Synth Britannia - Friday bbc4

mike65

Last Bump, on tonight

Some sythns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50U1zFHoH30

leincar

Thanks for the heads up. Beer and popcorn it is for tonight.

Dudess

For any night owls: it's on at 1.30.

pmr31

late to this discussion -howard jones never hi jacked synths..he helped develop them at their hight and continues to lead the way using cutting edge technology - he broke America as a synth genius having top ten albums and a number one single when very few bands did...he pioneered midi use etc

Nolanger

Howard Jones was a joke. By the time he arrived everything had been done already. What synths did he buy on mail order or build himself? Five years too late he was.

pmr31

right...over ten million record sales - sold out tours of amerca, wembley etc..

besides jones was using synths since the early 70's...just because you saw him on top of the pops in the 80's doesnt mean he appeared out of no where.

anyway...Jones may not have been the first to have commercial success but in the mid 70's was using cutting edge technology..

if you wanna go down the route of who came first you have to go way back beyond the popular artists who graced the tv in the late 70's/ 80's

besides its not a matter of who pioneered what..its more that they made great music and very creatively...

Personally i have a soft spot for most artists in the programme.....

Nolanger

The whole point of that programme was that punk influenced synth pop resulting in a cold, emotionally hollow, industrial sound that started in the late '70s in Sheffield and London. The era then ended around '83 when crap like Howard Jones hit the charts playing bland pop music with synths!

pmr31

SO what?..its just an opinon...yours and the programmes

cold synths- industrial synths - you like them or you don't -obviously a lot of people like what came later throughout the 80's

Vince Clarke/Yazoo, Erasure, OMD, Howard Jones etc ...you obviously don't

like they say opions ...that all it is ....

or musical snobbery....

personally i like most of it and don't think the early stuff was any better than the later
...besides synths in some form or another existed way back and continue to evolve today in a variety of ways
...whether you like one band or another who really cares its just taste

..the point is that millions of people bought a wide variety of synth music from Gary Numan to Howard Jones...

that programme was one perspective

the early stuff might have been less commercial..thats about all...

Nolanger

Another point you missed from the programme was that the early groups like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle built their own synths. That's why they sounded so different to bland keyboard pop like Howard Jones and Thompson Twins.

A V A

the early stuff from the late 70's/ early 80's was way better than the much that was brought out half way through the 80's,the sounds and the cheesynes was unreal !!! good point was made about synths being built from scratch . . thats what made the music new and fresh, bands have always been around and a new style music was being made from scratch , the first synth based music was just brilliant compared to the much all through out the 80's . . . to me it felt like they took advantage of the whole synth side of things and abused it :P haha

mike65

Synth music was nearly killed by the DX7 FM synthesis type unit, suddenly everyone just pressed a number from the presets. 90% of DX7s were never tweaked I read somewhere.

A V A

well said . . .and they then thought they were magic and thought they could prance around like idiots

pmr31

nah didnt miss any points...didn't agree with some of the points..

whether you build a synth or not who cares...?

I get the gist of the programme just didnt agree with it..


Howard Jones (in my) and many people's opinion was a pioneer especially in relation to sampling...

its always the case that once something becomes popular people wanna knock it.

A V A

no, im into alot of mainstream/popular music but he was just a twat !!!!hes not a pioneer of sampling ?? there was alot more people well before howard jones that pioneered sampling well before he was around,he came through mid 80's and all he did was recycle it ?? he didnt pioneer it ?? from what iv read and seen , vince clarke would be one of the mainstream artists that pioneered sampling and synthesis well and proved the diferent techniques of what could be done in relations to the early years of sampling

pmr31

he was doing stuff long before he became famous..in a band called warrior way back in the mid 70's...he adopted sampling way before he bacame famous and used a fairlight in the very early stages....

but this is becoming boring........blah blah:rolleyes:

pmr31

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDq_ywT45gE

A V A

yep he's just a twat!!! cheesy mainstream rubbish !!!!!

pmr31

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

A V A

you read my mind "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" exactly what i did

Nolanger

The Mickey Joe Harte of synth pop

Dudess

pmr31 wrote: »

its always the case that once something becomes popular people wanna knock it.

But it's their opinion - and like you said, opinions are valid. It's always the case that someone comes along and says those who dislike something popular are musical snobs too, when they might just... not like it.
Also, really successful doesn't necessarily mean good. And your arrogant, patronising style with the wink smilies etc doesn't exactly do you much credit.

pmr31 wrote: »

howard jones never hi jacked synths..he helped develop them at their hight and continues to lead the way using cutting edge technology

Yeah, he played a gig in the Oriel Hotel in Ballincollig a few years ago... :pac:
I like a few of Howard Jones' songs - think they're catchy. But that's about it - light, fluffy pop.

