Genre of the Week 1: Synthpop

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#GenreoftheWeek Synthpop

Over the past week on the facebook page I've been posting about Synthpop to kick off the first week in our new feature genre of the week. The above image contains the artists and albums of the songs I've been posting, and should really just be seen as a starting point for listening, by no means a definitive list. Here's a list of all the songs I've posted. Any of these would be a great addition to an 80s party playlist, and are guaranteed to inspire twitchy, robotic dancing (or maybe that's just me)

Kraftwerk - "Das Modell" (Die Mensch-Maschine, 1978)

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Firecracker" (Yellow Magic Orchestra, 1978)

Tubeway Army - "Are 'Friends' Electric?" (Replicas, 1978)

Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Rydeen" (Solid State Survivor, 1979)

Gary Numan - "Cars" (The Pleasure Principle, 1979)

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - "Electricity" (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, 1979)

Soft Cell - "Tainted Love" (Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret, 1981)

The Human League - "Don't You Want Me" (Dare, 1981)

Depeche Mode - "New Life" (Speak & Spell, 1981)

Yazoo - "Don't Go" (Upstairs at Eric's, 1982)

New Order - "Blue Monday" (Blue Monday/Power, Corruption & Lies, 1983)*

Eurythmics - "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" (Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This), 1983)

Talk Talk - "It's My Life" (It's My Life, 1984)

Pet Shop Boys - "West End Girls" (Please, 1984)

a-ha - "Take On Me" (Hunting High and Low, 1984)

New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle" (Bizarre Love Triangle/Low-Life, 1986)*

Pet Shop Boys - "What Have I Done to Deserve This?" (Actually, 1987)

Depeche Mode - "Enjoy the Silence" (Violator, 1990)

The Knife - "Heartbeats" (Deep Cuts, 2002)

Arcade Fire - "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)" (The Suburbs, 2012)

Future Islands - "Seasons (Waiting on You)" (Singles, 2014)

*Neither of these singles were released on an LP so I've instead suggested albums which were released around the same time and contain equally great synthpop songs.

Be sure to also check out the youtube and spotify playlists which contain these songs as well as a few extras.

If you want to request a genre for us to focus on, leave a comment here or on the facebook page. Next week Sam will take the helm, so look forward to that! 

-Karl

Various Artists - Country Funk 1969-1975 (2012)

What is country funk? Well that is the first question I asked before I had even listened to a single track off this 2012 compilation. As a style label, country funk has been coined years later probably by the people who conceived this compilation, and musically speaking is meant to encompass a range of different styles including gospel, blues, county, and roots rock which many American artists in the late-60s and early-70s were experimenting with and blending together in their music. At this time, artistic experimentation in music was rife, with many artists mixing things up and crossing over into different musical territories, something you can certainly here on this album with elements of country, gospel and funk featuring within a single track. So although country funk is not exactly a precise stylistic term musically, and I would argue has been used more so as a selling point for this compilation, the term does a nice job of describing the types of musical merging’s that were taking place in the States during this period.

Aesthetically I would also say the music termed country funk is linked together by the fact that the songs which fall under this umbrella term as witnessed by the material on this compilation tend to have groove, boogie, and an underlying rawness about them. I would say it is music from the country but with the feel of the city. Spiritually I also think the themes of the songs are coming from a southern perspective, and you can certainly see that in some of the song titles on this album, with things like “Georgia Morning Dew”, “Lucas Was a Redneck” and “Bayou Country”. As for the artists that feature, well they are not big names by any stretch, something that I actually find a good thing and is one of the reasons I find these sorts of stylistically-based compilations quite intriguing, as I come to listen with no real pre-conception of the artists themselves and what sort of music they play. This in itself can often make the listening experience that much more enjoyable. With this in mind, just some of the standouts for me on this compilation included Johnny Adams “Georgia Morning Dew” which is a sort of slide guitar country blues, Bobby Charles “Street People” which has a Band feel to it, the playful kick of Larry Jon Wilson’s “Ohoopee River Bottomland”, the southern soul of Bobbie Gentry’s “He Made a Woman Out of Me”, and finally a storming blues cover of Dr John’s “Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Johnny Jenkins.

