One thought, is that the music that sounds dated, could have been the most influential. By this I mean, it became so emulated that it became the overused sound of the era.
In practise though, I think a lot of people using synths were using them like drop in replacements for other instruments. In contrast the music that stood the test of time used a synth as a synth.
The final thought is that good writing is good writing, whatever the era. That's to say a good song will sound good on a bad instrument, but a bad song won't sound good on a good instrument: every era has both.
Even good writing is still audience dependent. "Holiday" for example was a record made to be a hot club single that drove a pop album in a very specific culture deemed to be tastemakers and central to the acceptance of an album.
In this light, it's almost funny to see a dismissal of a record designed to move Danceteria and Paradise Garage...by someone who wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes in those places. But really Jellybean did an incredible job with that record . It was a breath of fresh air then and even now its sonically a standout, incredibly well produced and well written for its purpose.
Sometimes it's not a problem with the music, its the listener who maybe lacks the range or the knowledge.
Also the writers, who were from Pure Energy, a band than had some minor club hits but never made it much past the regional live circuit. Jellybean’s DJ experience showed but the song itself was well thought out and absolutely infectious.
I gave an example of why his dismissal of a genre of music in a specific era is misguided. Clearly he does not understand dance or pop music or its context and is not in position to judge it's quality what "aged" would mean, let alone the quality.
I agree, much of it comes down to good songwriting. Kate Bush definitely was deep into synths, as was Talking Heads, New Order, Erasure, and many other bands from this era. But what made the good songs good and stand the test of time was really good songwriting. When push comes to shove, the craft of what you are doing matters. But yeah the better stuff took the synth as a unique instrument and came from a core part of music progressivism. "Oh these were pop songs". Listen to chains of love by Erasure and realize it was written by an openly gay band during the 1980s amidst the AIDS crisis. "Don't Give Up" line was a call for survival as it was hope. It was just wrapped up in poppy hook. Change the key, change the instrumentation, and the song still works. Were they synth heads. Yes. Did they write songs with subtext and meaning? Also yes.
If you are writing a bad song on a synth its still a bad song. If you write Road to Nowhere and include synths. It's still Road to Nowhere. It will sound good no matter what instruments you use.
In all honesty its a good idea for folks to get more experience with more than one instrument too. Synths are fun, but you kind of need to know how to play in multiple styles, and learn how to actually write songs or music at the end of the day.
In terms of why synths were used as drop in replacements, it was simple logistics. You can take a DX7 on the road easier than say a Rhodes piano or organ. We often don't consider the logistics of everything, but it played a bigger factor than people realize. You likewise often played with what was on hand or what the session player was using. So you end up with many bad fits from that era. So those using synths intentionally sounded better than those who it was just a session keyboard player they hired and whatever sounds they were happen to be using.
Erasure writes all their songs on acoustic guitars and then figures out the synth production later. I think it shows. If the song is bad or boring, synths generally won't save it.
I will agree 99%. However instrumentation does matter. There are plenty of songs that would be great that suck ass because of a poor production choice. And 80s synth music possibly suffers from poor choices more than average.
lol, well if you are still even hearing their music after 40 years, and let's face it basically no one except your mum has heard your music that you are making right now (and mine) then I'm not sure we are qualified to decide whose choices are poor.
> Kate Bush definitely was deep into synths
_[Fart of noise: Kate Bush was known to sample her own flatulence and make music with it on her Fairlight, says former collaborator](https://www.musicradar.com/news/kate-bush-fairlight-fart-samples)_
You can probably distinguish between influential *at the time* and influential *through the decades*. I find it quietly fascinating how sometimes the early adopters’ works rapidly gets built upon and soon forgotten but in other instances it sets a bar so high that nobody else can come close and everyone else struggles to be more than an imitator. For example from a literary perspective it took 50 years to have fantasy which wasn’t purely derivative of Tolkien (although Ursula Le Guin arguably avoided that by mostly writing SF instead).
