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

Fun fact: Gary Numan is two weeks older than Gary Oldman.

Glaring omission: Yellow Magic Orchestra. From the '4th member' status of Hideki Matsutake, who did programming as assistant to Tomita, to the first-ever uses of the Roland TR-808 and samplers, they were just about as pioneering as Kraftwerk in a later state of the art sense. What started as a one-off style-parody project (Hosono's "Paraiso" album lampooning the Westernized view of Eastern sounds as the 'exotica' style) turned into a band with Beatles-size influence in Japan, including hairstyles! They successfully reinvented their sound and image from 'analog orchestra in tuxedos' playing cod exotica, to straight ahead pop, landing on almost synthpop boy-band status for a couple albums, practically inventing techno along the way on their Technodelic album (samplers in 1981!). Essential.

Gary absolutely deserves all his success and even more. He's such an inspiration.

I think Mike Oldfield’s 1973 “Tubular Bells” deserves a mention. The haunting intro of Tubular Bells and the use of the theremin and synth throughout that album.. was as important as prog bands Yes.. or solo artists as Vangelis or Jean Michel Jarre. Mike Oldfield also pioneered that path with albums like Tubular Bells (1973) and Ommadawn (1975).. before Jarre’s “Oxygene” album in 1976.

I was genuinely surprised to hear you say that Gary Numan did'nt really get the acclaim he deserved til the early 2000's, because in my circle of friends he was a veritable god! Plus the song "Cars" was EVERYWHERE during that time! One of my most vivid memories is when I got my first Gary Numan album... one of my classmates in middle school got "The Pleasure Principle" for christmas, but he only liked hard rock, so he brought it to school and asked me if I wanted it, I had never heard of Gary, or "new wave" music, but I took it home and listened to it... I was absolutely blown the fuck away... I ran over to my friend Kelvin's house and we listened to it over and over for the next 2 or 3 days, then I played it for the rest of my friends. That album had a HUGE impact on me, and all my friends. It literally started me on my journey into electronic music and discovering other bands like OMD, flock of seagulls, Heaven 17, Devo, Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, and many others. To this day, "Metal" is still one of my favorite songs. New Wave/Synth Pop/Electronica are still my favorite genres of music next to hip-hop, which one can argue is the child of 80's synth-pop.

This just popped into my head - the soundtrack for the sci-fi classic "Forbidden Planet" in the 1950's was entirely electronic and extremely influential.

When I was a kid I was a huge fan of Flock of Seagulls, they’re synth work blew me away the first time I heard them and I tried to reproduce the synthesizer work on the piano.

Cars by Gary Numan was HUGE! You had to be there. I was 9 years old in 1979 and we were listening to Cars in the hood. This was two years before MTV was even a thing. That song was a monster. ❤

The Bowie quote at 21:33 about yearning for a future that would never come to pass is kind of the core of the entire SynthWave scene. A soundtrack for a future that never happened but people dreamt about in the 1980's.

Vince Clarke was the common element in Yazoo, Erasure and Depeche Mode ... he had a big hand in electronic music.

Kraftwerk's Autobahn got the hook into me. ELO deserved at least a mention, along with The Move. Jeff Lynne's contributions to synth-pop should not be overlooked.

I was disappointed that YMO was not mentioned in any capacity. If anything they deserve mention for bridging the East and West through their 1978 self-titled album. I believe they influenced many of the UK artists you mentioned in the early 80s.

Why does synth music in general makes my brain so happy? Seriously, it feels like I'm receiving a direct brain massage, it's surreal!

The 70s and early 80s were a fantastically exciting time to be growing up surrounded with this soundtrack of evolving 'synth music'. Many of these songs are still on rotation in my playlists today...

I'd say Pete Townshend deserves a wee mention, too, for Won't Get Fooled Again and Baba O'Riley; most definitely synth-led tunes from 1971.

Space and Cerrone deserved a mention. They both created at least one song each that were highly influential. Magic Fly and Supernature 🔥🔥🔥

i rediscovered Gary Numan lately. he has made some sensational music in the last decade which i never new existed

Thomas Dolby's contributions to Foreigner's huge success should not be left out moving forward! Epic!

This is so well done, and yes, almost impossible to capture all of the music that came thru the synth pop... Other mentions... Thomas Dolby - various Afrika Bambaataa and the Soul Sonic Force - Planet Rock Vangelis - Chariots of Fire Perhaps a mention for other TV shows that embraced the synth revolution... UFO The Persuaders Six Million Dollar Man The Professionals Etc....