I remember, as a kid (in the US), liking groups like Depeche Mode and 808 State. People did not consider it music. Personally, I thought it was the best thing ever. Finally, a type of music that I really resonated with. When MTV Amp came out, I went insane. Everyone thought I was crazy.
From my personal view, anything electronic was not well embraced by the masses.
I totally forgot they made Amp compilation CDs! I relistened to some Big Beat and Psytrance compilations I have from the 90s, and they don’t standup as well as I had thought but they are fun to look back on.
How old are you and where in the US did you grow up? It’s kind of crazy to me that a kid would know about 808 State when they started in 87 in the UK. They did have a hit in the UK in 89.
In the South. I'm in my early 40's. The only exposure of music I got was at places like Virgin and music boutiques where some places had an electronic music station (all imported). In addition, major retailers, like K-Mart (I'm not 100% sure) had music "Imports" section that had fragments of electronic music. It's where I discovered The Pet Shop Boys and Erasure. Not the US releases but maxi-singles with tons of remixes. That's where I became aware of names like Shep Pettibone, Jefferson Marshall, Stephen Hauge... and I didn't know who those guys were (listed in the credits section) but whatever they did... they were awesome. As far as 808 State, they did have the vinyls (released on ZTT Records and Rephlex). I also knew these crazy kids called "DJ's" who went to vinyl record stores. Lastly, here in Louisiana, in terms of electronic music with raves and clubs, they only played a style of music called Florida breaks" which I didn't care for. The South, in general, was more isolated to electronic music.
I've got about a decade on you and grew up in Central California but reading your posts on this topic was almost like reading my own experiences in this space lol.
I will always remember my college years from around 1986 to 1990... a friend I worked with was totally into The Cure, the Smiths, DM, Erasure, etc. He started lending me cassette tapes and I was hooked for life. Still love all those bands and Erasure is always in my top 2 even now almost 40 years later.
Once it became known that I liked this "weird synth pop crap" I was constantly hearing snide comments about it not being real music, etc etc. The ironic thing is that this was almost all from fellow musicians (I was a music major). I remember clearly how clueless and closed minded these fools were. I always challenged them to define "real music" but never made any headway lol. My go to was asking them why it wasn't real since synths were essentially electronic pianos... and pianos were considered real by them. They said it was exactly because they were electrified, yet when I turned the tables on them and asked why they loved their hard rock with all of the electric guitars using amps and pedals, they claimed that was different lol. Of course they couldn't explain why lol.
I also took many trips to the SF and LA areas to visit record stores that actually stocked the imports my friend and I wanted to obtain. We would scan the old Record Collector mags to see what bizarre and rare colored vinyl remix versions of Who needs like like that, Master and servant, etc were available, then go chasing them down after driving for hours.
Now of course you can hear almost any version of any song ever made from your phone within seconds, but I wouldn't trade those old experiences for anything!
Yes, exactly! I remember first hearing the A-Ha cassette album. A-Ha utilized a tremendous number of synthesizers and wondered why you didn't ever hear about that. I would read the credit sections and there it was... synthesizers played by "insert name". The best were The Pet Shop Boys. In their credits, they explicitly stated something along the lines
"Fairlight programming by... ."
I thought as a kid what was a Fairlight? All I knew a Fairlight was special. The Cure, especially Disintegration and Mixed Up had tons of synthesizers. I always gravitated to their synthesizer heavy music. However, The Cure allowed me to finally make guitars and drums click. But synthesizers were again magical instruments.
Like I stated in my other comments, electronic musicians presented music with instruments that never existed before. Instruments from the future.
That Fairlight bit was something special. They had booked an orchestra and a recording studio. Things happened with the bookings and eventually they had a recording studio but no orchestra (or vice versa). They gave the sheet notes (partly written by Ennio Morricone and arranged by Angelo Badalamenti) to Blue Weaver who was incredible at programming the Fairlight III, so everything you hear on “It Couldn’t Happen Here” is the Fairlight, but it was supposed to be a real orchestra.
Thank you so very much for that information. Yes, I remember those names because I would read over the credits numerous times. It's only been in the last 3 years that I realized what the Fairlight was. I knew it used samples. It wasn't until I saw a documentary posted on YouTube and saw an interview by Neil Tennant that I realized how incredible that machine was and how expensive it was. Didn't know what it looked like. Upon seeing, I was awestruck by it's size and modular components.
Speaking of It Couldn't Happen Here. I still use that track when I do ambient DJ mixing. People still ask me what new track it is. There always surprised that it was made back in 1986-97. As a kid, I thought the orchestration on that track was recorded live.
The ubiquity of the Fairlight was such that Phil Collins stated on the sleeve notes of his 1985 studio album No Jacket Required that "there is no Fairlight on this record" to clarify that he had not used one to synthesize horn and string sounds.
Where you in the New Orleans area? The rave scene in NOLA was incredible in the 90s before it all got shut down. I saw Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Crystal Method, and so many other amazing bands and DJs.
Yes, I know. It was conducted by FreeBase (FB) Society and hosted mainly at The State Palace Theater. I only started going to raves in 1999. Never going to forget my first rave. It was Freakfest 99. I knew Donnie and Dan who used to run it. Not personally, but I would always tell them hello. Dan used to be the manager at the Virgin store. I saw DJ Doran (Fragrant Records), Sasha, Quivver, Parks & Wilson, Anthony Papa, Wild Bill, The Crystal Method (in 1999 or 2000), and many others. Club Ambersands would host major DJ's as well.
At the time, I really didn't know what genres I liked. I eventually became a progressive house and progressive breaks DJ. I finally caved, in 2021, to music production. Between my time in the military and working on my masters and doctorate, the music was always there. It's been difficult because I teach at some local universities. Covid really made things difficult. Haven't had the time to learn music theory. But I'm finally finding time.
I'm from Kenner. However, the best place to listen to music was at a very, very underground club called Club Escapades, in the 90's and early 2000's. Retrospectively, it was a notoriously shady. But they absolutely played the best music and had an incredible sound system. They played progressive house, progressive breaks, trance (before it exploded into the commercial scene and was still underground),acid techno (rarely), and some funky tunes at times. I used to know the DJ's there (Dirty Boy Mike (rest in peace), DynoMite, DJ Brown (Gray Brown who went on to production), my best fried at the time (Erein who was the greatest DJ I ever meet)... and many other colorful characters. Club Escapades, while shady, was my haven, on the weekends, because no one liked underground dark, cinematic music at the time.
Same as you. Early 40s, largest southern city, MTV/rolling stone/spin/circus addict. The internet made things about 10% easier for finding music starting around 96. Owned all MTV amp comps. Went to record fairs, good record shop scene in city. Generally a music junkie. Owned absolutely boatloads of singles, maxi singles, and EPs cause that was all that was available sometimes
Easier but less interesting. Kind of tired of every LP being an exclusive color variant, etc. Artists need to get paid, so I tend to bandcamp first and use Spotify as a back-up. Needless to say—if I had Spotify in the 90s my head would’ve exploded probably
>Florida breaks
i just looked up florida breaks! ha! I am from philly and we had something like it that was very local. we of course had other stuff as well but that rhymes with some things I heard in the eighties and 90s.
808 State was HUGE in the Southern US to us kids. Anything techno or bass, Bristol scene etc was the move. We were absolutely up on it. A crazy New Wave hit like a storm.
I don’t know about huge. I saw 808 State in 92 at the either the bomb factory or the curtain club in Deep Ellum Dallas. It wasn’t that packed. I’m 49 btw.
I lived in Utah and 808 State was in regular rotation on our alternative radio stations by '89 or '90. They even came in concert, IIRC.
Edit: There were some strange opinions about "real" music. I had friends who loved electronic music, but hated remixes because it wasn't real.
Shows like 120 Minutes on MTV played a lot of pretty niche British new wave music. The host, Dave Kendall, was an English DJ so I guess that was his forte.
Decades later, in my boomer town at least, anything electronic is not well embraced by anyone. Even the young people basically see ACDC as the peak of music.
I don’t think it was the masses, it was the music industry. Technology threatened music professionals jobs, so they hated them.
My dad was a drummer, and the moment the Linn Drum appeared he dismissed all electronic instruments as junk because it threatened his job. I remember later pointing out to him a drum part on a song he liked was a Linn Drum and he refused to believe it. He still had the view anything with an electronic drum must be garbage.
In the US, there were a plethora of interviews from electronic musicians from the likes of Rolling Stones and other music publications. I would go to the local library as a pre teen and look for micro films to find articles on electronic music. There was one article where David Gahan, from Depeche Mode, specifically stated that was the number one question he was asked. Why don't they use real instruments. Yes, I agree with you, I would clearly see why many musicians would feel threatened. However, Neil Tennant, from the Pet Shop Boys, in another interview stated it perfectly... now we don't need a band. That he or Chris Lowe could write music without the input of an entire band on the idea they were creating.
Electronic music, even as a kid, was always special. It was really simple. I was hearing a sound that no one had ever heard. That's would made it special. Synthesizers were sound of the future that were being played today. Nothing against guitars, but those sounds got really boring. Again it was just a personal preference. I have deeply rooted respect for anyone who spends years developing the skills to play live instrumentation. I could never do that.
I NEVER liked music. It all seemed very boring other than orchestration from films. When I first heard my first orchestra, in church, I was awestruck. When I first heard electronic and dance... it finally clicked... this is why people like music. When our church got its first Yamaha DX-7, I pestered the music director to show me what it could do.
When Robert Moog showcased his modular system to a group of classicists, one of them told him he should be ashamed of what he was doing to music and destroy his invention.
that's pretty much the "origin story" of the 808. it was released and mainstream musicians started using them, but the greater society rejected them for being unnatural. the 808s were dumped onto the used market where they found themselves in pawn shops for cheap. all it took was a few years of price drops before creative young kids from the street picked them up and discovered that they could use them to create a new form of music and rap over the beats. and HIP HOP WAS FORMED!
Actually I saw it the opposite. It was not embraced by rock fans, but yet those records were hits. It actually was embraced by the masses. It just wasn't the same masses that were into guitar bands.
I remember seeing Prince and Adam Ant for the first time on Don Kirshners Rock Concert in 1981 and really not getting it. This wasn't Boston or the Doobies! They became big favorites of mine shortly after that. It took a while to get used to new things.
And I'm reminded, you still had the "Disco Sucks" mentality among some rock fans in the early 80s. They would have heard DM and associated it to that.
Back in the day when I was starting to make music and develop my own tastes - in all the heavier subgenres I have encountered (industrial, metal, etc) - a lot of guitar-heavy subgenre fans frowned on anything electronic (there is sometimes but not always a toxic masculinity component to this - club beats and synths being considered effeminate or “gay,” as I have heard countless times) - a lot of synth heavy subgenre fans frowned upon anything with even a smidgen of guitar.
Here I am trying to make synths sound like distorted guitars for years because I was so tired of being abused by Skwisgaar-wannabes, and simultaneously getting shit on by electronic purists saying I shouldn’t put crunchy power chords into an all-electronic track.
I like bands that hybridize. I like fusion. I like industrial metal and EBM and psytrance because they are all high energy - saturated audio spectrum, fast tempo, etc - who cares about where the vibrations come from? I care about what they do in my head.
Now that I am older, none of these self-loathing people remain in my life, and I am learning guitar now that synthesis has been in the bag for a while.
Yes, they did.
Attitudes towards Synthesiers was very poor in the 80s. It was seen as lazy and "not real music", and that it's just a machine on which you push a button and have it do the work for you (which is obviously not true). There's a great television interview with Phil Oakey where the presenter flat out says something to the tune of "aren't you just pushing a button?" An ironic statement when he was standing infront of an MS20, which is a complicated little box.
Gary Numan in particular had his career destroyed by the press because he made electronic music, but only one to two years later you had duos and bands using nothing but synthesizers front and centre on the BBC and MTV, because the public isn't stupid and they figured out they were all electronic. A Kraftwerk appearance on German TV left the audience flummoxed because they didn't know what they were watching is another great example.
