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Sign upBritish and European synth-pop - relatives and neighbours of Italo Disco.
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September 1979: Tubeway Army Are Friends Electric - the first synth hit #1 in the UK. From Kraftwerk The Man-Machine (1978) to Human League Dare (1981) - a chronology of the transition and a map of transitional albums where the synthesiser went from supplementary to main instrument.
1983. Clan of Xymox, Wolfsheim, Deine Lakaien - three genres born in the same post-punk environment but diverging by rhythm, vocals and synthesiser. Fifteen verifiable examples.
1979-1984. Five years in which synth-pop and new wave travelled from a common root to two distinct genres. Comparison table, ten borderline tracks, a listener's test.
How to distinguish synth-pop from any song with keyboards: twelve signs across arrangement, rhythm, voice and form, a 1977-1986 timeline and a test for borderline tracks.
6 May 1985: Duran Duran write the theme for the 14th Bond film with John Barry at Abbey Road. The only Bond single to hit Billboard #1 - two weeks there. £200,000 fee, Eiffel Tower video.
20 October 1986: UK #56 and US #98 on release - a flop. Bass cut on Emulator II from a sampled Moog Source, Hook never plays. Shep Pettibone's remix became club canon; Marie Antoinette 2006 brought it back.
1 October 1982: Thomas Dolby drops the Blinded by Science EP. By April 1983 - Billboard #5 via MTV heavy rotation. Dr. Magnus Pyke (74, the BBC scientist) shouts “Science!” 5 times for a £200 fee - by 1985 he had collected £180,000 in royalties. The whole EP was tracked on one Fairlight CMI Series II.
May 1982: from the Rio album. UK #5 immediately, US flop at #80. In December MTV puts Russell Mulcahy's $35K Sri Lanka clip in heavy rotation; by January 1983 - Billboard #3. The first case of MTV pulling a song from failure into the top 5. 1983 Grammy for Best Music Video.
December 1984: George Michael wrote the song alone in one February 1984 night. Advision Studios, DX7 and sleighbells. UK #2 - blocked by Band Aid, on which George himself sang. He donated single profits to Ethiopia. On 2 January 2021 the track finally hit UK #1 - a 36-year record gap from release.
July 1987: New Order's first American top-40 hit - Billboard #32, UK #4. Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, producer Stephen Hague. The signature synth riff - Akai S900. Bernard Sumner's lyric is ambiguous: drugs or faith. Philippe Decouflé's clip took the 1988 Brit Award - dance without music.
May 1982: UK #9, US #14 - not a chart record. But Russell Mulcahy's $250,000 Antigua-yacht video rewrote MTV aesthetics for 1982-87. Rio sold 12M worldwide. John Taylor's Fender Jazz Bass borrowed from Bernard Edwards (Chic). Patrick Nagel's sleeve became a visual icon of the 80s.
April 1983: UK #1 for four weeks, Billboard #4. Compass Point Studios, Bahamas; producers Jolley & Swain. Gary Kemp wrote about unrequited love for Clare Grogan (Altered Images). Steve Norman's tenor sax solo - one take after seven rehearsals. P. M. Dawn sampled it in 1991 - about $1.8M came back to Kemp.
January 1981: 20-year-old Kim Wilde's debut - lyric by 19-year-old brother Ricky, music by 50s pop star father Marty. Nobody in the family had been to America. UK #2, #1 in four European countries, US #25. Eden Studios, Roland Jupiter-4, 172 BPM, 3M+ copies. Ricky produced at 19.
20 June 1980: the single drops 33 days after Ian Curtis's death. The 23-year-old frontman hanged himself on 18 May in a Manchester flat, torn between wife Deborah and lover Annik Honoré. UK #13, 5M+ copies. Strawberry Studios, Martin Hannett, ARP Omni-2. The title became the only inscription on his grave.
May 1984: Andrew Ridgeley accidentally writes “up up before you go go” twice on a fridge note. George Michael turns it into a song. UK #1 for 2 weeks, Billboard #1 for 3 weeks, #1 Netherlands for 8 weeks. Five days at Sarm West, Michael producing. Hamnett's “CHOOSE LIFE” T-shirts sold a million in six months.
February 1990: lead single from Violator. UK #6, US #8. Martin Gore wrote it as an acoustic ballad in Tenerife 1988; Alan Wilder insisted on 112 BPM. Violator sold 15M copies, the band's best-seller. Anton Corbijn's video with Gahan as a wandering king took MTV VMA 1990.
September 1983: Culture Club with Boy George. #1 UK 6 weeks, #1 Billboard 3 weeks, #1 in 16 countries, 10M copies. Best-selling UK single of 1983 and the 9th best-selling UK single ever. Judd Lander's £200 harmonica, video on an 1870s riverboat in Buckinghamshire for $220,000.
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