Weirdly, this is on again tomorrow night... :eek:

Great show.

Nolanger

Thomas Dolby was doing something similar to Howard Jones at the start of the 1980s (microphone headsets, samples, surrounded by synths, normal guy next door image) but he was much better!

speaknow

Nolanger wrote: »

Howard Jones was a joke. By the time he arrived everything had been done already. What synths did he buy on mail order or build himself? Five years too late he was.

Nolanger - your contention here is nonsense, you are completely missing the point and are out of your depth now that the discussion has broadened.

Five years too later for WHAT?!! Synths are not, and never were - the preserve of those who built them. That's like saying anyone after Bo Diddley, Jimi Page (who actually stole from Bert Janch), Eric Clapton (who also stole, though less overtly) and Jimi Hendrix all sold out and brought guitar playing to a place it shouldn't ever have gone. The amazing Jack Black brought indie guitar rock into the charts in the last 5 years by appealling to people as young as 14, for God's sake. Are you going to vilify him? What about The Edge and his pre-sets? Are you going to dismiss his massive and pioneering contribution to popular music? Yes, they are the quarters where guitar and synth playing originated from, but if you honestly think time should stand still and musical evolution shouldn't take place, then you're on the wrong forum, mate.

Howard Jones was a classically-trained pianist (more talent in his little finger than you in your armchair/habitual presence in front of your laptop, I would imagine), and honed his craft with a one-man show, often grappling with out-of-tune synths (a reality that contrasts with your image of a sterile and safe musical environment which, I conceed, many in the 80s inhabited). He used Moogs, yamahas, Jupiter 8s and anything else that was lying around at the time. Is that selling out? He has never claimed to be the first at anything, but he did manage to write some cracking 80s pop tunes and brought melodic synth tracks to an audience other than Sheffield. Yes, much of it is light, fluffy pop, but it does what it says on the tin. That you are apparently apportioning blame on him for other musical crimes of the 80s is misguided, to say the least.

Take a look at his Live Aid performance (readily available on youtube) and tell me honestly if you don't see creativty. Are you actually a musician? A keyboardist, a pianist, or both? The guy could have gone out there and hid behind a cage of synths and a wall of sound - instead, he was brave and creative enough to go out on the biggest stage the modern world had ever seen up to that point, and delivered a popular (though not his best-known) track in stunning fashion. He's spent the intervening 25 years writing tunes and re-working old track in innovative new formats, embracing old and new technologies, bringing something different with each new project.

Nolanger

Jeeze, will you ever just watch Synth Britannia and realise that Howard Jones was just crap? Like a lot of other pop acts in the mid-'80s he was using synths in a boring way.

The whole point of original synth-pop was that it came out of punk i.e. they couldn't actually play very well. Another point was that they were trying to reflect their grim surroundings e.g. industrial Sheffield or London's rundown and empty streets. Another point was they were actually doing something new which hadn't been done before (outside of progressive rock). Another point (mentioned already) was that original synth acts built their own keyboards giving their music a unique sound. Also, these keyboards were analogue and didn't have MIDI.

So lets look at Howard Jones when he came out in ('83/'84): classically-trained, using dull-sounding digital synths, preset-sounds instead of creating his own, aimed at the teenage market. This was the opposite to what the earlier synth pop acts were trying to do. He just jumped on the bandwagon. If you can't see that then watch Synth Britannia!

Do you see the difference???? It's got nothing to do with playing Live Aid. Even the Synth Britannia programme said the real synth-pop movement came to an end circa '83 and then they showed a brief clip of Howard Jones prancing around to prove their point.

speaknow

Nolanger, you're not very bright are you? Or, indeed, observant.

A couple of points (and please, unlike your last response, you might care to actually reply to the issues put to you, rather than juvenile "Jeeze, will you ever just watch Synth Britannia and realise that Howard Jones was just crap?" idiocy).

- Q: How was Thomas Dolby's a "normal guy next door image"? You're hilarious.

- Secondly, I saw the programme. In its entirety.

- Most of the Clash were excellent musicians. Are they any less a punk band than The Pistols or Dead Kennedys? Are they 'bad' because they were 'good' at playing instruments?

- You (again) are talking nonsense when you spout on about "Another point was that they were trying to reflect their grim surroundings e.g. industrial Sheffield or London's rundown and empty streets". Howard Jones worked in a plastic wrap factory. Grim. And, he could only afford to purchase keyboards following compensation received when his wife was in an accident.

