Sat hear listening to the Eurythmics on Classic Gold, 'Love is a Stranger', and it's made me think just how harsh some of the synthesiser sounds to these ears, 22 years on.

The early 1980s saw some great synth-orientated pop music: Soft Cell, Orchestral Maneouvres In The Dark, Flock of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, aforementioned Dave and Annie, Gary Numan and our own Human League.

Ofcause, none of these were the first to use the synthesiser on record and I don't really wish to go into the merits as to whom was the first (though George Harrison used the Polymoog in the Beatles on tracks like 'Here Comes The Sun' in 1969).

Duran Duran made great use of the Fairlight synth on songs like Rio (the bridge section where it sounds the whooshing of sea waves on the beach) and it would be difficult to listen to Soft Cell sing Say Hello, Wave Goodbye without David Ball's masterly use of the synth. (David Gray gave us an acoustic version of the song but I sent it back with a threatening reminder: Do not touch what you cannot afford.)

Having moved on a long way since the 1980s, I think it's fair to say that the synthesiser has taken more of a back seat and is used in songs more subtley. Infact, if anything, the piano is back thanks to Keane and Coldplay. When I listen to some 1970s and 1980s music, the synthesiser is almost the tour de force but these days some of the sounds are incredibly harsh and grating. (They usually surpass the EQ limitations when transferred to CD.)

But there are a few examples where the synth has been used to great effect. The swirls on Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me) by Cockney/Rebel; David Bowie on Ashes to Ashes and on some of Kim Wilde's earlier songs like Cambodia and Chequered Love. Maybe Ultravox got the blend of synth and guitar spot on. Infact it's difficult to tell which is which on songs like Sleepwalk. Queen went all synth in 1984: I Want To Break Free and Radio Ga-Ga.

Do we reckon the synth as pop music's main instrument has had its day? Have we gone back to the guitar and piano line-up, or will there come a day soon when 14 year old kids no longer aspire to own a Fender or Gibson (shock! horror!) and instead make their way to Fox's to glean over the Yamahas and Moogs and ask Dad for a £1500 loan?

I think the inappropriate use of synths has had a detrimental effect on music.

In my teens I built a couple of synthesisers for local wannabe prog-rock bands. These were analogue boxes where programming was setting various variable resistors to set attack, decay, frequency, etc. However, they still had guitars, drums, pianos, dustbins (I kid you not) and all other sorts of musical instrument you could name.

I think the problems have started when the synths have been used as substitutes for existing instruments - they'll never be as good, no matter how accurate the modelling.

But synths used to produce the sounds that only a synth can produce - excellent! The harshness of some synth sounds from the 80s was probably a feature of the technologies used - I think that that's when digital techniques staretd being used to synthesise tone and even a sine wave had it's jaggies!

Joe

As a fan of most electronic music, prog rock, krautrock, industrial noise and so on rather than chart pop, I have to disagree and say that it opened up a whole new universe of musical possibilities, and thereby expanded the breadth of music available like no other instrument since the electric guitar.

Nah. Synthesiser is just another instrument - use it or abuse it.

Without it, a great deal of stunning and thought provoking music would not exist.

Likewise the sampler and the sequencer and MIDI.

Please all now pay homage to Raymond Scott - one of the godfathers of synth.

Yeah, I agree with that. We went through a long period (as I recall in the early 90's?) where EVERYTHING in the chart was sampled and looped over a tinny drum riff (Jack And Jill In The House, Humpty Dumpty In The Jack House, Jerk With Humpty Dumpty In The Hip-Hop House), those years were hell.

Things have settled down now, and "real" bands have started kicking ass again. Synths are obviously more heavily used in tracks than they used to be, and its obvious that genres like dance are here to stay. But I'm not as bored with the music scene these days now the synth has found its place.

people who sing to backing tapes have ruined live music most are cheap n tacky..............the ones that play at my local on a thursday night i've seen more talent in a lampost............synthesisers are ok we've used em now n again in our band just add a different dimension.

