Synthpop

Sinti-pop (also known as techno-pop) is a genre of electronic music that became famous in the 1980s, in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. The genre originated in Japan and the United Kingdom during the post-punk era and as part of a new wave of the late 1970s and until the mid-1980s.

The pioneers of synth-pop were the Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and the British group Ultravox and The Human League, the latter widely using monophonic synthesizers to create music with a simple and strict sound. After breaking through Gary Newman and his Tubeway Army band in the UK singles chart, a large number of bands achieved success in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Japan and Depeche Mode in the UK, while in Japan The success of Yellow Magic Orchestra opened the way for such synthpop groups like P-Model, Plastics, Hikashu. The development of low-cost polyphonic synthesizers, the emergence of the MIDI standard and the use of drum machines has led to more commercial and affordable synth-pop sound. The merger with the new romantics movement, along with the growth of MTV, led to the success of a large number of British synthpop groups, including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, in the United States.

In the late 1980s, duets such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys were very successful in the American dance charts, but by the end of the decade they had largely moved away from synth-pop. The genre was revived at the beginning of the XXI century with considerable commercial success due to the appearance of such performers as La Roux, Kesha and Owl City.

Synth-pop has established the leading position of the synthesizer as the main element of pop and rock music, directly influencing subsequent genres, including house and techno. Excessive hedonism, which was the main theme of songs in the late synth-pop groups of the 1980s, led to hostility and rejection of this genre.

Special features

While the vast majority of modern popular music is created using synthesizers, synthpop has stylistic features that distinguish it from the rest of music produced in a technologically similar way. These features are: artificial sound (synthesizers no longer imitate the sound of real musical instruments), an emphasis on mechanical rhythms, multiple repetition of structural elements. The form of composition of songs in the style of synth-pop does not differ from the form of ordinary pop songs. Lyrics often have a social or scientific-technical theme.

Music journalist Simon Reynolds notes that the distinctive feature of the 1980s synth-pop was his “emotional, sometimes opera singers,” such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox. And in most cases, the vocalists were part of a duet where their partner played all the instruments.

Despite the fact that the synth-pop partly originated from punk rock, he refused to punk the emphasis on authenticity and often focused on deliberate artificiality, relying on ridicule of such genres as disco and glam-rock.

Synty Pop relied relatively little on previously popular music, jazz, folk music or blues, and deliberately focused on the musical traditions of Europe and especially Germany, which was reflected in the names of bands like Spandau Ballet and songs like “Vienna” by Ultravox and the “Suburban Berlin” of the Japan group. Later, synthpop experienced a strong influence of soul music.

Appearance

Electronic music synthesizers became available in the mid-1960s, at about the same time as rock music began to appear in various musical genres.

The portable Minimoog, released in 1970, was much easier to use, especially in live performances and was widely used by rock musicians such as Richard Wright from Pink Floyd, Rick Wakeman from Yes. The instrumental prog rock was particularly significant in continental Europe and allowed the Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Can and Faust groups to bypass the language barrier.

The “hard” sound of kraut-rock, along with the works of Brian Eno (for the time of Roxy Music’s keyboardist), had a great influence on rock music. In 1971, the movie "A Clockwork Orange" was released with the soundtrack of American composer Wendy Carlos. For many in the UK, this was the first time they heard electronic music. Philip Oakey of the Human League, Richard H. Kirk of Cabaret Voltaire, and music journalist Simon Reynolds called the soundtrack a source of inspiration.

In 1972, jazz musician Stan Free under the pseudonym Hot Butter released the song "Popcorn" (a cover of the work by Gershon Kingsley), which entered Top 10 in the US and the UK, recorded using the Moog synthesizer and which was recognized as the predecessor of synth-pop and disco.

In the mid-1970s, the rise of electronic music was observed and such musicians as Jean Michel Jarre, Vangelis, and Tomita began their work, releasing the album Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock (1972), which showed great potential for electronic music. In 1974, Osamu Kitajima recorded the rock album Benzaiten, with the participation of Haruomi Hosono (who later founded the Yellow Magic Orchestra), using synthesizers, rhythm machines and electronic drums. In 1975, Kraftwerk performed for the first time on British television and inspired Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark to change guitars to synthesizers as their main instrument.

In 1975, Kraftwerk released the single Autobahn, which reached number 11 in the UK. In Italy, Giorgio Moroder paired with Donna Summer in 1977 recorded the song “I Feel Love”, and her programmed drums had an impact on the further development of synth-pop. David Bowie's Low, “Heroes” and Lodger albums, recorded with the producer with Brian Eno, were very influential.

The formation of the genre

In the 1980s, several popular synthpop groups appeared on the music scene. Most of them went unnoticed in the US, although they had some commercial success in Europe and Latin America. At this time, the synth-pop was directly connected with the post-punk of the New Wave and was a rhythmic, light electronic music. In this connection, synthpop in the broad sense often refers to the musical scene of the early and mid-1980s, which actively uses synthesizers in music (for example, Pet Shop Boys and Depeche Mode), as well as a wave of popular new romantics (Spandau Ballet, Duran Duran , Talk talk and others). However, this definition is valid only for the early period of synth-pop.

With the gathering of the “new wave” in the mid and late 1980s, new teams appeared, as a rule, from continental Europe, which successfully began to use the arsenal of technological and melodic finds of the “new wave” and synth-pop (A-ha, Alphaville, Camouflage) , also a number of already existing groups reworked their sound. All this gave rise to a new period of the synth-pop style. The most famous band whose name is associated with the final style formation in the late 1980s is Depeche Mode.

In the 1990s, synthpop has developed rapidly in Germany and Sweden. Bands such as And One, De / Vision, Wolfsheim, Elegant Machinery, etc., boldly played extraordinary synth-pop (the sound was technically very complicated, although the basis was originally composed of minor melodies in the style of Depeche Mode music). Later, synthpop began to intersect with some styles of industrial music (EBM, Techno-industrial), a number of new bands actively mixed the musical elements of synth and industrial music, with the result that the Future-pop style was born.

In addition, in the period 2000–2010, the electric clash genre was somewhat popular, based on the synth-pop style of the 1980s, combined with modern sound techniques and texts that are close in subject to punk rock.

During the 2000s, the European and American synthpop of the second wave remains in the comparative underground and is tightly integrated into the so-called “dark scene”.