This compilation for me represents a melting pot of those Southern styles of music that were often mixed and moulded together into completely new sounds, sounds which came to dominate the music scene of the late 60s and into the 70s. Artists might have been country at heart, but were filling to throw in a funk rhythm or bass line, or they might have been a gospel singer but the country came calling. This sort of musical freedom reigned supreme for a slight moment in time there, and for a fleeting second was the norm in the music industry until the corporates of LA came calling and one had to be pigeon-holed into a box to be sold. It is hard to pin country funk down, let alone describe it, so perhaps in conclusion it is best to simply acknowledge country funk for what it represents, and that is music which is fun, playful, and experimental. So credit to the folks at Light in the Attic Records for releasing this neat little set, and I certainly look forward to hearing volume two “Country Funk 1967-1974” which itself has just been released. 

B+

- Sam 

Hotel California: LA from The Byrds to The Eagles (2007)

This incredibly fascinating documentary charts the history of the Los Angeles music scene during the so called golden age of singer-songwriters in the 1970s. Starting in the late 60s with bands such as The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield and ending with the success of The Eagles in the late 70s, “Hotel California: LA from The Byrds to The Eagles” explores how one city became the new melting pot for music in the United States and the home of the music industry (which lasts today) replacing New York. During this period the city drew hundreds of budding musicians from all over the U.S. as well as Canada to its to rolling canyons and busy strips in the hope of carving out a successful music career. The film focuses on all the key players during this period including Crosby Stills and Nash, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and The Eagles and gives a significant insight into what happens when coke, money, and success combine to create an age of excess within the music industry that lasted the decade. “Hotel California” does a good job in utilising new interviews with the main players including musicians, producers, and music moguls alike, and also includes some amazing archival footage from the time. A lot of people find the music of this period quite dull in comparison to the decade of music that proceeded it, and very much stylistically of the MOR (Middle of the Road) ilk to use one of those ridiculous musical acronyms. But this period did see some great music emerge amongst some of the duller stuff, including the release of classic albums such as “After the Gold Rush” and “Blue”. Although time limits don’t allow for everything to be looked at and considered, one criticism I would have of this documentary is that people like Randy Newman and Tom Waits who started their careers in L.A. in the early 1970s weren’t looked at. However, their absence from the film is just a minor blot on what is an otherwise brilliant examination of a fascinating and pivotal period in modern music history. This is when rock went corporate and the music industry became a mega business, a business that is now entrenched today in the form of a global music conglomerate. The 1960s party of idealism and free love was over as the me decade descended down upon all; it was now money, money, money, and more money with the practitioners (the musicians) unselfishly buying into it big time. “Hotel California” is very much worth a look for those into music history, the music of the 1970s, and even the casual documentary watcher.

Check it out (floats around on YouTube).

 

- A

 

- Sam

Book Review: "All The Madmen" by Clinton Heylin (2012)

Written by Clinton Heylin and published in November 2012, “All the Madmen: Barrett, Bowie, Drake, the Floyd, The Kinks, The Who and a Journey to the Dark Side of English Rock” puts the microscope on six of English rocks biggest stars, who in the years following the often mythicized “Summer of Love” experienced various problems with their mental wellbeing, while often battling to maintain their sanity. In this fascinating and insightful read, Heylin explores the drug problems of Syd Barrett and Peter Green, the battle David Bowie faced over his identity in the guise of Ziggy Satrdust, the depression faced by Nick Drake and Ray Davies often in response to their lack of commercial success, and the eccentricity of Pete Townshend. Heylin also looks into how these musicians were able to take their own personal experiences and use them as fuel for their work, highlighting how during this period (the early 1970s) these great musicians used their somewhat fragile state of minds to produce some of the greatest British albums of all time. He puts the spotlight on the making of albums such as Quadrophenia, Ziggy Stardust, and The Dark Side of the Moon looking into the influences behind these albums and the themes they explore, as well as how a lot of the music on these albums came about as a response to how the likes of Bowie and Townshend were feeling at the time. This book is very well researched and pays great attention to detail in its subject matter, while Heylin does a good job in presenting what can often be sensitive areas to go into including the issues of drug abuse and mental illness in a carefully considered manner. I would recommend "All the Madmen" to anyone interested in rock history, as well as those interested in the psychological side of music making. "All the Madmen" is a highly informative and interesting read that examines an area which is often overlooked in rock history, the madness and mystery of its participants, and how psychology and self-examination came to play a massive role in influencing the art that was created.   

