The fade in ZM

I was listening to the radio today and I saw an interesting way to use a fade as a background when combined with an image. It was for the ZM radio stations Listen Live page. I have images in my present design yet I haven't found a cohesive way to put them into the interface without them seeming like clip art or becoming tacky.

The ZM page showed me that I could use an image as long as it was not dominating the data/text of the screen.