poet and the musical circuitry of a 25th-century android — and you were turning heads on the streets of London's Soho during the early '80s — chances are you were a New Romantic. The movement would ultimately spread away from its underground club roots (Culture Club's Boy George was the cloakroom attendant at the influential Blitz Club in Covent Garden) and into the charts, from which we've pulled this selection of still-electrifying tracks. Trace the trend from A Flock of Seagulls to Yaz, lingering flamboyantly with the likes of Japan ("Life In Tokyo"), Roxy Music ("More Than This"), Chalk Circle ("April Fool"), and Adam Ant ("Stand and Deliver").