09-02-2025, 03:26 PM
The subtitle on this is "Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983." I had wanted to read this for a while, but couldn't find a copy, so finally I ordered it on ABE. Sadly, I was a bit disappointed. 500 pages of small type focused on releases and live performances, and the author quotes then-contemporary critics about almost every one of them, with multiple quotes for each. It's just too much. There is almost nothing about the technology, which seems like a huge omission to me. Since it's focused on pop, and the UK, the same groups come up over and over: OMD, Human League, Soft Cell, Heaven 17, Gary Numan etc. A lot about their early days, which could have been edited down. Because of the time frame, some big names get very little mention: Howard Jones, Thomas Dolby, Eurythmics, Pet Shop Boys. Brian Eno was only mentioned in passing. American house and techno are very briefly discussed right at the end, and that's one of the better sections.
There is some amusing trivia though:
There is some amusing trivia though:
- OMD started out performing with a reel to reel tape machine for some parts of the songs; when they added another musician and technology got better, they did a farewell concert for it, and the machine is now in a museum (I think in Manchester).
- Thomas Dolby played on Whodini's first album
- Afrika Bambaataa loved Kraftwerk (apparently they were also popular among the originators of Detroit techno) and Planet Rock uses part of Trans-Europe Express, not sampled, but played by a musician in the studio
- Neal Tennant was a music journalist before he was in the Pet Shop Boys, and they took the name because they had friends who worked in a pet shop.
the hands that guide me are invisible