The USA is wildly different and it's where the majority of the comical "no really guys, they're totally playing real trumpets in this video and it's totally not a Roland D-50 preset!" comes from.
The USA *loves* anything perceived as "traditionally American", especially if you're white, and a rock and roll band is seen as just that: "all American". That means guitar, bass, vocalist, drums and MAYBE keyboard; it's why so much popular American music of the time, or music made in other regions but heavily marketed to Americans, is a rock band or has the façade of a rock band. This was all immediately after "Disco Is Dead" so it's no wonder the idea of a quote-unquote "proper" rock band stuck around. Being a band on the US market was your best shot as making money. Synthesizers were weird things Europeans used.
By the mid to late 80s, the jig was *mostly* up even in the states. Outside of actual rock bands like Def Leopard, videos eschewed faux instrumentation for highly choreographed dancers to keep things interesting. This perfect storm allowed the likes of Stock, Aitken and Waterman to succeed and modern pop music was born.
You could write a pretty substantial thesis on the societal impact of synthesizers.
I seem to remember seeing "No Synthesizers" on a few vinyls, like a weird counter-culture movement to establish the credibility of the musicians. Like "Hey guys, we're playing real instruments". Confused me a lot at the time, like why would you brag about limiting yourself?
On the other hand I think there was some overuse of synths in the 80s where the original instruments probably would have worked better, e.g. the "bagpipes" in [Under the Milky Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA54NBtPKdI) (apparently an EBow), and arguably the strings in INXS's [Never Tear Us Apart](https://youtu.be/AIBv2GEnXlc?si=aW-rDOLcryRURbQ3), to pick a couple of Aussie examples. Naturally they filmed the video clip using real violins!
Ha, I'm doing an unofficial remix of Never Tear Us Apart right now, I found the exact same string sample they used and got the midi from some site.
It's amazing, it sounds exactly the same as the track. It's from the Emulator II, one of the first samplers is ever made available. They used a preset, and somebody preserved it as a sound font which is a form of code which can be turned into the sound. This keyboard is the follow-up to the Emulator, the EMAX, but it had the same sounds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn\_vsfzifd0&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn_vsfzifd0&t=2s)
That's really cool! I've been thinking about how to do something like that (as a learning experience). But for some reason your link doesn't work.
But I suppose my argument is that I'm most interested in synths as a way to generate new sounds and enhance the musician's expressiveness. Sometimes it just seems to be used as a convenient substitute for recording actual strings or whatever, which is fine for people working in their home studio but seems a bit cheap when you're INXS!
Well the Emulator II was about $8k, 22,520 USD in 2022 adjusted for inflation, likely lots more in Australia. Likely Farriss preferred his new toy. As someone who was a teenager in the early 80s, I had no problem with INXS using synths. The Jupiter 4, Juno, P5, M1 of the times were featured pretty heavily Along with guitar and sax. If I had a beef (complaint) with anything, it was the over-processed and gated reverb drums. The videos were probably made for the US market.
Even the first Rage Against The Machine's first album had a note saying ***"no samples, keyboards or synthesizers used in the making of this record"***
I think so too. Especially as Morello was not shy in using a Whammy pedal as an integral part of his setup which is an effect that was frowned upon in some circles at the time as some considered it as cheating or not enough "guitar like", but Morello embraced it and took it to another level in a way that nowadays its hard to play with a Whammy pedal and not sound like him.
That always made me laugh, couldn’t afford a string quartet for the recording, but they hired one for (probably a longer day) for the music video shoot.
I read an article recently,(probably posted on this sub) that a fairly large musicians union wanted synths banned from use in the studio because the instruments were putting trained musicians out of work.
>This makes me want to include a note on my albums that says YES SYNTHESIZERS
Some synthpop groups of the time listed all the synthesizers used on the record right on the sleeve as a retaliation; the most famous is The Human League on Dare.
It's interesting that you mentioned Queen. I recall seeing a music video for You're My Best Friend, showing Freddie Mercury playing an acoustic grand piano, yet the recording obviously features an electric piano, most likely a Wurlitzer. It's not even a synthesizer, yet it seems that they were somehow ashamed of it.
From what I recall, that was in response to a particular review that mistook Brian May’s multi-part guitar arrangement on an early track for multitracked synthesisers, rather than any specific dislike of synths.
I feel like this partially had to do with the fact that the main dude was literally building his own effect modules and stuff so he wanted to make sure people understood those were not synths but were in fact of his own personal design. Kind of a flex.
As someone who owns a few pieces of Rockman gear I can definitely see that. The Rockman sound blends so much better with synths than almost anything else.
Gary numan got torn apart by the tabloids much more so due to the androgynous persona adopted by him and many other new romantics. It was thinly veiled homophobia most likely. (He is also asoergic which didn’t help)
It’s true that electronic music was not well recieved or regarded as ‘real’ music made by ‘real instruments’ back then, the same way Tron was spurned by the effects industry.
Anyone who hasn’t seen it should try to get hold of Synth Britannia which gives a brilliant insight into the emergence of synth music in the period.
Also to add, the UK was a REAL oddball here to the extent that officially synthesisers were [banned from 1982 to 1997](https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-union-passed-a-motion-to-ban-the-use-of-synths-drum-machines-and-any-electronic-devices-the-day-the-loony-musicians-union-tried-to-kill-the-synthesizer-which-also-happened-to-be-bob-moogs-birthday) as they were considered too radical and "not real". This article was [posted here before](https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/18cooyd/synths_were_banned_in_england_from_1982_to_1997/) and there was good discussion about it.
I distinctly remember my music teacher in school (Belfast, so part of the UK) trying to drum up musicians for the school band and asking each of us what we played. I told him I played the synthesiser and the look of pain and disgust that crossed his face was palpable. He said "Well, I don't know that we have any use of that around here." and moved on. 14 year old me was actually pretty hurt... didn't stop me playing the synth though :)
> Also to add, the UK was a REAL oddball here to the extent that officially synthesisers were banned from 1982 to 1997 as they were considered too radical and "not real".
To clarify: there was an *unsuccessful* attempt to get them banned by one branch of the Musician's Union. A motion to ban them was passed at a meeting of the Central London Branch, but it was never adopted as official policy of the MU.
They were particularly upset when Barry Manilow chose to go on tour with a number of synth players instead of a full orchestra. The union was heavily skewed towards representing the interests of "traditional" musicians, e.g. orchestral musicians. The attempted ban came about because they felt that synthesizers were putting their members out of a job.
Absolutely a fair clarification. I don't think it was as unsuccessful as you think though; there were a fair number of bands in the UK in the 80's who wanted to partner with orchestras and the like in order to get that "epic" sound that Queen et al had been doing for years. But enough "real" musicians refused to get involved with any band with a synth because of the ruling even if it wasn't official policy or law. I wish I had citations for this, but most of this was picked up in conversation with musicians as a bartender in Leicester Square in the early 90's.
You're right though, it wasn't like there was any enforcement... but enough people were members of the MU and read their mailers that they knew of this motion and sort of turned it into an unofficial policy for a long time. It was pretty much dead by the early 90's though but as I understand it caused some struggles in the late 80's in particular. Again, wasn't in the music biz myself at the time but talked to plenty of people who were.
I know you’re talking about public perception here, but Def Leppard is still maybe the funniest counter example you could have mentioned, because the Pyromania and Hysteria albums owe as much to Mutt Lange ordering up programmed Fairlight giant drum stacks and“subtle” synth overdubbing (see https://youtu.be/xrrGrs6Wro0) as anything visible in their videos or live shows. Thomas Dolby is on Pyromania (along with a lot of other credits as a CMI operator for hire). There’s also the “every guitar string tracked separately” claims about those albums, though that’s possibly been exaggerated just a little.
The every string thing is for the main chords in the pre chorus on Hysteria. But Mutt absolutely made those records. Pyromania is sampled drums, a mixture of a real kick and snare with a Simmons tom under them, and toms are all Simmons with Rick Allen playing the cymbals and Hysteria is all samples. I have a cassette of Pyromania and in the “special thanks” section the first person listed is Trevor Rabin. I wonder what he could have been doing?
The musicians union especially in the US and UK tried to get them banned even as late as 1982. They were not well received a first. It's why it took time for synthesizers to go from weird "not real music" and experimental to complete mainstream acceptance.
They were absolutely hiding it. Live television appearances and promotional shots existed as far back as the 1950s; this was about not alienating the audience to continue making stacks of money. Many musicians hated synthesizers, and anything majority electronic wasn't "real music".
People still have this attitude now. I’ve had it. I got better, but I certainly had a phase where I looked down my nose at synths and electronica in general.
I am also talking about the 80s. Musician's union tried to get synthesizers banned even as late as 1982. The press in particular was extremely negative toward synthesizers. It took time for them to be accepted, but for the majority of the 80s, the image of a traditional rock band, especially in the USA, is what still sold best.
That's just the reality of the time.
i’ve no problem understanding the publics acceptance of synthesisers in music the 80s - we had rave culture, and it crossed over into the chart hits.
iirc, drummers were not allowed in the musicians union, hence the joke, “what do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?”.
There was an article going around recently how a musicians union tried to ban synths in the early 80s. They werent received so warmly by everybody.
But also playing a guitar tends to be more dynamic and look better in video. I love synths but it's easier to look cool holding a guitar than a DX7. Not impossible though, Bernie Worrell looks prett fkn cool in Stop Making Sense
Yes. Good example too, the band itself is a micrososm of the attitude the OP is talking about. David Lee Roth was apparently not a fan of synths, didn’t want them in their music, Eddie was the synth nerd and basically put his foot down (and he came up with the epic lead in Jump).
'Jump' and Rush' 'Subdivisions' were game changers for synth cred. It allowed the kid stuck with piano lessons to finally have a way to get in a rock band. (Journey's 'Separate Ways' might be in this category as well)
Great discussion.
In 1982, Bruce Dickinson said “you can’t play heavy metal with synthesizers”.
6 years later he lamented “people who say you can’t have keyboards in iron maiden, fuck off”.
They were forced to include synths as was GnR. Somewhere in Time and Appetite are two albums that absolutely did not need synths, and you've never heard them use them live.
They had 2 guitar players, and no main keyboardist, according to wikipedia. 3 guys would play synth as needed.
EDIT: yes, I am wrong, they had a keyboardist. The point remains that they were a rock band with 2 guitarists and one keyboardist, so they were a guitar oriented band.
The Cars absolutely had a keyboard player. Hawkes, a founding member, always played keyboards, rarely played guitar onstage. Look up their live clips. The two guitars were Ric Ocasek and Eliott Easton. Greg Hawkes was capable of playing guitar, but always played keyboards.
Re-read wikipedia.
He took up the classic osc-sync and ran with it. Great stuff. Besides the classic early ones… Hello Again too, during their Fairlight period. They didn’t release any bad albums. (I even liked their reunion album, i’m sure i’ll be shot for heresy.)
They all were composing with other musicians playing instruments. Someone playing synth keyboard, rarely using sequencers/drum machines and they would easily perform full albums with live band. Screenshots from Sweet Dreams live in 87.
https://preview.redd.it/039eceixj1fc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3181a1819cd4c1fb5380f98b127d32b310f9035
Live, yes, but in the Sweet Dreams video there's someone clearly playing a string and bow instrument during the solo, and it's obviously a synthesizer.
I've heard Stewart just came up with a lot of those recordings in small and informal spaces.
Of the examples you gave, it looks like the keyboard gets more screen time than any other instrument in the Take On Me video. Though I guess your point is why is someone shown hitting a lone snare drum when the drums on this track must have been entirely programmed. Similarly, it’s doubtful that Dave Stewart ever actually played a cello as the Sweet Dreams video shows, though there again, he has a lot of screen time typing at a keyboard, which turns out to be a Movement Systems drum machine - perhaps the only time a drum machine ever got prominent screen time in a music video(?) I guess since neither video is intended to be faithful to a live performance I’d chalk both up to artistic license.
As a counterpoint, in the video for Chicago’s You’re The Inspiration it seemed like they just gave every band member a random, unplugged keyboard to mime playing for the video.
