Before Are "Friends" Electric?: How Synth-Pop Became Synth-Pop

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A vision of the future that never properly arrived, Synth-pop was an ever present staple of the British charts in the 1980s. A canny fusion of pop-suss and technological invention, its height reflected the increased affordability of commercial synthesizers from the late 1970s onward. But that doesn’t mean that the likes of The Human League, Ultravox, OMD and Gary Numan were the first to splice synths and pop together. So who were the pioneers? What were the essential steps along the way, the key tracks and influencers? And how did we get to the point where “Are “Friends” Electric” got to number one? This is how Synth-pop became Synth-pop.

#GaryNuman #Synthpop #MusicDocumentary

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Soundtrack:
Luar - Citrine (  / luarbeats  )
B-Side - Pen Unubis
Jesse Gallagher - The Golden Present
Luar - Anchor (  / luarbeats  )

0:00 Introduction
02:12 Del Shannon
03:18 Delia Derbyshire
05:26 1968
08:14 Wendy Carlos
10:46 Popcorn
12:38 Roxy Music & Brian Eno
15:06 Kraftwerk
17:50 Jean-Michel Jarre
19:54 David Bowie
22:10 I Feel Love
24:26 That New York Synth Band
26:01 Ultravox!
28:19 The Human League
30:05 Warm Leatherette
31:45 OMD
33:10 Gary Numan & Tubeway Army

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