From: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org (alloy-digest) To: alloy-digest@smoe.org Subject: alloy-digest V7 #45 Reply-To: alloy@smoe.org Sender: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-alloy-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk X-To-Unsubscribe: Send mail to "alloy-digest-request@smoe.org" X-To-Unsubscribe: with "unsubscribe" as the body. alloy-digest Saturday, March 2 2002 Volume 07 : Number 045 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Alloy: Re: 20th Anniversary of Synth-Pop ["macpro@cox.net" Subject: Alloy: Re: 20th Anniversary of Synth-Pop I looked up the Washington Post article, which Merujo had mentioned. It's a good read, and thought I would save you all from finding it, and simply post it here. Copyright concerns be damned. Chris Hart (the brazen newbie ) - ------------------------------------------ A Synth of Nostalgia, 20 Years After By Shannon Zimmerman Special to the Washington Post Sunday, February 24, 2002; Page G01 It's not exactly on a par with the 10th anniversary of Nirvana's "Nevermind," which was celebrated with much media fanfare late last year. Maybe it doesn't even rank with the Electric Light Orchestra's recently abandoned comeback attempt. But 2002 is something of a milestone year for that most disposable of recent pop music phenomena -- synth-pop. You remember synth-pop: all guilty pleasure, all the time. "Tainted Love" and asymmetrical haircuts; keyboard drones and mechanized Casio-beats; British bands with names like Scritti Politti and Kajagoogoo. No one is willing to admit it now (well, almost no one), but the presence of synth-pop-filled new-wave compilations on jukeboxes everywhere attests to the music's, um, timeless virtues. And 1982 was the high-water mark of the genre. Thomas Dolby blinded us with science, while a Flock of Seagulls uncorked a debut LP with a couple of memorable hits ("Space Age Love Song" and "I Ran," as if you don't remember) and one prophetic track dubbed "Telecommunication." The Leeds, England, duo Soft Cell drained all the soul out of the Holland-Dozier-Holland classic "Where Did Our Love Go," replacing it with an irresistibly cheesy drum machine that set everyone dancing -- with themselves, mostly. Cool reserve with a flair for the dramatic replaced the pogo, the more populist dance move of punk that merely required the ability to jump up and down. But bands like Yaz, whose "Upstairs at Eric's" LP was issued in 1982, and Duran Duran, whose "Rio" was released the same year, looked past punk role models such as the Who, the Stooges and MC5, favoring groups like Roxy Music and Kraftwerk instead, artsier outfits that made vital but softer music and looked good (or at least futuristic) doing it, too. David Bowie was also a movement luminary, thanks mostly to his groundbreaking work with Brian Eno on his 1977 LP "Low." Fortunately, most synth-pop groups weren't nearly as ambitious as their role models -- which is precisely what made them such terrific radio fodder. In many respects, their music was the logical successor to disco: vapid but arresting, and danceable to a fault. Yet sandwiched on Top 40 playlists between the likes of Journey, Toto and REO Speedwagon -- meat-and-potatoes pop rockers for whom the word "bland" would be far too kind -- even slight diversions like Men Without Hats' 1982 hit "Safety Dance" sounded startling, challenging even: "Your friends don't dance / And if they don't dance / Well, they're no friends of mine," sang leading Man Ivan Doroschuk. And when, two years later, Cyndi Lauper threaded synth-pop's percolating keyboards and mechanized rhythms through her version of "Girls Just Want to Have Fun," a previously neglected ditty by new-waver Robert Hazard, it was nearly a revelation. Not even a cameo by the aggressively unvideogenic wrestler Captain Lou Albano could prevent MTV from playing the song practically nonstop. And we were all the luckier for it. For one shining moment in the early '80s - -- a moment that lasted nearly three years -- this fluffy, synthesized dance pop was the Future of Music. No less a guitar hero than Jeff Beck suggested that he was more interested in synthesizers than guitars; Pete Townshend, a longtime synth aficionado, channeled the sound for his biggest solo hit, "Let My Love Open the Door," and name-checked the New Romantics (a synth-pop fashion offshoot) on "Slit Skirts"; Prince arguably found his milieu when he laced the music's keyboard atmospherics through the "Dirty Mind" LP, and Neil Young released "Trans," perhaps the strangest album of his very strange career, on which the once and future electric folkie eschewed guitars, embraced keyboards and drum machines, and sang through a vocoder, a voice-manipulating device that made him sound suspiciously like a helium addict. Even an ex-Beatle was susceptible to synth-pop seduction: "It was a great little pop hit," Paul McCartney said recently of the Human League's "Don't You Want Me." "I just couldn't help liking it." Neither could lots of folks. The Human League began a second British invasion in 1981, planting a synth-pop flag firmly on American radio soil with their huge hit. "Don't You Want Me" was melodramatic and gauche; it was also one of the year's biggest pop songs, a genuine trendsetter. Kajagoogoo, a-Ha and Naked Eyes, among many other lesser lights, followed in the League's wake, issuing frothy ear candy that Top 40 radio put into heavy rotation and that kids snapped up like . . . well, like kids currently snap up 'N Sync and Britney Spears discs. By 1983, in fact, the fine Los Angeles punk group X had very nearly given up hope: "Will the last American band to get played on the radio please bring the flag," they chant on "I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts" before reciting a laundry list of neglected greats for whom U.S. radio was a lost cause: Minutemen, the Flesheaters, DOA, Big Boys, Black Flag. Truth be told, deejays at commercial stations -- at least those who wanted to keep their jobs -- were unlikely to play any of those difficult-listening groups, even if there had been no such thing as synth-pop. But now, of course, the airwaves are clogged with American bands -- mediocre ones, too. Creed, Limp Bizkit, Matchbox Twenty and even kinda-fun-some-of-the-time outfits like Blink-182 and Linkin Park lack the verve, the audacity -- oh, what the heck . . . the sheer panache of the synth-pop groups of 20 years ago, groups that made a virtue of disposability in a way that even a serious rocker like Kurt Cobain (who once called Nirvana "the '90s version of Cheap Trick or the Knack") would almost certainly admire. So happy anniversary, synth-poppers. Your "Behind the Music" is long overdue. ) 2002 The Washington Post Company - ------------------------------------------ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 1 Mar 2002 08:05:43 -0800 From: "Crackers" Subject: Re: Alloy: Re: 20th Anniversary of Synth-Pop I remember being extremely annoyed with the "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" video because the ball movement physics were so innaccurate during the "bouncing balls" scene. For some reason that just really bugged me. Crackers (Pong from hell!!!) Ghastly's Ghastly Comic http://ghastly.keenspace.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 01 Mar 2002 10:19:54 -0800 From: Jon Drukman Subject: Re: Alloy: Re: 20th Anniversary of Synth-Pop At 11:37 PM 2/28/2002, macpro@cox.net wrote: >I looked up the Washington Post article, which Merujo had mentioned. It's a >good read, and thought I would save you all from finding it, and simply post >it here. Copyright concerns be damned. as an aspiring synthpop artist, this article fills me with glee. thanks for posting it. it's too bad the author didn't research the current wave of new synthpop bands. there's a great scene happening now with bands like the faint, adult, miss kittin and the hacker, console.... lots more. don't remember if i sent this before, but here's a video clip from my last live show. http://electro.pretension.com/another_day_live.mpg if you have trouble with that link, go here and save the file to your disk first: http://electro.pretension.com/video.html - -jsd- ------------------------------ End of alloy-digest V7 #45 **************************