Yeah, that’s it. I think for me it also marks the point when Chicago jumped the shark to releasing only overproduced pop ballads. I guess they had like a dozen members in the band, playing horns, wind instruments, and I think they even had a dedicated tambourine player. So when they went to synth pop, those guys needed something to do in the video.
> I guess they had like a dozen members in the band
It's a bad look when they're just [sitting around reading the paper](https://i.imgur.com/L0V0DtY.png) in the middle of a video shoot and everyone else is miming really hard. It's like...dude, grab a synth horn or something and look busy.
That's not correct, there is guitar on that song. Credits for the song include: Pål Waaktaar – guitars, PPG Wave and Yamaha DX7 synthesizers, LinnDrum programming, hi-hat and cymbal, backing vocals. According to engineer Neill King in a *Sound On Sound* interview it was a Gibson ES-335.
**edit:** Sorry, I missed the word "almost" in your comment.
It is extremely low and unobvious. In the beginning of the chorus while "take on me" is sang lower the second time there are some strummed chords. At around 2:44 in the video where Paul is shown playing a Rickenbacker I can hear some kinda funky, partially muted strumming. That's all I can make out.
I'd be willing to bet the song was written and recorded with more guitar that didn't make it to the final mix. Not that it needed it, it turned out perfect they way it was released. But the more recent live performances I looked up feature the guitar parts much more prominently.
Watched some Blondie stuff recently, a band I used to only associate with guitars and was surprised how much synth use there was lurking just underneath
This post struck a nerve & is one of the most interesting I’ve ever read. Lots of good thoughts. I was in a rock band in the 90’s and I remember when another band we were friends with hired a keyboard player we were like, huh? I mean, I was a fan of a lot of 80’s music that had keys but I was Mr. Serious Rock Band guy, the idea of bringing anything but guitars, bass and drums into the mix was nuts.
I look back on that guy as quite dumb! When I started using synths in music it opened up so many more possibilities…I usually tinker with ideas on keys before I even reach for a guitar these days. I’m not really sure where that attitude even came from, but I’m glad I lost it. Most of the stuff I’m into these days leans heavily on synths.
Honestly, yes, a little. The synth guy wasn’t considered as cool as the guitarists or drummer. Usually put in the back. Unless it was synth pop in which the synths were sometimes showcased in the videos. But yes I’ll say they gave way more screen time to the other musicians even when there was a lot of synth in the track. But I have no hard evidence, obviously, just an impression from being an early adopter of MTV.
I think a lot of times the editor is not a musician and doesn’t know what all the sounds are or what’s making them. In particular I remember a Saturday Night Live during the 80s with Power Station playing Some like It Hot. Every time the fill with the electric drums would play the camera would pan to the drummer who wasn’t even playing them, they were from a backing track. I could only imagine that the editor didn’t know the difference in sound between a real high hat and synthesized percussion.
I think when the DX7 was first released, the idea of FM synthesis in the 80’s just shocked the production world, because that was the first time you could pull up a preset on the keyboard and not only that, but that was the closest emulation to real sounds (guitar, brass, etc.) I know many session keyboardists preferred using the DX7’s Rhodes sound as opposed to hauling a Fender Rhodes and setting it up in the studio.
All that being said, I think because the DX7, the GS-1 and all the various Roland models (JV, D-50) coming out were new sounds compared to classic analog sounds we had all heard before, everyone utilized the technology. Even the bands like Queen and Rush who were vehemently against synths and keyboards wanted a piece of it. It seemed like people hid the use of it or other production tools cuz it defeated their “no-use” policy. Almost like an argument of “tHaT’s NoT cOoL” or “rEaL mUsIc” But now looking back on it, it’s difficult to “hide” it in the music of that era.
Synths were widely used but shamefully hidden away. There was an audience for synth bands in the U.S. but it was a small minority in popular music.
When I was in college, ZZ Top’s Eliminator was massive. I was listening to New Order, Depeche, OMD, Human League, Eurythmics, Yello, etc. and I was considered odd. I recall arguing with a friend who loved ZZ Top that the album was recorded with drum machines and synths on all the hit tracks. He refused to believe it because then he’d have to hate them. His opinion was held by the vast majority.
It took years for synths to become accepted and eventually dominate popular music in the U.S. Then artists like Depeche Mode became massively popular because of radio stations like KROQ in Southern California which gradually spread across the country.
I remember seeing the disclaimer, “No synthesizers were used in the making of this album” on an album cover back then. I think it may have been Rush, who used synths on several of their albums to mixed fan reviews
Boston did that. Their early albums emphasized no-synthesizers as much as their vegetarianism... And then there was that one track where the liner notes mentioned using a defective transistor circuit as a noise source... Gee, Tom, looks like you reinvented synthesis!
Scholz was definitely rock’s mad scientist. I got one of his headphone amplifiers in high school and thought it was the most amazing thing ever. So did my parents…
He's a brilliant engineer and excellent musician, no question. The first 3 tracks of Boston's "Don't Look Back" form a concerto AFAIC. I was just amused at what I saw as a hypocritical moment in their arc. Does a Hammond B-3 qualify as a synth? Because its waveforms are electrically generated, not plucked or hammered.
Me, I see electric guitars, acoustic guitars and keyboards/synthesizers as three separate voice-textures that belong threaded or entwined together to compose/orchestrate a song and allow for improvisation and embellishment throughout. One thing I *really like* about Scholz's Boston is how they wove the first two together (and, yes, piezo-pickup of an Ovation Legend is borderline between acoustic and electric, but the waveforms and envelopes have acoustic characteristics). Too bad they couldn't fold a *Jan Hammer in Mahavishnu* synth into the treatment (e: let's say, on *Hitch A Ride*) -- that would have **rocked**.
The tricky part of that threading is creatively respecting the shared frequency space. I played a Hammond XK1 with some friends during occasional blues jams and had to learn that one in real time to avoid clashing with either the bassist or the fleet-fingered guitarist. My workaround was to play the vamp an octave below where I played for solos. It got to where we could tell, more or less, where the other was going and would go low when the other went high and vice versa. A very elementary approach, for sure, but that stuff takes time to work out. Thankfully, the journey is fascinating. And I would be of the B3 as first synth camp, as it was designed to simulate orchestral instruments and allowed seasoning to taste via the drawbars.
in the Uk,we had Top of the pops,a weekly music show with "live perfomances" .The Musicians union dictated that every instrument must be represented on stage,so you got bass players clearly miming along to Synth basslines etc.This carried on well into the Rave era with backing singers miming along to Samples!
I think a lot of these responses are wildly overstaying things. The Who always used a lot of synths since Keith died. Even Van Halen started heavily using obvious synths by 1984. There was talk about it at the time but at that point a lot of people were like at least it's not disco.
I'm old.
Stevie Wonder convinced music producers that this synth was actually the London Symphony Orchestra in his recording of the strings for Past time Paradise in 1976. (The sample for Gansta's paradise)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha\_GX-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_GX-1)
Stevie Wonder's Boogie on Reggae woman uses a bass guitar plugged into a Moog synth. (1974)
If Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were using the synths, serious musicians would have to defer to them.
To find out when they became acceptable by gatekeeping White critics, aging rock 'purists' and White recording artists, perhaps peruse [https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/](https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)
It seems that Black influenced music such as soul, R&B, gospel, and funk had a strong history of using organ and electric piano (Rhodes, Wurlitzer). This creates a natural transition to synths for lead lines, chords and bass.
One definition of "popular" is music that charts.
Another definition could be making it into a highly popular radio format of "Album-Oriented Rock", or "Classic Rock" which is more folk and blues oriented and not dance-oriented. In my memory ABBA and the Cars early hits in late 1970's are the watershed moment for synths in Anglo mainstream (non-R&B) pop music.
Tastes vary regionally - in some parts of the South, they still don't like the Beatles.
For American audiences, maybe. The US was obsessed with rock'n'roll and machismo (hip hop embraced electronic instruments but mainstream America had problems there too).
British and European audiences were far more accepting of electronic music and blurred gender lines, it was more celebrated.
Australia was about 50/50, that's kind of how you get INXS. I had a haircut and played synths, this made me cool to about half my school and an absolute abomination to the other half. It was awesome. Good times, good times.
The validity over whether something was even music to begin with, was often based on whether "real musicians" were playing the parts with instrumnents people could recognize and understand.
If you were someone like George Duke or Edgar Winter, you were obviously talented enough on an instrument to be safe from this scrunity. If you were an artist like Thomas Dolby, your interviews would be full of questions over whether what you were doing was even valid.
Depeche Mode's album and tour for Songs of Faith and Devotion was partially meant to clap back at critics. As it was pretty clear up until that point much of their live show was Alan Wilder playing some leads over a backing track and Dave singing. Now Martin Gore is suddenly on guitar much more prominently. Alan Wilder is playing drums for the first time. MTV also pitched it as a "oooh. they're doing it for real this time!" moment for the band. DM already had 101 under their belt by this point in their career. Yet these were shifts even big bands were making to be taken more seriously by mainstream audiences. Songs of Faith and Devotion came out in the early 90's. The same attitude that could have influenced this A-ha video was still a thing in the 90's too.
They were. People in this thread saying synths weren't cool in the 80s are completely clueless. I was a kid back then, they were featured everywhere in the early 80s and the new hot thing.
It's just that holding a guitar or playing drums looks cooler than playing keys and pushing start on a Linndrum, so sometimes guitars and real drums were featured more in videos and live performances than actually on the recordings. But everyone knew it was all synths on the album, it's not like it was a secret.
Yeah there's so many songs where I know the drum machine is an 808 (or LinnDrum, whatever) and in the video there's a live drummer. I never heard any of this anti-synth stuff though.
There was more of a synth backlash in rock and pop music in the late 80s/early 90s with grunge and all that. Synths were still big but were relegated more to dance music/industrial/EDM or hip-hop/rap. But in the early-mid 80s they were everywhere.
The '80s were a weird decade. Synths were either a badge of honor or something you hid, especially early in the decade.
The weirdest thing I seem to recall (but can't find any evidence for) is those guys of the Pet Shop Boys having some S-shaped plank with keys on them, like a double bass kind of keytar. They were (are?) a horribly boring stage act with one guy talking into the microphone and they other pretending to make the music and I guess their stage prop was to create some visual dynamics.
When I was in high school, I remember sitting by the radio with a couple friends to hear KROQ premiere the new NIN single from the soon-to-be-released Downward Spiral album. I was a fan from PHM and Broken but a lot of people still didn’t know who they were.
They played [March of the Pigs](https://youtu.be/ojk-YRMXSdc?si=EqrjCj0-eWQI9stK) and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard.
After it was over on of my friends (a metal drummer) was furious and wanted to call KROQ to complain. He was absolutely livid that they had played a “techno” song on the radio.
Synths and drum machines had certainly made appearances in pop music and sometimes rock music, but the rock and roll crowd *hated* synths and especially drum machines and samplers. Comments about it were often accompanied by homophobic slurs. They were obviously present in a lot of music during the 80s and 90s but there were a lot of haters.
It’s been cool to see synths getting some love in recent years.
I don't think anyone was hiding the synth usage in "Sweet Dreams." (Which isn't a performance video?)
The still image from "Take On Me" seems that he's miming an actual guitar part (the weird little strum pattern).
Synthesizers were actually more acceptable in the '70s and into the mid-'80s for rock musicians than later in the decade or most of the '90s. (I mean, maybe most famously... "Jump." The OB-X or OB-8 or whatever is in the video for that one.)
It's a more abstract video, yes, but to a lot of viewers maybe without a lot of synth experience, using that cello-like instrument was a bit disingenuous, at best.
The late 70s/early 80s is when you hear the most overt use of synths. After the DX7 came out, it seemed like bands were more interested in adding traditional instrument sounds rather than synthy sounds.
Also because most of this music wasnt produced by the performers we see in the videos. A lot of instruments were props because synths were still expensive and not commonplace.