A+

- Sam

1970s "Fusion"

When I was a teenager I loved rock, and in fact looking back it seemed as if everything I listened to had to have a guitar solo in it. At the time you certainly would not have got me listening to much in the way of jazz or rhythm and blues, which in itself is surprising considering I grew up listening to a lot of jazz music. These days however, it seems that maturity has allowed me to expand my musical horizons a lot more, and it was after seeing a brilliant contemporary jazz-soul band called the Alan Brown Project one night that I began to delve into the wonderful fusion music of the 1970s, and boy oh boy what a treat I was in for.

Now when I mean fusion I’m talking about music which combines two, or more styles together to create a new style, and in the process fusing elements of the two styles together. Two examples of fusion that have appealed to me greatly have been jazz fusion in particular the work of Traffic, and Steely Dan, and fusion within R&B/soul especially the work of Stevie Wonder, and The Meters.

Jazz fusion combines together jazz and rock elements and usually includes the presence of horns, a more prominent piano sound, and highly sophisticated rhythms. Jazz fusion artists also tend to experiment more with extended jams, as well as often putting a stronger emphasis on improvisation. Two works that have captured my eye significantly from the 1970s period within this style have been Traffic’s John Barleycorn Must Die, and also Steely Dan’s Aja. John Barleycorn Must Die sees a strong emphasis placed on free jamming, and throughout the album sees appearances by the flute, saxophone, and piano/Hammond organ. The album showcases a strong jazz/blues influence on many of the tracks, with Steve Winwood’s soulful vocals almost playing second fiddle to the amazing playing and virtuosity on display. In contrast, Steely Dan’s Aja is much slicker and very well produced, and is an album I would describe as sounding like cocktail jazz. It is very “cool” sounding, and when listened to you can just picture yourself sitting in a bar somewhere in New York with the band themselves playing live in front of you. The interesting thing about “Aja” is that Walter Becker and Donald Fagen hired a full cast of talented jazz session musicians to play on it, a move that gave the tracks on the album that slick and heavily polished Jazz-Rock sound. Keyboards and horns feature prominently on this album also.

In terms of fusion within 1970s R&B/soul, two albums that I have enjoyed immensely have been Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, and The Meters Rejuvenation. Both albums showcase a fusion of funk, soul, rhythm and blues, and gospel and in doing so do a fantastic job in blending so many different styles together without compromising the quality of the music. Innervisions is a funk album instrumentation wise, with a strong soul/gospel influence in the vocals. Stevie also places a strong emphasis on rhythmic patterns on Innervisions. This can be seen across the album as he experiments with keyboards and synth technology, something that was quite revolutionary for an African-American artist at the time. On the other hand, his socially aware lyrics fit into the gospel/soul mould which he had been a pioneer of for many years up to that point. Rejuvenation by The Meters is less experimental than Innervisions and follows a more traditional electric band model. The tracks on this album usually see soulful vocals backed by a funky beat combining drums and bass, while topped off with nice touches of electric piano, organ, and horns. The extended jam of “It Ain’t No Use” is this albums centrepiece, a song that includes a seven minute free style jam highlighting just how good funk and rhythm and blues can sound when combined together effectively.

I am now a huge fan of the fusion music from this period, and through my listening experiences have come to appreciate more the skill that is involved in combining such distinctive elements from different styles into one. Artists had been combining and mixing styles of music for years prior to the 1970s, and have continued to do so since. But on the back of work from people like Herbie Hancock, and Miles Davis, the early to mid seventies period showcased some amazing efforts in fusing different music styles together, and experimenting with different sounds on records. Artists were more open to ideas and trying new things on records, and whether or not you were primarily a rock musician, or a soul musician did not stop artists from looking at how they could incorporate elements of other styles into their own. All rules were off and anything was possible, with the results speaking for themselves.

- Sam