VA - Videosyncratic (A Taste Of Synth Pop) (2018)

In the late seventies, every other episode of Tomorrow’s World seemed to feature the futuristic ‘synthesiser’, a mass of patchboards, knobs and wires which was all set to make orchestras redundant around the world. But the singles chart was largely immune to the synth - with the honourable exceptions of Hot Butter’s Popcorn and Kraftwerk's Autobahn - until the watershed year of 1979. Then, Tubeway Army’s Are Friends Electric stormed to number one with its blend of bleak sci-fi, European cine-drama, and the heavy, ominous noise coming from machines labelled Roland, Arp and Moog.

The advent of the cheap synth, the affordable Korg MS20, in the late seventies meant that there was an entirely new alternative to guitar/bass/drums for adventurous kids across Britain Kraftwerk fans Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, a duo from the Wirral, toured with Gary Numan armed with a pair of Korgs and a tape recorder called Winston. The Human League came from Sheffield, wrote oblique lyrics about silkworms, and had one member who did nothing but operate their slide show. Leeds duo Soft Cell blended synths with northern soul and strip club cabaret - against all odds, they had international hits and Marc Almond ended up with an OBE. In London, the New Romantic movement delighted in its futurism; a Minimoog was always going to look cooler than a Stratocaster for Visage and Spandau Ballet. Barbarella’s, a New Romantic outpost in Birmingham, gave us Duran Duran, and the biggest teen screams of the decade. All of them were a little odd, and all of them would score top ten hits in 1981.

By 1982 synth pop bossed the UK chart. There were Trevor Horn’s lavish productions for Dollar, a dry run for his Frankie, Goes To Hollywood extravaganzas. The remaining members of Joy Division had invested in electronica and gave us the sublime, stuttering Temptation. Wise old heads had plugged in - Be Bop Deluxe guitariSt Bill Nelson now revelled in electronic washes; Japan changed from glam revivalists to moody auteurs; Phil Lynott’s Yellow Pearl became the first Top Of The Pops theme since Whole Lotta Love.

And just as quickly it was all over. In 1983, every other herbert got their hands on a synth - Howard Jones, Nik Kershaw, Go West, Kajagoogoo. What happened to the synthpop originators? The Human League got a guitarist. Spandau Ballet discovered their inner soul boy. Talk Talk drifted into ambient abstractions. Duran Duran bought yachts. You couldn’t blame them, everyone grows up, moves on, but you’ll forgive me if I think that, musically, l’d swap 2018 for 1982 in a heartbeat.

Bob Stanley