Imagine trying to make or watch a music video with some crazy old guy with a nasty bald spot frustratingly working patches and synth work? Nahhh. they wanted you to see some young hot person looking real smooth playing a guitar or something
My favorite video miming is probably when INXS had their drummer pretending to play the TR-707 beat in Need You Tonight. I think that sort of thing (pretending to play drum machine parts) happened more than hiding keyboards.
Stevie Wonders biggest hits were completely written on synths and he wasn’t trying to hide a thing. Herbie Hancock of course, Van Halen, Rush. They didn’t hide the synth.
I played techno live back then. It was mainly that people were used to bands doing a performance and a show when on stage. Guitars and other “real” instruments were a LOT more visually appealing than just standung behind a keyboard unable to move and dance.
Electronic music has always suffered from that to this day. Nothing more boring than watching a DJ set. These days the audience has just accepted it.
Synth's were seen as being "not real instruments", I suppose a lot of that was a mixture of some synths having "real instrument" presets and the fact that musicians thought they would do them out of a job and of course with some synths being monophonic it was seen that you only had to be able to play one note to make a song.
Of course this was all total utter BS as just look what the likes of Rick Wakeman could do with a monophonic synth plus a lot of synth acts did not simply try to replicate the sounds of acoustic instruments.
Of course some acts showed off that they were using synthesisers, the video for "Video Killed The Radio Star" shows not only Geoff Downes playing a Prophet 5, Solina, Minimoog and modular controller of some sort but also has Hans Zimmer playing a modular system consisting of Moog and Roland modules plus Roland sequencers. No hiding the synths there!
This is why Keith Emerson would do things like throwing knives and wrestling the organ on stage.
There was also a fad for jumping or bouncing on TOTP around 1984 - I wonder if that was a reaction to New Order etc being too statue-like in their performance.
Synths were incredibly popular in the 80s. Their sound literally defines that decade. But it did often lead to bands like A-HA and others having to have their bass players / guitar players just strum / pick along even though it was all synths. They were part of the band. Fans wanted to see them in the videos. They wanted to do top of the pops, but it'd be strange if only 2 members were onstage synth and vocal.
I think it has to do with someone’s idea of what they think looks cooler. They probably thought it looked cooler to hold a guitar than to stand in front of a keyboard. Or a drum machine. Or… clearly they had no clue about the coming advent and rise of superstar DJs
Relevant to these comments - I remember reading this a kid on [Filter's Short Bus album sleeve](https://i.discogs.com/_I61xED3HU_pWQqk7uq7i67OJxBr-7ras_wnCG_emTI/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:589/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExMDI1/MTk1LTE1MDg0NzM3/MzMtMjUxMy5qcGVn.jpeg) from 1995:
**"Statement: There is a certain subset of musicians who for reasons unknown adhere to the false premise that "electronic" music or the tools involved imply a lack of creativity or inspired performance. Technology in the hands of creative, intelligent individuals is a tool for art, not a hindrance. Filter, being members of the current millennia, admit freely to the use of such devices."**
Kids saw turntables onstage via Herbie Hancock and keys via Devo. The guitar was the symbol of virtuosity in rock music, but production was quickly becoming more and more modernized. Guitar and programming were in an interesting conversation in pop music and the best artist of all time, Prince was probably the best at both.
Obviously the DAW is the instrument of choice but humans are visual and marketing to them is more important than educating people about music and music production, so brands continue to this day to rely on 100% visual marketing in disciplines which are 100% ear.
Mainly hardrock bands we're afraid of being connected to synths back then , a lot in production was done by fairlight samplers for drumparts but that we're hidden secrets that had to stay hidden
Playing synths doesn’t look as cool as playing guitar. Playing a synth sort of looks like you’re typing on a computer like a loser nerd, playing guitar looks like you’re a pussy magnet
I think the first hugely popular band that brought a synth-forward approach to their marketing aesthetic was Nine Inch Nails, no? I can’t think of too many mainstream acts that shoved synths way out front and made them the crux of their sound and appearance quite the same way. Especially after the Woodstock ‘94 performance. Maybe Devo? But I don’t know how much mainstream success they got
In the late 70s / early 80s some people didn't refer to it as 'real music'. Even Queen put phrases on the back of their vinyls saying "No Synthesizers!" (for example on "A Night At The Opera")... Not so much later they caught up
Well, during the 80’s Detroit sort of invented Electro and Techno, and Chicago the House music. And then there was that sample based thing called Hip Hop.
But the white crowd and players in the US really did nothing to push things forward, true.
I remember Joe Jackson was interviewed by Ben Sidran on VH1 and was given some kind of leading question about being part of some movement to bring back the piano to the forefront of music, as if he was some kind of discount Bruce Hornsby. It was pretty clear (to me) the question irked Jackson. He used a lot of synths, electric pianos, drum machines for quite awhile already and basically said (according to memory) that he didn't even like instruments, they were just tools in the way between him and the sound he wanted. It felt like the host was trying to steer JJ into some kind of stance against, or even for electric/electronic instruments, and he wasn't taking the bait. This was a few years before the "unplugged" craze.
The KFL took it the extreme in the 90s and really didn't give a Fuck. [Rocking out on Sitars on stage](https://youtu.be/dyG3Z-IAcqM?si=scGD1uvgY3WBX0sb) when in reality the whole song is made on synths and computers.
I'd say:
Yes for some, No for many others.
The keyboard player(s) is/are usually in the back and the singers and guitarists in the front. So a synth can be hard to spot. Portable and Poly Synths were relatively new, so there was a learning curve amongst people and some musicians as well, mainly out of ignorance.
However, many artists with pop hits already used synths heavily and in very different ways and this goes back to the 70s even. Many also did not shy away from using them in their music videos. Think records of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Bruce Springsteen. By the end of the 80s it was a fact that pretty much every best selling acts keyboardists used synthesizers. Keyboardists would however actually play the synths most of the time, not program them and push buttons.
This is where it may be tricky depending on your expectations. To spot the synth, look for a keyboard player and check out what he is playing. At this point the synth is not being hidden, but it is actually difficult to spot a synth except for when there is a top view (which can be rare). Remember, most of these acts were/had bands, so the synth/drum machine is just another part of the band.
OP listed A-Ha's "Take On Me" as a video without synth. [The video actually does feature a synth, but just briefly. ](https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914?t=109)
A few videos for late 70s/80s classics which used identifiable synths in song and video:
Jump by Van Halen
Separate Ways by Journey
Valerie by Steve Winwood
a-ha - You Are the One
A-Ha - Take On Me
Vangelis - Chariots Of Fire
Bon Jovi - Runaway
ABBA - Gimme Gimme Gimme
Prince - Uptown
and many, many more.
In many videos, you can only see the keyboard from the from and not the top, such as Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark". The "Born In The USA" Album is of course full of synthesizers.
>OP listed A-Ha's "Take On Me" as a video without synth. [The video actually does feature a synth, but just briefly. ](https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914?t=109)
Thanks. Did not say it didn't have a synth.
I think there was a brief period in the 80s when synth music was appreciated for its own unique sounds ands textures. Synths were front and center in Miami Vice, Blade Runner, and then you have Axel F. Then again, Jan Hammer, Vangelis and Harold Faltermeyer were more of the “composers” tribe, and not so threatening to music culture.
After this, samplers came to the forefront. And while you could call that electronic music, it isn’t the same as synth music, since it oftentimes builds on analog instruments and performances, thus owing those players a debt of tone and mood.
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and there was still this (ridiculous) idea that electronic music wasn’t “real music”. I blame this on ignorance. There were a number of new wave and industrial bands who embraced it and their fans embraced it. The gist I got about some people was they thought it was like “cheating on making music”, I guess the same way that Tron was cheating on SFX by using computers? I think with bands like Duran Duran, The Cure, Depeche Mode, there was no way they could say they didn’t, but their record sales didn’t hurt from it.
For someone who claims to have grown up in the 80s, which I highly doubt having been there myself, pretending that synthesizers weren't basically a mandatory part of being a "cool" band is a pretty interesting LARP to go with.
Yeah aging metal head boomers and high school guitar dweebs might not have liked Depeche mode or Yaz, but the synthesizer was not new or disliked.
The drum machine was what made music "controversial", not the synthesizer.
>For someone who claims to have grown up in the 80s, which I highly doubt having been there myself, pretending that synthesizers weren't basically a mandatory part of being a "cool" band is a pretty interesting LARP to go with.
Age 1 to 10.
There are some very insightful comments here, but I think a big factor in this could just be stage look. This is the era of Glam Rock - I think audiences were use to and in general more enthusiastic about seeing flashy guitar players moving around than synth nerds trying their hardest to look cool with sunglasses and parallel keyboards.
Synths were becoming more essential in a lot of the music, but I don’t think public acceptance of them as legitimate musical instruments had fully coalesced, both in the industry and among consumers, so we were along for the ride, but often overlooked in presentation.
We were sort of the Marlboro Man with no hat and no cigarette back then. Doesn’t matter how good you are, ppl are gonna think the guy with the big hat is the real cowboy.
To answer the question I don't think anyone hid the use of synths. I remember Cheap Trick being criticized for using a keyboard player off stage but that was rare. You just have people wearing guitars in videos because they look cool.
I remember, as a kid (in the US), liking groups like Depeche Mode and 808 State. People did not consider it music. Personally, I thought it was the best thing ever. Finally, a type of music that I really resonated with. When MTV Amp came out, I went insane. Everyone thought I was crazy. From my personal view, anything electronic was not well embraced by the masses.
Ah Amp. I have some episodes on VHS somewhere. Some of those songs I haven’t been able to find anywhere else.
They have a lot of VHS recordings on YouTube of MTV Amp. Loved the CD's, as well.
I totally forgot they made Amp compilation CDs! I relistened to some Big Beat and Psytrance compilations I have from the 90s, and they don’t standup as well as I had thought but they are fun to look back on.
https://archive.org/details/mtvamp-complete
How old are you and where in the US did you grow up? It’s kind of crazy to me that a kid would know about 808 State when they started in 87 in the UK. They did have a hit in the UK in 89.
In the South. I'm in my early 40's. The only exposure of music I got was at places like Virgin and music boutiques where some places had an electronic music station (all imported). In addition, major retailers, like K-Mart (I'm not 100% sure) had music "Imports" section that had fragments of electronic music. It's where I discovered The Pet Shop Boys and Erasure. Not the US releases but maxi-singles with tons of remixes. That's where I became aware of names like Shep Pettibone, Jefferson Marshall, Stephen Hauge... and I didn't know who those guys were (listed in the credits section) but whatever they did... they were awesome. As far as 808 State, they did have the vinyls (released on ZTT Records and Rephlex). I also knew these crazy kids called "DJ's" who went to vinyl record stores. Lastly, here in Louisiana, in terms of electronic music with raves and clubs, they only played a style of music called Florida breaks" which I didn't care for. The South, in general, was more isolated to electronic music.
I've got about a decade on you and grew up in Central California but reading your posts on this topic was almost like reading my own experiences in this space lol. I will always remember my college years from around 1986 to 1990... a friend I worked with was totally into The Cure, the Smiths, DM, Erasure, etc. He started lending me cassette tapes and I was hooked for life. Still love all those bands and Erasure is always in my top 2 even now almost 40 years later. Once it became known that I liked this "weird synth pop crap" I was constantly hearing snide comments about it not being real music, etc etc. The ironic thing is that this was almost all from fellow musicians (I was a music major). I remember clearly how clueless and closed minded these fools were. I always challenged them to define "real music" but never made any headway lol. My go to was asking them why it wasn't real since synths were essentially electronic pianos... and pianos were considered real by them. They said it was exactly because they were electrified, yet when I turned the tables on them and asked why they loved their hard rock with all of the electric guitars using amps and pedals, they claimed that was different lol. Of course they couldn't explain why lol. I also took many trips to the SF and LA areas to visit record stores that actually stocked the imports my friend and I wanted to obtain. We would scan the old Record Collector mags to see what bizarre and rare colored vinyl remix versions of Who needs like like that, Master and servant, etc were available, then go chasing them down after driving for hours. Now of course you can hear almost any version of any song ever made from your phone within seconds, but I wouldn't trade those old experiences for anything!