Greed, large corporate labels and laziness ruined music. Computers and synths were just used as the tool to do it. You can easily make pathetic 4 on the floor music, ripping a track from the 80s and sticking a model miming it in the video. It takes effort, time and skill to produce a track thats groundbreaking.

The Prodigy sound nothing like Crazy frog. Prodigy take 3 years for an album. Crazy frog will have one in around two weeks!

Synthesisers, and other electronic devices can be used to make excellent, intelligent music. Aside from the better examples of modern dance music, the work of Brian Eno, Kraftwerk, Miles Davis, Weather Report [Joe Zawinul's keyboards], Philip Glass, David Bowie ,Can, Cluster, and especially the 'garage electronics' of Cabaret Voltaire, early Human League and The Normal, stand as good examples. In the world of 'Electro-Acoustic' modern classical music, Stockhausen, Cage, Berio, Koenig, Trevor Wishart etc have all used synthesisers/electronics in interesting, exploratory ways.

The 'gimmicky' use of synths/electronics such as early seventies recordings by Hot Butter, The perfectly dreadful 'Switched On' Moog interpretations of classics etc, and the 80s work of Gary Numan etc are to be deplored. Massive Attack and the previously-mentioned Prodigy certainly use synthesisers to great effect. In the case of Massive Attack, they are probably the most sophisticated [with the exception of Brian Eno] manipulators of electronics in modern, popular music. The textures they produce are often incredibly sleek, sensuous and beautiful.

It is true that there are some things which only an orchestra can do. Nevertheless, when listening to Massive Attack, I reflect that there are some things only a synthesiser can do. It is the person behind the instrument that ultimately counts. A talented artist can make interesting, rewarding art with any medium.

Spot on timo - great post.

I'm currently devouring Simon Reynolds' hefty book 'Rip It Up And Start Again' about the music of the immediate post-punk period. There's a great chapter on Sheffield's ground-breaking scene, particularly emphasising the Cabs and Human League, and it encouraged me to revisit my old Cabaret Voltaire vinyl. While once the likes of Nag Nag Nag soundtracked my headlong tumble into adolescence, they now soundtrack an evening's washing up, but the sound is no less thrilling for that. It's a real tribute to the power of electronics coupled with unfettered imagination.

It's true, Timo, that a person with talent can produce something good from any instrument. I love synthesisers and think that the early 'eighties were a kind of golden age of pop, due to the proliferation of daft bands/duos who turned out a few great, quirky singles, a crap album, then departed (for example, 'Living On The Ceiling' by Blancmange).

But there is, of course, a dark side to the synth. That is the 'sawtooth' wave Moog solo, as used by Proggy Horror Bands like Genesis, Yes and er....all the others. I rather like Led Zepellin, but cannot abide their last proper LP 'In Through The Out Door', especially the second to last song, which is ruined by the most prissy, powder-puff Moog break wou will ever have the misfortune to hear (a shame, because there are some great guitar fills by JP on the same track using a B-Bender Telecaster).

Likewise, 'The Band' sounded ridiculous when Garth Hudson threw out his Hammond B-3 and Hohner Clavinet for a PolyMoog, or whatever it was he bought to make those parping, twiddly noises with. Tony Banks of Genesis is the worst 'Moog Man', however. It must have really p****d the others off with him piping up all the time, 'hey guys, I've had a great idea what to do with this seventeen minute gap on side three', 'don't tell us, Tony, another extended Moog solo', ' er...yes, actually'........

If it went for the synth, we would be missing out on so much great music. The likes of Orbital, Massive Attack, Moby right back to things like Joy Divison, Kraftwerk, JMJ, and i think the synth spawned a whole new race of music, like mentioned before, sampling, and MIDI and allowed acts like Radiohead, and The Prodigy, Kovenent etc to experiment with music to a much greater degree.

The instrument is only as good as the person playing it, and despite allowing some of the crap that gets classed as music nowadays to be born, I think the amount of classic tracks, and the ability of it to be used in cross genre material outweights its misgivings. The thing that kills music now, is money, too many fat cat record bosses trying to cash in on the latest fad, and the talent that could be, never quite makes it.