- There were many, many other acts in the UK, USA and other countries where people were living in tough conditions, who didn't choose to express themselves in through synths in the manner of those you have sought to glamourise (1981's "Ghost town", a lot of reggae from the 70s, ska, etc - all completely different). Please stop peddling the line that there is some intrinsic link between deprivation and "building my own synths because I'm poor and from Sheffield and I have a monopoly on this means of expression."

- I admire musicians who are limited in their skills and who manage to embrace these limitations to good effect. This admiration does not, however, extend to opinionated (how many posts have you contributed to this site? Don't get out all that much, do you?) and (clearly) frustrated muso-heads who are, funnily, seriously limited in their knowledge (as opposed to statistics)and who manage to publicly flaunt these limitations to embarrassing effect, squeezing the life and goodness out of music and dismissing subjectivity in the process.

Nolanger

Jeeze, you really, really don't get it? The original synth bands didn't build their own synths because they were poor! As the documentary explains the only people who could afford large synths in the mid-'70s were the progressive rock bands. The post-punk synth bands could not buy this gear because they were just too expensive. As in the 'price of a car' expensive. The first affordable synths were either available on mail order or had to be built by buying electronics kits and assembling the parts together.

That's what they did - 5 or 6 years before Howard Jones hit the charts.

The early groups also had a futuristic outlook, read sci-fi books, and wanted to record cold, emotionless, industrial, electronic music. This had nothing to do with being poor or working in a factory ala Howard Jones.

The late '70s in electronic music was full of innovators while the mid '80s was full of imitators. Just accept facts. Not every is impressed with a classically-trained musician with some pop songs jumping on the synth-pop bandwagon. Neither was Synth Britannia.

Howard Jones was just sh*t. It's not about the quality of songs or how well they can play ffs. The whole point of synth pop was that they couldn't play, wanted to react against keyboard music used in progressive rock, and wanted to do something that was never done before.

Trying to defend Howard Jones on a thread that's discussing a documentary which criticised him in the first place is pointless.

A V A

nolanger im behind you on this


howard jones just recycled sounds

point was made about the way he worked in a plastic wrap factory and he couldnt afford synths and the only way he got synths was from an incident his wife had hahahaha this made me laugh because im looking at the likes vince clarke who as many times has mentioned how he would put off getting food and all the things in life to get his synths etc ! now thats what i call the shaping of a pioneer of synthesis , true dedication and passion and the drive for stating a new type of music and new synthesis!howard jones mustn't of been that dedicated and bothered about the music etc if the only way he could get a synth was by his wife's incident

andybell31

the programme above was interesting..

was not a huge fan of howard jones until a couple of years ago when a friend of mine took me to a Roland show case and he was putting some of their new gear through its paces...

the man can play..no doubt..struck me as pretty interesting that he has survived so long when most of these synth guys did a runner or got buried under a wave of guitars in the 90's

my problem with the programme was not that they were pro some groups anti others but that there was more than a hint of NME journalism about the tone. They seemed to support the groups who came to public prominence first and those who continued on into the 80's got hammered..

its a bit like most genres of music those who come first get lauded (sex pistols etc) and those who come late get ripped when the next fad appears..

seems to me that bands like the thompson twins, thomas dolby and others had talent and were around a long time before they became successful..and that shortly after they became succesful the whole synth genre migrated to dance music...

one point i would make is that many of the bands/musicians that got trashed could play (often they were serious musicians who were around 15 years before they became succesful)

I personally couldnt care less who made what synth or who came first or how succesfull they became or not or whether they marketed themselves in other ways.

thomas dolby for one (alongside howard jones and people like Jean michelle jarre)all took variable aspects of synth music and presented it their own unique way;thats why i love the genre; I wouldnt knock most of the music because it all has merits (love or hate OMD, Human League, pet shop boys, howard jones, erasure etc)

I'm also glad there is a revival or retro electro pop because its a genre of music i love (i'm sick of guitars boy/girl bands etc)

embrace what you like..ignore what you dont and while i enjoyed the programme i wouldnt say any act involved was any better than another..although i recognise the musicianship of some more than others and the inventiveness of others more than some...

I will say this about pet shop boys, erasure, thomas dolby and jones...they have all persevered and developed their sounds despite fashion changing through acid house, house, brit pop, grunge etc

Heard the new hoosier album, hurts etc..sounds like the late 80's synth sound is back in vogue

Nolanger

One reason why synth-pop went sh*t in the mid-'80s is that the technology changed. Analogue synths left and digital synths arrived. It was all preset sounds and pressing buttons. It just didn't sound as good. The groups all sounded alike. If you look up the prices of second-hand synths online the ones from the late '70s/early '80s are more expensive than the ones from the mid/late '80s.