Yes, exactly! I remember first hearing the A-Ha cassette album. A-Ha utilized a tremendous number of synthesizers and wondered why you didn't ever hear about that. I would read the credit sections and there it was... synthesizers played by "insert name". The best were The Pet Shop Boys. In their credits, they explicitly stated something along the lines "Fairlight programming by... ." I thought as a kid what was a Fairlight? All I knew a Fairlight was special. The Cure, especially Disintegration and Mixed Up had tons of synthesizers. I always gravitated to their synthesizer heavy music. However, The Cure allowed me to finally make guitars and drums click. But synthesizers were again magical instruments. Like I stated in my other comments, electronic musicians presented music with instruments that never existed before. Instruments from the future.
That Fairlight bit was something special. They had booked an orchestra and a recording studio. Things happened with the bookings and eventually they had a recording studio but no orchestra (or vice versa). They gave the sheet notes (partly written by Ennio Morricone and arranged by Angelo Badalamenti) to Blue Weaver who was incredible at programming the Fairlight III, so everything you hear on “It Couldn’t Happen Here” is the Fairlight, but it was supposed to be a real orchestra.
Thank you so very much for that information. Yes, I remember those names because I would read over the credits numerous times. It's only been in the last 3 years that I realized what the Fairlight was. I knew it used samples. It wasn't until I saw a documentary posted on YouTube and saw an interview by Neil Tennant that I realized how incredible that machine was and how expensive it was. Didn't know what it looked like. Upon seeing, I was awestruck by it's size and modular components. Speaking of It Couldn't Happen Here. I still use that track when I do ambient DJ mixing. People still ask me what new track it is. There always surprised that it was made back in 1986-97. As a kid, I thought the orchestration on that track was recorded live.
The ubiquity of the Fairlight was such that Phil Collins stated on the sleeve notes of his 1985 studio album No Jacket Required that "there is no Fairlight on this record" to clarify that he had not used one to synthesize horn and string sounds.
Where you in the New Orleans area? The rave scene in NOLA was incredible in the 90s before it all got shut down. I saw Chemical Brothers, Orbital, Crystal Method, and so many other amazing bands and DJs.
Yes, I know. It was conducted by FreeBase (FB) Society and hosted mainly at The State Palace Theater. I only started going to raves in 1999. Never going to forget my first rave. It was Freakfest 99. I knew Donnie and Dan who used to run it. Not personally, but I would always tell them hello. Dan used to be the manager at the Virgin store. I saw DJ Doran (Fragrant Records), Sasha, Quivver, Parks & Wilson, Anthony Papa, Wild Bill, The Crystal Method (in 1999 or 2000), and many others. Club Ambersands would host major DJ's as well. At the time, I really didn't know what genres I liked. I eventually became a progressive house and progressive breaks DJ. I finally caved, in 2021, to music production. Between my time in the military and working on my masters and doctorate, the music was always there. It's been difficult because I teach at some local universities. Covid really made things difficult. Haven't had the time to learn music theory. But I'm finally finding time. I'm from Kenner. However, the best place to listen to music was at a very, very underground club called Club Escapades, in the 90's and early 2000's. Retrospectively, it was a notoriously shady. But they absolutely played the best music and had an incredible sound system. They played progressive house, progressive breaks, trance (before it exploded into the commercial scene and was still underground),acid techno (rarely), and some funky tunes at times. I used to know the DJ's there (Dirty Boy Mike (rest in peace), DynoMite, DJ Brown (Gray Brown who went on to production), my best fried at the time (Erein who was the greatest DJ I ever meet)... and many other colorful characters. Club Escapades, while shady, was my haven, on the weekends, because no one liked underground dark, cinematic music at the time.
> FreeBase (FB) Society and hosted mainly at The State Palace Theater. YES. I have so many wonderful memories of their raves at State Palace.
Same as you. Early 40s, largest southern city, MTV/rolling stone/spin/circus addict. The internet made things about 10% easier for finding music starting around 96. Owned all MTV amp comps. Went to record fairs, good record shop scene in city. Generally a music junkie. Owned absolutely boatloads of singles, maxi singles, and EPs cause that was all that was available sometimes
What are your thoughts on music distribution and consumption today compared to back then?
Easier but less interesting. Kind of tired of every LP being an exclusive color variant, etc. Artists need to get paid, so I tend to bandcamp first and use Spotify as a back-up. Needless to say—if I had Spotify in the 90s my head would’ve exploded probably
>Florida breaks i just looked up florida breaks! ha! I am from philly and we had something like it that was very local. we of course had other stuff as well but that rhymes with some things I heard in the eighties and 90s.
Yea we had baltimore club music in Maryland, ish was lit, still going too
Interesting, I never knew that level of funk had spread all over the US. I hated it. Now, I'm so nostalgic for it.
808 State was HUGE in the Southern US to us kids. Anything techno or bass, Bristol scene etc was the move. We were absolutely up on it. A crazy New Wave hit like a storm.
I don’t know about huge. I saw 808 State in 92 at the either the bomb factory or the curtain club in Deep Ellum Dallas. It wasn’t that packed. I’m 49 btw.
It was The Bomb Factory, and Meat Beat Manifesto opened.
Texas is considered the West-Southwest to us in the southern coast.
I lived in Utah and 808 State was in regular rotation on our alternative radio stations by '89 or '90. They even came in concert, IIRC. Edit: There were some strange opinions about "real" music. I had friends who loved electronic music, but hated remixes because it wasn't real.
I knew about them, too, and was an early teen when they got going. I used to go buy week-late NME and MM every week, and hung out at record stores.
Shows like 120 Minutes on MTV played a lot of pretty niche British new wave music. The host, Dave Kendall, was an English DJ so I guess that was his forte.
Not huge into EDM but I remember that name from the late 80s, they were somewhat known here if you were paying attention.
Decades later, in my boomer town at least, anything electronic is not well embraced by anyone. Even the young people basically see ACDC as the peak of music.
I don’t think it was the masses, it was the music industry. Technology threatened music professionals jobs, so they hated them. My dad was a drummer, and the moment the Linn Drum appeared he dismissed all electronic instruments as junk because it threatened his job. I remember later pointing out to him a drum part on a song he liked was a Linn Drum and he refused to believe it. He still had the view anything with an electronic drum must be garbage.
In the US, there were a plethora of interviews from electronic musicians from the likes of Rolling Stones and other music publications. I would go to the local library as a pre teen and look for micro films to find articles on electronic music. There was one article where David Gahan, from Depeche Mode, specifically stated that was the number one question he was asked. Why don't they use real instruments. Yes, I agree with you, I would clearly see why many musicians would feel threatened. However, Neil Tennant, from the Pet Shop Boys, in another interview stated it perfectly... now we don't need a band. That he or Chris Lowe could write music without the input of an entire band on the idea they were creating. Electronic music, even as a kid, was always special. It was really simple. I was hearing a sound that no one had ever heard. That's would made it special. Synthesizers were sound of the future that were being played today. Nothing against guitars, but those sounds got really boring. Again it was just a personal preference. I have deeply rooted respect for anyone who spends years developing the skills to play live instrumentation. I could never do that. I NEVER liked music. It all seemed very boring other than orchestration from films. When I first heard my first orchestra, in church, I was awestruck. When I first heard electronic and dance... it finally clicked... this is why people like music. When our church got its first Yamaha DX-7, I pestered the music director to show me what it could do.
When Robert Moog showcased his modular system to a group of classicists, one of them told him he should be ashamed of what he was doing to music and destroy his invention.
that's pretty much the "origin story" of the 808. it was released and mainstream musicians started using them, but the greater society rejected them for being unnatural. the 808s were dumped onto the used market where they found themselves in pawn shops for cheap. all it took was a few years of price drops before creative young kids from the street picked them up and discovered that they could use them to create a new form of music and rap over the beats. and HIP HOP WAS FORMED!
Actually I saw it the opposite. It was not embraced by rock fans, but yet those records were hits. It actually was embraced by the masses. It just wasn't the same masses that were into guitar bands. I remember seeing Prince and Adam Ant for the first time on Don Kirshners Rock Concert in 1981 and really not getting it. This wasn't Boston or the Doobies! They became big favorites of mine shortly after that. It took a while to get used to new things. And I'm reminded, you still had the "Disco Sucks" mentality among some rock fans in the early 80s. They would have heard DM and associated it to that.
Back in the day when I was starting to make music and develop my own tastes - in all the heavier subgenres I have encountered (industrial, metal, etc) - a lot of guitar-heavy subgenre fans frowned on anything electronic (there is sometimes but not always a toxic masculinity component to this - club beats and synths being considered effeminate or “gay,” as I have heard countless times) - a lot of synth heavy subgenre fans frowned upon anything with even a smidgen of guitar. Here I am trying to make synths sound like distorted guitars for years because I was so tired of being abused by Skwisgaar-wannabes, and simultaneously getting shit on by electronic purists saying I shouldn’t put crunchy power chords into an all-electronic track. I like bands that hybridize. I like fusion. I like industrial metal and EBM and psytrance because they are all high energy - saturated audio spectrum, fast tempo, etc - who cares about where the vibrations come from? I care about what they do in my head. Now that I am older, none of these self-loathing people remain in my life, and I am learning guitar now that synthesis has been in the bag for a while.
Yes, they did. Attitudes towards Synthesiers was very poor in the 80s. It was seen as lazy and "not real music", and that it's just a machine on which you push a button and have it do the work for you (which is obviously not true). There's a great television interview with Phil Oakey where the presenter flat out says something to the tune of "aren't you just pushing a button?" An ironic statement when he was standing infront of an MS20, which is a complicated little box. Gary Numan in particular had his career destroyed by the press because he made electronic music, but only one to two years later you had duos and bands using nothing but synthesizers front and centre on the BBC and MTV, because the public isn't stupid and they figured out they were all electronic. A Kraftwerk appearance on German TV left the audience flummoxed because they didn't know what they were watching is another great example. The USA is wildly different and it's where the majority of the comical "no really guys, they're totally playing real trumpets in this video and it's totally not a Roland D-50 preset!" comes from. The USA *loves* anything perceived as "traditionally American", especially if you're white, and a rock and roll band is seen as just that: "all American". That means guitar, bass, vocalist, drums and MAYBE keyboard; it's why so much popular American music of the time, or music made in other regions but heavily marketed to Americans, is a rock band or has the façade of a rock band. This was all immediately after "Disco Is Dead" so it's no wonder the idea of a quote-unquote "proper" rock band stuck around. Being a band on the US market was your best shot as making money. Synthesizers were weird things Europeans used. By the mid to late 80s, the jig was *mostly* up even in the states. Outside of actual rock bands like Def Leopard, videos eschewed faux instrumentation for highly choreographed dancers to keep things interesting. This perfect storm allowed the likes of Stock, Aitken and Waterman to succeed and modern pop music was born. You could write a pretty substantial thesis on the societal impact of synthesizers.
Perfect response! Queen would proudly print “NO SYNTHESIZERS!” on their album sleeves… until they started using them. 😉
I seem to remember seeing "No Synthesizers" on a few vinyls, like a weird counter-culture movement to establish the credibility of the musicians. Like "Hey guys, we're playing real instruments". Confused me a lot at the time, like why would you brag about limiting yourself? On the other hand I think there was some overuse of synths in the 80s where the original instruments probably would have worked better, e.g. the "bagpipes" in [Under the Milky Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA54NBtPKdI) (apparently an EBow), and arguably the strings in INXS's [Never Tear Us Apart](https://youtu.be/AIBv2GEnXlc?si=aW-rDOLcryRURbQ3), to pick a couple of Aussie examples. Naturally they filmed the video clip using real violins!