Joel

Joel,
You mention Radiohead, particular favourites of mine. Their work from 'Kid A' onwards features greater use of electronica, and 'ambient' drones/atmospheres/textures etc. However, what I find really endearing is their enthusiasm for the Ondes Martinot, if that is how one spells it. This strange, eery-sounding instrument is used to very good effect on their excellent 'Hail to the Thief'. I don't know much about it, but I have heard that the band prefer the previously neglected instrument to synthesisers. Didn't they recently meet the inventor of the Ondes Martinot, or daughter of the inventor?

We shouldn't neglect the contribution of Rolf Harris and his marvellous stylophone, of course, with its innovative incorporation of a vibrato switch to change the sound from a cat being run over by a fletchers van, to the heady heights of a well-trained operatic cat protesting that its best mate had been run over by a fletchers van.


I'll get me coat...

ALL sound is music if used in the correct way.......in the hands of idiots or used to much it can be a disaster.

look at the mellow tangerine dream stuff ...........beautiful, not harsh at all

True. Bowie managed to incorporate a stylophone into Space Oddity. Not as good as Two Little Boys, but he did his best. :hihi:

Originally posted by Ant
Not as good as Two Little Boys

Is that a Michael Jackson track? :heyhey:

did synths ruin music?

short answer "No"

slightly less short answer "Of course not!"

Its a perfectly viable method of making music. When you get any new type of music you get some people who are just doing it for the novelty value, and then you get the people who really make it work and make an art form out of it.

There is some early synth stuff that is painful to listen to, but there's plenty of trash from every genre and every era.

Originally posted by Yodameister
did synths ruin music?

short answer "No"

slightly less short answer "Of course not!"

Its a perfectly viable method of making music. When you get any new type of music you get some people who are just doing it for the novelty value, and then you get the people who really make it work and make an art form out of it.

There is some early synth stuff that is painful to listen to, but there's plenty of trash from every genre and every era.
spice girls
chas and dave
birdy song ?

may as well start a did electricity kill music

Oh you can't beat Chas n Dave and a good old cock-er-ney knees up!

Okay, maybe you can......

It brought diversity into the music scene rather than the same old band drone!

yawn

Speaking as someone who plays an Alesis QS7 synthesiser in a couple of bands, Which is capable of making fantastic sounds like all kinds of Hammond organs from Kieth emerson to John lord [Deep Purple], Melotron sounds just like beatles and zeppelin, Electric piano and funk Clavinet sounds like Stevie wonder, and beautiful bosendorfer grand piano samples, and all kinds of other piano sounds. Lead sounds, 70s, classic moog sounds, plus all the other usual stuff.

I have to disagree.
There is always interesting new music being invented and written. If you are not enjoying what you hear, you are looking in the wrong place.

And finally, the worst crime of any amateur music critic is a narrow mind.

The consensus on here appears to be that synths and electronica have not 'ruined' music at all. I agree entirely. People seem to realise that the instruments can be used in interesting ways and equally in banal 'gimmicky' fashion, just like any other instrument. For example, listen to John Coltrane's sublime use of the Soprano Saxophone, and then compare it with the nauseous, sickly tweets and twitters of Kenny G.

This is purely a matter of subjective taste, but I cannot abide electronic percussion. I do not refer to drum machines, beat boxes etc, but synthesised kit drums. Nobody, including that master of batterie, Bill Bruford, to my mind sounds any good on such kits. The conventional kit sounds so much richer to my ears.

Originally posted by timo
Joel,
You mention Radiohead, particular favourites of mine. Their work from 'Kid A' onwards features greater use of electronica, and 'ambient' drones/atmospheres/textures etc. However, what I find really endearing is their enthusiasm for the Ondes Martinot, if that is how one spells it. This strange, eery-sounding instrument is used to very good effect on their excellent 'Hail to the Thief'. I don't know much about it, but I have heard that the band prefer the previously neglected instrument to synthesisers. Didn't they recently meet the inventor of the Ondes Martinot, or daughter of the inventor?

I do belive they did, although its Jonny who is the big fan of the instrument, its used quite a lot on his own music, as well as radioheads'

Joel