"Camouflage" is a single released by the English musician and comedian

Chris Sievey Christopher Mark Sievey (25 August 1955 – 21 June 2010) was an English musician, comedian and artist known for fronting the band the Freshies in the late 1970s and early 1980s and for his comic persona Frank Sidebottom from 1984 onwards. ...

in 1983. The single is notable for its

B-side The A-side and B-side are the two sides of phonograph records and cassettes; these terms have often been printed on the labels of two-sided music recordings. The A-side usually features a recording that its artist, producer, or record compan ...

, which rather than containing another song, contains the audio tones for three programs Sievey created for the

Sinclair Sinclair may refer to: Places * Lake Sinclair, near Milledgeville, Georgia * Sinclair, Iowa * Sinclair, West Virginia * Sinclair, Wyoming * Sinclair Mills, British Columbia * Sinclair Township, Minnesota * Sinclair, Manitoba People * Sin ...

ZX81 The ZX81 is a home computer that was produced by Sinclair Research and manufactured in Dundee, Scotland, by Timex Corporation. It was launched in the United Kingdom in March 1981 as the successor to Sinclair's ZX80 and designed to be a low-cost ...

computer. Two programs were for a

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

Sievey created called ''Flying Train'', and the other was the code for the

music video A music video is a video of variable duration, that integrates a music song or a music album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a m ...

to "Camouflage". The video claimed that this was "the world's first computer promo".

Origin

The song was released during a hiatus with Sievey's band

The Freshies The Freshies are an English punk rock band, formed in Manchester, England in 1978. The band was founded by singer-songwriter and comedian Chris Sievey, whose best-known creation – comedy character Frank Sidebottom – originated as a mascot fo ...

. The documentary film ''Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story'' features clips from interviews Sievey gave at the time of the song's release, stating that it came about when he went to pay a telephone bill and instead purchased a ZX81. He then learned how to program and created the song, "which used the

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

as a metaphor for love's frustrations." While the A-side was a conventional single, the B-side contained what sounds like random noise. This noise was actually a series of three programs for the ZX81. Two of these were the 16

kilobyte The kilobyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. The International System of Units (SI) defines the prefix ''kilo'' as 1000 (103); per this definition, one kilobyte is 1000 bytes.International Standard IEC 80000-13 Quantiti ...

and 1 kilobyte versions of "Flying Train", a video game he created, which involved having to land a flying

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and Passenger train, transport people or Rail freight transport, freight. Trains are typically pul ...

onto a track while avoiding birds. The third program was an animated music video for the song "Camouflage". In order to play the video, the user had to record the B-side onto

cassette tape The Compact Cassette or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the tape cassette, cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens ...

, load the data from the tape into the ZX81, and then run the program while playing the A-side at the same time, so that the music synchronised with the video.

Reception

"Camouflage" failed to chart when it was released, but retrospectively critics have praised the creation of the single for how forward-thinking it was at the time. Bob Sorokanich writing for

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

said that: "It's a graphic style that artists and musicians find fascinating today, and Sievey's experiment foreshadowed the

Enhanced CD Enhanced CD is a certification mark of the Recording Industry Association of America for various technologies that combine audio and computer data for use in both Compact Disc and CD-ROM players. Formats that fall under the "enhanced CD" ca ...

s that offered up all kinds of

easter eggs Easter eggs, also called Paschal eggs, are eggs that are decorated for the Christian feast of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus. As such, Easter eggs are common during the season of Eastertide (Easter season). The oldest tra ...

when you'd pop them in your computer's CD-ROM drive".

Aftermath

In 1984, Sievey created the video game '' The Biz'' for the

ZX Spectrum The ZX Spectrum () is an 8-bit computing, 8-bit home computer that was developed by Sinclair Research. It was released in the United Kingdom on 23 April 1982, and became Britain's best-selling microcomputer. Referred to during development as t ...

, a

simulation A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of Conceptual model, models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviors of the selected system or proc ...

set in the music industry. The B-side of ''The Biz'' featured eight songs by Sievey and the debut of his most famous creation, the comic character Frank Sidebottom. Rhys James Jones wrote in ''The Conversation'' that: "It's possible to see Sievey's retreat into his Frank disguise as a reaction against "Camouflages failure. But it's telling that the computer press, particularly the Spectrum magazine ''

Crash Crash or CRASH may refer to: Common meanings * Collision, an impact between two or more objects * Crash (computing), a condition where a program ceases to respond * Cardiac arrest, a medical condition in which the heart stops beating * Couch su ...

'', adored Frank. Home microcomputing, and the tools surrounding it, helped bring about one of the best-loved pop parodists of the past 30 years."

Personnel

–

Lead vocals The lead vocalist in popular music is typically the member of a group or band whose voice is the most prominent melody in a performance where multiple voices may be heard. The lead singer sets their voice against the accompaniment parts of t ...

keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

* Paula and Winifred (The Vizzable Girls) –

Backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are use ...

* Mike Doherty –

Drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a she ...

References

{{reflist 1983 computer-animated films 1983 short films 1983 singles 1980s music videos Animated music videos British new wave songs EMI Records singles Home computer software Vinyl data 1983 songs