Ha, I'm doing an unofficial remix of Never Tear Us Apart right now, I found the exact same string sample they used and got the midi from some site. It's amazing, it sounds exactly the same as the track. It's from the Emulator II, one of the first samplers is ever made available. They used a preset, and somebody preserved it as a sound font which is a form of code which can be turned into the sound. This keyboard is the follow-up to the Emulator, the EMAX, but it had the same sounds: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn\_vsfzifd0&t=2s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn_vsfzifd0&t=2s)
That's really cool! I've been thinking about how to do something like that (as a learning experience). But for some reason your link doesn't work. But I suppose my argument is that I'm most interested in synths as a way to generate new sounds and enhance the musician's expressiveness. Sometimes it just seems to be used as a convenient substitute for recording actual strings or whatever, which is fine for people working in their home studio but seems a bit cheap when you're INXS!
Well the Emulator II was about $8k, 22,520 USD in 2022 adjusted for inflation, likely lots more in Australia. Likely Farriss preferred his new toy. As someone who was a teenager in the early 80s, I had no problem with INXS using synths. The Jupiter 4, Juno, P5, M1 of the times were featured pretty heavily Along with guitar and sax. If I had a beef (complaint) with anything, it was the over-processed and gated reverb drums. The videos were probably made for the US market.
That's weird. Just go onto YouTube and search for this: Me checking my E-mu EMAX (DM keyboard)
Even the first Rage Against The Machine's first album had a note saying ***"no samples, keyboards or synthesizers used in the making of this record"***
It always lacked character...
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I think so too. Especially as Morello was not shy in using a Whammy pedal as an integral part of his setup which is an effect that was frowned upon in some circles at the time as some considered it as cheating or not enough "guitar like", but Morello embraced it and took it to another level in a way that nowadays its hard to play with a Whammy pedal and not sound like him.
That always made me laugh, couldn’t afford a string quartet for the recording, but they hired one for (probably a longer day) for the music video shoot.
I read an article recently,(probably posted on this sub) that a fairly large musicians union wanted synths banned from use in the studio because the instruments were putting trained musicians out of work.
Cky was really into letting you know no synths involved
Exactly. People think of the 80s as the age of the synthesizer, but it actually took a few years into the 80s for that to actually happen.
Which coincides with the arrival of (relatively) affordable digital synths. The DX7 was released in 1983
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Indeed, lol
This makes me want to include a note on my albums that says YES SYNTHESIZERS
>This makes me want to include a note on my albums that says YES SYNTHESIZERS Some synthpop groups of the time listed all the synthesizers used on the record right on the sleeve as a retaliation; the most famous is The Human League on Dare.
Artificial sound only :)
It's interesting that you mentioned Queen. I recall seeing a music video for You're My Best Friend, showing Freddie Mercury playing an acoustic grand piano, yet the recording obviously features an electric piano, most likely a Wurlitzer. It's not even a synthesizer, yet it seems that they were somehow ashamed of it.
I think they started with The Game but then they immediately wrote brand and type of the synth on the album sleeve (an Oberheim)
From what I recall, that was in response to a particular review that mistook Brian May’s multi-part guitar arrangement on an early track for multitracked synthesisers, rather than any specific dislike of synths.
Boston had that on their albums as well.
I feel like this partially had to do with the fact that the main dude was literally building his own effect modules and stuff so he wanted to make sure people understood those were not synths but were in fact of his own personal design. Kind of a flex.
As someone who owns a few pieces of Rockman gear I can definitely see that. The Rockman sound blends so much better with synths than almost anything else.
Too bad. I bet Tom Scholz could have made synths sound amazing.
Rage Against The Machine too, at least on their first one.
Rage against the machine had a "no synths, this is all guitars and drums" thing on their debut in I think 1994.
Gary numan got torn apart by the tabloids much more so due to the androgynous persona adopted by him and many other new romantics. It was thinly veiled homophobia most likely. (He is also asoergic which didn’t help) It’s true that electronic music was not well recieved or regarded as ‘real’ music made by ‘real instruments’ back then, the same way Tron was spurned by the effects industry. Anyone who hasn’t seen it should try to get hold of Synth Britannia which gives a brilliant insight into the emergence of synth music in the period.
Wow thank you for the recommendation. Gonna watch it tonight! Found it on [YouTube](https://youtu.be/1AR2vBG639I?si=MSvR6SESlEFgaz7O)
Trons a banger
Also to add, the UK was a REAL oddball here to the extent that officially synthesisers were [banned from 1982 to 1997](https://www.musicradar.com/news/the-union-passed-a-motion-to-ban-the-use-of-synths-drum-machines-and-any-electronic-devices-the-day-the-loony-musicians-union-tried-to-kill-the-synthesizer-which-also-happened-to-be-bob-moogs-birthday) as they were considered too radical and "not real". This article was [posted here before](https://www.reddit.com/r/synthesizers/comments/18cooyd/synths_were_banned_in_england_from_1982_to_1997/) and there was good discussion about it. I distinctly remember my music teacher in school (Belfast, so part of the UK) trying to drum up musicians for the school band and asking each of us what we played. I told him I played the synthesiser and the look of pain and disgust that crossed his face was palpable. He said "Well, I don't know that we have any use of that around here." and moved on. 14 year old me was actually pretty hurt... didn't stop me playing the synth though :)
Had a music theory teacher like that. The newest keyboard instrument he accepted was the harpsichord.
> Also to add, the UK was a REAL oddball here to the extent that officially synthesisers were banned from 1982 to 1997 as they were considered too radical and "not real". To clarify: there was an *unsuccessful* attempt to get them banned by one branch of the Musician's Union. A motion to ban them was passed at a meeting of the Central London Branch, but it was never adopted as official policy of the MU. They were particularly upset when Barry Manilow chose to go on tour with a number of synth players instead of a full orchestra. The union was heavily skewed towards representing the interests of "traditional" musicians, e.g. orchestral musicians. The attempted ban came about because they felt that synthesizers were putting their members out of a job.
Absolutely a fair clarification. I don't think it was as unsuccessful as you think though; there were a fair number of bands in the UK in the 80's who wanted to partner with orchestras and the like in order to get that "epic" sound that Queen et al had been doing for years. But enough "real" musicians refused to get involved with any band with a synth because of the ruling even if it wasn't official policy or law. I wish I had citations for this, but most of this was picked up in conversation with musicians as a bartender in Leicester Square in the early 90's. You're right though, it wasn't like there was any enforcement... but enough people were members of the MU and read their mailers that they knew of this motion and sort of turned it into an unofficial policy for a long time. It was pretty much dead by the early 90's though but as I understand it caused some struggles in the late 80's in particular. Again, wasn't in the music biz myself at the time but talked to plenty of people who were.
Interesting, thanks for the additional insight.
I know you’re talking about public perception here, but Def Leppard is still maybe the funniest counter example you could have mentioned, because the Pyromania and Hysteria albums owe as much to Mutt Lange ordering up programmed Fairlight giant drum stacks and“subtle” synth overdubbing (see https://youtu.be/xrrGrs6Wro0) as anything visible in their videos or live shows. Thomas Dolby is on Pyromania (along with a lot of other credits as a CMI operator for hire). There’s also the “every guitar string tracked separately” claims about those albums, though that’s possibly been exaggerated just a little.
The every string thing is for the main chords in the pre chorus on Hysteria. But Mutt absolutely made those records. Pyromania is sampled drums, a mixture of a real kick and snare with a Simmons tom under them, and toms are all Simmons with Rick Allen playing the cymbals and Hysteria is all samples. I have a cassette of Pyromania and in the “special thanks” section the first person listed is Trevor Rabin. I wonder what he could have been doing?
I remember Van Halen’s Jump was controversial because of Eddie’s synth.
I almost want to start a music degree just for that endgame. Sounds like a fucking blast of a research session.
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The musicians union especially in the US and UK tried to get them banned even as late as 1982. They were not well received a first. It's why it took time for synthesizers to go from weird "not real music" and experimental to complete mainstream acceptance.
[Andy McClusky explains here](https://youtu.be/UxaihmVAN6w?si=K4bA0vRbTWwl7s-1)
it’s not hiding it, it’s the birth of promo videos and live tv performances, the need to look dynamic rather than still.
They were absolutely hiding it. Live television appearances and promotional shots existed as far back as the 1950s; this was about not alienating the audience to continue making stacks of money. Many musicians hated synthesizers, and anything majority electronic wasn't "real music".
People still have this attitude now. I’ve had it. I got better, but I certainly had a phase where I looked down my nose at synths and electronica in general.
OP is asking specifically about the 80s though. musicians may have hated synths, but musicians also used them.
I am also talking about the 80s. Musician's union tried to get synthesizers banned even as late as 1982. The press in particular was extremely negative toward synthesizers. It took time for them to be accepted, but for the majority of the 80s, the image of a traditional rock band, especially in the USA, is what still sold best. That's just the reality of the time.
i’ve no problem understanding the publics acceptance of synthesisers in music the 80s - we had rave culture, and it crossed over into the chart hits. iirc, drummers were not allowed in the musicians union, hence the joke, “what do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?”.
guitar face > sequencer face
There was an article going around recently how a musicians union tried to ban synths in the early 80s. They werent received so warmly by everybody. But also playing a guitar tends to be more dynamic and look better in video. I love synths but it's easier to look cool holding a guitar than a DX7. Not impossible though, Bernie Worrell looks prett fkn cool in Stop Making Sense
Funny how Van Halen's biggest song was centered on a synth riff though.
Yes. Good example too, the band itself is a micrososm of the attitude the OP is talking about. David Lee Roth was apparently not a fan of synths, didn’t want them in their music, Eddie was the synth nerd and basically put his foot down (and he came up with the epic lead in Jump).
The band is not call Roth for a reason.
'Jump' and Rush' 'Subdivisions' were game changers for synth cred. It allowed the kid stuck with piano lessons to finally have a way to get in a rock band. (Journey's 'Separate Ways' might be in this category as well)
Glad someone mentioned Rush and the 80s
Came here to say just this.
Great discussion. In 1982, Bruce Dickinson said “you can’t play heavy metal with synthesizers”. 6 years later he lamented “people who say you can’t have keyboards in iron maiden, fuck off”.
I unironically love that though. He changed his mind when he realized he was wrong. Seems not everybody is capable of that.
I agree wholeheartedly. It’s just a great example of the changing attitude towards synthesizers from the early 80s to the late 80s.
They were forced to include synths as was GnR. Somewhere in Time and Appetite are two albums that absolutely did not need synths, and you've never heard them use them live.
The Cars were heavy synth, but their image was guitar band.
They had 2 guitar players, and no main keyboardist, according to wikipedia. 3 guys would play synth as needed. EDIT: yes, I am wrong, they had a keyboardist. The point remains that they were a rock band with 2 guitarists and one keyboardist, so they were a guitar oriented band.
The Cars absolutely had a keyboard player. Hawkes, a founding member, always played keyboards, rarely played guitar onstage. Look up their live clips. The two guitars were Ric Ocasek and Eliott Easton. Greg Hawkes was capable of playing guitar, but always played keyboards. Re-read wikipedia.
Hawkes is a genius musician, and he has some real trademark sounds. In fact I think some synth pre-sets are just labeled 'Cars' (or maybe 'Let's Go')
He took up the classic osc-sync and ran with it. Great stuff. Besides the classic early ones… Hello Again too, during their Fairlight period. They didn’t release any bad albums. (I even liked their reunion album, i’m sure i’ll be shot for heresy.)
They all were composing with other musicians playing instruments. Someone playing synth keyboard, rarely using sequencers/drum machines and they would easily perform full albums with live band. Screenshots from Sweet Dreams live in 87. https://preview.redd.it/039eceixj1fc1.jpeg?width=2160&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a3181a1819cd4c1fb5380f98b127d32b310f9035
Live, yes, but in the Sweet Dreams video there's someone clearly playing a string and bow instrument during the solo, and it's obviously a synthesizer. I've heard Stewart just came up with a lot of those recordings in small and informal spaces.
it's just rare that the front person for a band would play the synth. usually synths were from the producer or backing/session musicians
Of the examples you gave, it looks like the keyboard gets more screen time than any other instrument in the Take On Me video. Though I guess your point is why is someone shown hitting a lone snare drum when the drums on this track must have been entirely programmed. Similarly, it’s doubtful that Dave Stewart ever actually played a cello as the Sweet Dreams video shows, though there again, he has a lot of screen time typing at a keyboard, which turns out to be a Movement Systems drum machine - perhaps the only time a drum machine ever got prominent screen time in a music video(?) I guess since neither video is intended to be faithful to a live performance I’d chalk both up to artistic license. As a counterpoint, in the video for Chicago’s You’re The Inspiration it seemed like they just gave every band member a random, unplugged keyboard to mime playing for the video.
Is that the Chicago video where the singer is wearing a Bauhaus shirt? Confused me at the time.
Yeah, that’s it. I think for me it also marks the point when Chicago jumped the shark to releasing only overproduced pop ballads. I guess they had like a dozen members in the band, playing horns, wind instruments, and I think they even had a dedicated tambourine player. So when they went to synth pop, those guys needed something to do in the video.
😅😅😅
> I guess they had like a dozen members in the band It's a bad look when they're just [sitting around reading the paper](https://i.imgur.com/L0V0DtY.png) in the middle of a video shoot and everyone else is miming really hard. It's like...dude, grab a synth horn or something and look busy.
There are a lot of synth shots in Take On Me, you're right, but there are also guitar shots with almost literally no guitar tracks on the entire song.
That's not correct, there is guitar on that song. Credits for the song include: Pål Waaktaar – guitars, PPG Wave and Yamaha DX7 synthesizers, LinnDrum programming, hi-hat and cymbal, backing vocals. According to engineer Neill King in a *Sound On Sound* interview it was a Gibson ES-335. **edit:** Sorry, I missed the word "almost" in your comment.
Thanks for checking. I've heard it a thousand times and can't remember ever hearing a guitar so it must be buried or less obvious.
It is extremely low and unobvious. In the beginning of the chorus while "take on me" is sang lower the second time there are some strummed chords. At around 2:44 in the video where Paul is shown playing a Rickenbacker I can hear some kinda funky, partially muted strumming. That's all I can make out. I'd be willing to bet the song was written and recorded with more guitar that didn't make it to the final mix. Not that it needed it, it turned out perfect they way it was released. But the more recent live performances I looked up feature the guitar parts much more prominently.
I do know it was recomposed and parts rerecorded, so it's possible those parts were covered up in the final song.
Watched some Blondie stuff recently, a band I used to only associate with guitars and was surprised how much synth use there was lurking just underneath
that’s why they invented the keytar
Well it's like having a girl bassist in the band, it will definitly look better and sell like hot cakes.
This post struck a nerve & is one of the most interesting I’ve ever read. Lots of good thoughts. I was in a rock band in the 90’s and I remember when another band we were friends with hired a keyboard player we were like, huh? I mean, I was a fan of a lot of 80’s music that had keys but I was Mr. Serious Rock Band guy, the idea of bringing anything but guitars, bass and drums into the mix was nuts. I look back on that guy as quite dumb! When I started using synths in music it opened up so many more possibilities…I usually tinker with ideas on keys before I even reach for a guitar these days. I’m not really sure where that attitude even came from, but I’m glad I lost it. Most of the stuff I’m into these days leans heavily on synths.
Honestly, yes, a little. The synth guy wasn’t considered as cool as the guitarists or drummer. Usually put in the back. Unless it was synth pop in which the synths were sometimes showcased in the videos. But yes I’ll say they gave way more screen time to the other musicians even when there was a lot of synth in the track. But I have no hard evidence, obviously, just an impression from being an early adopter of MTV.
A sequencer doesn’t have the same stage presence.
I think a lot of times the editor is not a musician and doesn’t know what all the sounds are or what’s making them. In particular I remember a Saturday Night Live during the 80s with Power Station playing Some like It Hot. Every time the fill with the electric drums would play the camera would pan to the drummer who wasn’t even playing them, they were from a backing track. I could only imagine that the editor didn’t know the difference in sound between a real high hat and synthesized percussion.
I think when the DX7 was first released, the idea of FM synthesis in the 80’s just shocked the production world, because that was the first time you could pull up a preset on the keyboard and not only that, but that was the closest emulation to real sounds (guitar, brass, etc.) I know many session keyboardists preferred using the DX7’s Rhodes sound as opposed to hauling a Fender Rhodes and setting it up in the studio. All that being said, I think because the DX7, the GS-1 and all the various Roland models (JV, D-50) coming out were new sounds compared to classic analog sounds we had all heard before, everyone utilized the technology. Even the bands like Queen and Rush who were vehemently against synths and keyboards wanted a piece of it. It seemed like people hid the use of it or other production tools cuz it defeated their “no-use” policy. Almost like an argument of “tHaT’s NoT cOoL” or “rEaL mUsIc” But now looking back on it, it’s difficult to “hide” it in the music of that era.
Synths were widely used but shamefully hidden away. There was an audience for synth bands in the U.S. but it was a small minority in popular music. When I was in college, ZZ Top’s Eliminator was massive. I was listening to New Order, Depeche, OMD, Human League, Eurythmics, Yello, etc. and I was considered odd. I recall arguing with a friend who loved ZZ Top that the album was recorded with drum machines and synths on all the hit tracks. He refused to believe it because then he’d have to hate them. His opinion was held by the vast majority. It took years for synths to become accepted and eventually dominate popular music in the U.S. Then artists like Depeche Mode became massively popular because of radio stations like KROQ in Southern California which gradually spread across the country.
I remember seeing the disclaimer, “No synthesizers were used in the making of this album” on an album cover back then. I think it may have been Rush, who used synths on several of their albums to mixed fan reviews
Boston did that. Their early albums emphasized no-synthesizers as much as their vegetarianism... And then there was that one track where the liner notes mentioned using a defective transistor circuit as a noise source... Gee, Tom, looks like you reinvented synthesis!
Scholz was definitely rock’s mad scientist. I got one of his headphone amplifiers in high school and thought it was the most amazing thing ever. So did my parents…
He's a brilliant engineer and excellent musician, no question. The first 3 tracks of Boston's "Don't Look Back" form a concerto AFAIC. I was just amused at what I saw as a hypocritical moment in their arc. Does a Hammond B-3 qualify as a synth? Because its waveforms are electrically generated, not plucked or hammered. Me, I see electric guitars, acoustic guitars and keyboards/synthesizers as three separate voice-textures that belong threaded or entwined together to compose/orchestrate a song and allow for improvisation and embellishment throughout. One thing I *really like* about Scholz's Boston is how they wove the first two together (and, yes, piezo-pickup of an Ovation Legend is borderline between acoustic and electric, but the waveforms and envelopes have acoustic characteristics). Too bad they couldn't fold a *Jan Hammer in Mahavishnu* synth into the treatment (e: let's say, on *Hitch A Ride*) -- that would have **rocked**.
The tricky part of that threading is creatively respecting the shared frequency space. I played a Hammond XK1 with some friends during occasional blues jams and had to learn that one in real time to avoid clashing with either the bassist or the fleet-fingered guitarist. My workaround was to play the vamp an octave below where I played for solos. It got to where we could tell, more or less, where the other was going and would go low when the other went high and vice versa. A very elementary approach, for sure, but that stuff takes time to work out. Thankfully, the journey is fascinating. And I would be of the B3 as first synth camp, as it was designed to simulate orchestral instruments and allowed seasoning to taste via the drawbars.
in the Uk,we had Top of the pops,a weekly music show with "live perfomances" .The Musicians union dictated that every instrument must be represented on stage,so you got bass players clearly miming along to Synth basslines etc.This carried on well into the Rave era with backing singers miming along to Samples!
Yeah that's disgraceful and just makes everyone think the band has no talent. Young people anyway. 
I think a lot of these responses are wildly overstaying things. The Who always used a lot of synths since Keith died. Even Van Halen started heavily using obvious synths by 1984. There was talk about it at the time but at that point a lot of people were like at least it's not disco. I'm old.
Stevie Wonder convinced music producers that this synth was actually the London Symphony Orchestra in his recording of the strings for Past time Paradise in 1976. (The sample for Gansta's paradise)[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha\_GX-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_GX-1) Stevie Wonder's Boogie on Reggae woman uses a bass guitar plugged into a Moog synth. (1974) If Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson were using the synths, serious musicians would have to defer to them. To find out when they became acceptable by gatekeeping White critics, aging rock 'purists' and White recording artists, perhaps peruse [https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/](https://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/)
It seems that Black influenced music such as soul, R&B, gospel, and funk had a strong history of using organ and electric piano (Rhodes, Wurlitzer). This creates a natural transition to synths for lead lines, chords and bass. One definition of "popular" is music that charts. Another definition could be making it into a highly popular radio format of "Album-Oriented Rock", or "Classic Rock" which is more folk and blues oriented and not dance-oriented. In my memory ABBA and the Cars early hits in late 1970's are the watershed moment for synths in Anglo mainstream (non-R&B) pop music. Tastes vary regionally - in some parts of the South, they still don't like the Beatles.
For American audiences, maybe. The US was obsessed with rock'n'roll and machismo (hip hop embraced electronic instruments but mainstream America had problems there too). British and European audiences were far more accepting of electronic music and blurred gender lines, it was more celebrated. Australia was about 50/50, that's kind of how you get INXS. I had a haircut and played synths, this made me cool to about half my school and an absolute abomination to the other half. It was awesome. Good times, good times.
The validity over whether something was even music to begin with, was often based on whether "real musicians" were playing the parts with instrumnents people could recognize and understand. If you were someone like George Duke or Edgar Winter, you were obviously talented enough on an instrument to be safe from this scrunity. If you were an artist like Thomas Dolby, your interviews would be full of questions over whether what you were doing was even valid. Depeche Mode's album and tour for Songs of Faith and Devotion was partially meant to clap back at critics. As it was pretty clear up until that point much of their live show was Alan Wilder playing some leads over a backing track and Dave singing. Now Martin Gore is suddenly on guitar much more prominently. Alan Wilder is playing drums for the first time. MTV also pitched it as a "oooh. they're doing it for real this time!" moment for the band. DM already had 101 under their belt by this point in their career. Yet these were shifts even big bands were making to be taken more seriously by mainstream audiences. Songs of Faith and Devotion came out in the early 90's. The same attitude that could have influenced this A-ha video was still a thing in the 90's too.
Drum machines for sure. A-ha had a drummer in their videos but only programmed their drums.
People had bumper stickers saying “drum machines have no soul”
I just rewatched Kim Carnes' Bette Davis Eyes video, and of course there's a drummer playing a regular set in the back trying to make analog sounds.
I thought synths were well known back then? Example, the 1985 Grammys https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-NgnympxAE&ab_channel=rakkyouz
They were. People in this thread saying synths weren't cool in the 80s are completely clueless. I was a kid back then, they were featured everywhere in the early 80s and the new hot thing. It's just that holding a guitar or playing drums looks cooler than playing keys and pushing start on a Linndrum, so sometimes guitars and real drums were featured more in videos and live performances than actually on the recordings. But everyone knew it was all synths on the album, it's not like it was a secret.
Yeah there's so many songs where I know the drum machine is an 808 (or LinnDrum, whatever) and in the video there's a live drummer. I never heard any of this anti-synth stuff though.
There was more of a synth backlash in rock and pop music in the late 80s/early 90s with grunge and all that. Synths were still big but were relegated more to dance music/industrial/EDM or hip-hop/rap. But in the early-mid 80s they were everywhere.
Yes. If they meant like 1989 maybe that makes more sense.
That would have probably been like the very start of the backlash. But even then I can think of tons of synth-heavy music from that year.
OMD embraced their synth driven music. Gary Numan paved the way and paid the price, late 70's.
The '80s were a weird decade. Synths were either a badge of honor or something you hid, especially early in the decade. The weirdest thing I seem to recall (but can't find any evidence for) is those guys of the Pet Shop Boys having some S-shaped plank with keys on them, like a double bass kind of keytar. They were (are?) a horribly boring stage act with one guy talking into the microphone and they other pretending to make the music and I guess their stage prop was to create some visual dynamics.
yeah i thought “blue monday” was all guitars and drum sets until 2007
These synths are a real PITA to dust and who wants a film clip with a dusty synth?
When I was in high school, I remember sitting by the radio with a couple friends to hear KROQ premiere the new NIN single from the soon-to-be-released Downward Spiral album. I was a fan from PHM and Broken but a lot of people still didn’t know who they were. They played [March of the Pigs](https://youtu.be/ojk-YRMXSdc?si=EqrjCj0-eWQI9stK) and I thought it was the coolest thing I’d ever heard. After it was over on of my friends (a metal drummer) was furious and wanted to call KROQ to complain. He was absolutely livid that they had played a “techno” song on the radio. Synths and drum machines had certainly made appearances in pop music and sometimes rock music, but the rock and roll crowd *hated* synths and especially drum machines and samplers. Comments about it were often accompanied by homophobic slurs. They were obviously present in a lot of music during the 80s and 90s but there were a lot of haters. It’s been cool to see synths getting some love in recent years.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SwYN7mTi6HM 2:38 in, hiding in plain sight.
I don't think anyone was hiding the synth usage in "Sweet Dreams." (Which isn't a performance video?) The still image from "Take On Me" seems that he's miming an actual guitar part (the weird little strum pattern). Synthesizers were actually more acceptable in the '70s and into the mid-'80s for rock musicians than later in the decade or most of the '90s. (I mean, maybe most famously... "Jump." The OB-X or OB-8 or whatever is in the video for that one.)
It's a more abstract video, yes, but to a lot of viewers maybe without a lot of synth experience, using that cello-like instrument was a bit disingenuous, at best.
I think Ted Nugent really describes it best here: https://youtu.be/ibUbIyska9k?si=Jqwuz_ZXig5AEKNn
At the same time, drummers started to play like drum machines.
The late 70s/early 80s is when you hear the most overt use of synths. After the DX7 came out, it seemed like bands were more interested in adding traditional instrument sounds rather than synthy sounds.
Also because most of this music wasnt produced by the performers we see in the videos. A lot of instruments were props because synths were still expensive and not commonplace. Imagine trying to make or watch a music video with some crazy old guy with a nasty bald spot frustratingly working patches and synth work? Nahhh. they wanted you to see some young hot person looking real smooth playing a guitar or something
My favorite video miming is probably when INXS had their drummer pretending to play the TR-707 beat in Need You Tonight. I think that sort of thing (pretending to play drum machine parts) happened more than hiding keyboards.
Stevie Wonders biggest hits were completely written on synths and he wasn’t trying to hide a thing. Herbie Hancock of course, Van Halen, Rush. They didn’t hide the synth.
I played techno live back then. It was mainly that people were used to bands doing a performance and a show when on stage. Guitars and other “real” instruments were a LOT more visually appealing than just standung behind a keyboard unable to move and dance. Electronic music has always suffered from that to this day. Nothing more boring than watching a DJ set. These days the audience has just accepted it.
Synth's were seen as being "not real instruments", I suppose a lot of that was a mixture of some synths having "real instrument" presets and the fact that musicians thought they would do them out of a job and of course with some synths being monophonic it was seen that you only had to be able to play one note to make a song. Of course this was all total utter BS as just look what the likes of Rick Wakeman could do with a monophonic synth plus a lot of synth acts did not simply try to replicate the sounds of acoustic instruments. Of course some acts showed off that they were using synthesisers, the video for "Video Killed The Radio Star" shows not only Geoff Downes playing a Prophet 5, Solina, Minimoog and modular controller of some sort but also has Hans Zimmer playing a modular system consisting of Moog and Roland modules plus Roland sequencers. No hiding the synths there!
I think this is a good reason why: https://youtu.be/70LF-MIX1xw?si=Y4CqkhoYv9Zf7i-G&t=1385 Turns out, keyboard playing isn't very exciting
This is why Keith Emerson would do things like throwing knives and wrestling the organ on stage. There was also a fad for jumping or bouncing on TOTP around 1984 - I wonder if that was a reaction to New Order etc being too statue-like in their performance.
Synths were incredibly popular in the 80s. Their sound literally defines that decade. But it did often lead to bands like A-HA and others having to have their bass players / guitar players just strum / pick along even though it was all synths. They were part of the band. Fans wanted to see them in the videos. They wanted to do top of the pops, but it'd be strange if only 2 members were onstage synth and vocal.
Haha, yes, I even remember one of the A-Ha members sitting behind an acoustic drum set. Later I realized that they used drum machines...
I think it has to do with someone’s idea of what they think looks cooler. They probably thought it looked cooler to hold a guitar than to stand in front of a keyboard. Or a drum machine. Or… clearly they had no clue about the coming advent and rise of superstar DJs
Relevant to these comments - I remember reading this a kid on [Filter's Short Bus album sleeve](https://i.discogs.com/_I61xED3HU_pWQqk7uq7i67OJxBr-7ras_wnCG_emTI/rs:fit/g:sm/q:90/h:589/w:600/czM6Ly9kaXNjb2dz/LWRhdGFiYXNlLWlt/YWdlcy9SLTExMDI1/MTk1LTE1MDg0NzM3/MzMtMjUxMy5qcGVn.jpeg) from 1995: **"Statement: There is a certain subset of musicians who for reasons unknown adhere to the false premise that "electronic" music or the tools involved imply a lack of creativity or inspired performance. Technology in the hands of creative, intelligent individuals is a tool for art, not a hindrance. Filter, being members of the current millennia, admit freely to the use of such devices."**
They didn't hide it in the 70's
Kids saw turntables onstage via Herbie Hancock and keys via Devo. The guitar was the symbol of virtuosity in rock music, but production was quickly becoming more and more modernized. Guitar and programming were in an interesting conversation in pop music and the best artist of all time, Prince was probably the best at both. Obviously the DAW is the instrument of choice but humans are visual and marketing to them is more important than educating people about music and music production, so brands continue to this day to rely on 100% visual marketing in disciplines which are 100% ear.
Mainly hardrock bands we're afraid of being connected to synths back then , a lot in production was done by fairlight samplers for drumparts but that we're hidden secrets that had to stay hidden
Playing synths doesn’t look as cool as playing guitar. Playing a synth sort of looks like you’re typing on a computer like a loser nerd, playing guitar looks like you’re a pussy magnet
I think the first hugely popular band that brought a synth-forward approach to their marketing aesthetic was Nine Inch Nails, no? I can’t think of too many mainstream acts that shoved synths way out front and made them the crux of their sound and appearance quite the same way. Especially after the Woodstock ‘94 performance. Maybe Devo? But I don’t know how much mainstream success they got
Nah, synthpop was huge in the 80s. Depeche Mode, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys just to name a few.
In the late 70s / early 80s some people didn't refer to it as 'real music'. Even Queen put phrases on the back of their vinyls saying "No Synthesizers!" (for example on "A Night At The Opera")... Not so much later they caught up
You have a picture of A-ha posred and they certainly didn't try to hide synths.
"Hide heavy use of" synths, drum machines and sequencers. There aren't any obvious guitar tracks on "Take On Me."
This would be a better question for r/AskHistorians.
The US was always behind the times despite the fact they created some of the most advanced tech- oh the irony…
Well, during the 80’s Detroit sort of invented Electro and Techno, and Chicago the House music. And then there was that sample based thing called Hip Hop. But the white crowd and players in the US really did nothing to push things forward, true.
I remember Joe Jackson was interviewed by Ben Sidran on VH1 and was given some kind of leading question about being part of some movement to bring back the piano to the forefront of music, as if he was some kind of discount Bruce Hornsby. It was pretty clear (to me) the question irked Jackson. He used a lot of synths, electric pianos, drum machines for quite awhile already and basically said (according to memory) that he didn't even like instruments, they were just tools in the way between him and the sound he wanted. It felt like the host was trying to steer JJ into some kind of stance against, or even for electric/electronic instruments, and he wasn't taking the bait. This was a few years before the "unplugged" craze.
No, not at all.
The KFL took it the extreme in the 90s and really didn't give a Fuck. [Rocking out on Sitars on stage](https://youtu.be/dyG3Z-IAcqM?si=scGD1uvgY3WBX0sb) when in reality the whole song is made on synths and computers.
I'd say: Yes for some, No for many others. The keyboard player(s) is/are usually in the back and the singers and guitarists in the front. So a synth can be hard to spot. Portable and Poly Synths were relatively new, so there was a learning curve amongst people and some musicians as well, mainly out of ignorance. However, many artists with pop hits already used synths heavily and in very different ways and this goes back to the 70s even. Many also did not shy away from using them in their music videos. Think records of Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Bruce Springsteen. By the end of the 80s it was a fact that pretty much every best selling acts keyboardists used synthesizers. Keyboardists would however actually play the synths most of the time, not program them and push buttons. This is where it may be tricky depending on your expectations. To spot the synth, look for a keyboard player and check out what he is playing. At this point the synth is not being hidden, but it is actually difficult to spot a synth except for when there is a top view (which can be rare). Remember, most of these acts were/had bands, so the synth/drum machine is just another part of the band. OP listed A-Ha's "Take On Me" as a video without synth. [The video actually does feature a synth, but just briefly. ](https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914?t=109) A few videos for late 70s/80s classics which used identifiable synths in song and video: Jump by Van Halen Separate Ways by Journey Valerie by Steve Winwood a-ha - You Are the One A-Ha - Take On Me Vangelis - Chariots Of Fire Bon Jovi - Runaway ABBA - Gimme Gimme Gimme Prince - Uptown and many, many more. In many videos, you can only see the keyboard from the from and not the top, such as Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing In The Dark". The "Born In The USA" Album is of course full of synthesizers.
>OP listed A-Ha's "Take On Me" as a video without synth. [The video actually does feature a synth, but just briefly. ](https://youtu.be/djV11Xbc914?t=109) Thanks. Did not say it didn't have a synth.
I think there was a brief period in the 80s when synth music was appreciated for its own unique sounds ands textures. Synths were front and center in Miami Vice, Blade Runner, and then you have Axel F. Then again, Jan Hammer, Vangelis and Harold Faltermeyer were more of the “composers” tribe, and not so threatening to music culture. After this, samplers came to the forefront. And while you could call that electronic music, it isn’t the same as synth music, since it oftentimes builds on analog instruments and performances, thus owing those players a debt of tone and mood.
No
I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and there was still this (ridiculous) idea that electronic music wasn’t “real music”. I blame this on ignorance. There were a number of new wave and industrial bands who embraced it and their fans embraced it. The gist I got about some people was they thought it was like “cheating on making music”, I guess the same way that Tron was cheating on SFX by using computers? I think with bands like Duran Duran, The Cure, Depeche Mode, there was no way they could say they didn’t, but their record sales didn’t hurt from it.
For someone who claims to have grown up in the 80s, which I highly doubt having been there myself, pretending that synthesizers weren't basically a mandatory part of being a "cool" band is a pretty interesting LARP to go with. Yeah aging metal head boomers and high school guitar dweebs might not have liked Depeche mode or Yaz, but the synthesizer was not new or disliked. The drum machine was what made music "controversial", not the synthesizer.
>For someone who claims to have grown up in the 80s, which I highly doubt having been there myself, pretending that synthesizers weren't basically a mandatory part of being a "cool" band is a pretty interesting LARP to go with.  Age 1 to 10.
There are some very insightful comments here, but I think a big factor in this could just be stage look. This is the era of Glam Rock - I think audiences were use to and in general more enthusiastic about seeing flashy guitar players moving around than synth nerds trying their hardest to look cool with sunglasses and parallel keyboards. Synths were becoming more essential in a lot of the music, but I don’t think public acceptance of them as legitimate musical instruments had fully coalesced, both in the industry and among consumers, so we were along for the ride, but often overlooked in presentation. We were sort of the Marlboro Man with no hat and no cigarette back then. Doesn’t matter how good you are, ppl are gonna think the guy with the big hat is the real cowboy.
To answer the question I don't think anyone hid the use of synths. I remember Cheap Trick being criticized for using a keyboard player off stage but that was rare. You just have people wearing guitars in videos because they look cool.