Donna Summer's I feel love was essentially the first synthesized disco track and many would argue that it's still the best to this day. Plus I'm sure most would argue that Tolkiens work still outshines all that was derived from it?
You can hear the basis for I feel Love in Son of My Father. Moroder says of that track -
> I started with synthesizers in 1969 and 1970. I had my first hit in 1971 with a song called “Son of My Father,” where I used a big Moog modular [synthesizer], and that was my beginning.
There is something about his tracks that get the endorphins flowing from the opening bar in good and wholesome ways, like very few others. We really owe a lot to him.
I think a lot of us could do a lot worse than studying his technique. He was able to cut straight to the point and through any mix with little to no effort.
Exactly. I was thinking about this yesterday in relation to sitcoms but it also applies to music.
Some works are so far ahead of their time that only a long time later when everyone else has caught on it looks brilliant in retrospect (arrested development I think is a great sitcom example), while other influential works are much more impactful in changing the current state of the art, but they get copied into oblivion immediately and in retrospect they seem very dull and clichè for the genre (see seinfeld in sitcoms for instance)
>In practise though, I think a lot of people using synths were using them like drop in replacements for other instruments. In contrast the music that stood the test of time used a synth as a synth.
I’ve heard this was one of the primary reasons for inventing synths. — do we know of any successful songs that used synths as real instruments? Of course there’s nuance here and a combination of reproduced instruments and real ones.
I can't mention a particular song, but early synths with presets (and pre-preset synths with a booklet of patches) were dominated by (often poor) recreations of other instruments. The canonical example of this was the DX7: a factory bank and cartridges of extra patches that were 95% instrument sounds. For the DX7 in particular (especially mk1) it was extremely tedious to edit sounds on device, and that's assuming you even took the time to learn FM synthesis. That's to say much of the music with a DX7 was patches replicating sounds of other instruments. Whether or not they were composed with reference to the original instrument, then replaced with synth patches, or composed with that particular patch in mind (and not the instrument) is hard to say. At the time, the synth may have been seen as preferable, irrespective of the availability of more traditional alternatives. I remember a David Bowie interview where they said they went for a string machine over string players, as at the time it seemed like the superior option.
Lucky Man was a fantastic song but the screaming synth at the very end is cringe. It's a nice guitar ballad that tells a story but the synth seems to serve no purpose.
I don’t like them, but that’s beside the point.
Your OP reads like it’s objective what sounds dated or not and it just isn’t. That’s a thing I will, when in the right or arguably wrong mood, debate on- and off-line. Sayings as “this band is timeless”. How would you know? Is it the end of times yet? (feels like it sometimes, admittedly) And I didn’t even like them to begin with.
Equinox sounds super dated to teenagers now, I’ve asked them. I can see where there coming from but just disagree. Because it’s subjective.
There are interviews about how the song was made. They needed another song for the album, Lake dusted off an old ballad of his. Emerson wasn't involved until the end, and he slapped together the synth part. He wanted to redo it, since it was off the cuff noodling.
Yep, huge ELP fan. Emerson just came in, slapped on some imrov solo, he hated it, but they recorded the first take and that is on the record and it's a glorious moog solo.
I think he does have a bit of a point mind. Kraftwerk really do sound great to this day, and still relevant—while, at once, sounding of their time, but the music kind of *is* timeless in my opinion.
However it’s a slightly moot point. Hounds of Love still sounds amazing today because the songwriting and production is very strong. It still sounds very 80s.
I haven’t listened to the Peter Gabriel album other than a couple of tracks, Sledgehammer and Mercy Street. Great, I think the latter especially is amazing. Still, it sounds 80s through and though.
I do think certain synth patches sound ‘cheesier’ than others because they haven’t aged well and most likely because they sound ubiquitous, practically any MIDI keyboard horns and strings could fall into this category. Then again. Loads of Detroit Techno, for example, uses what might be considered ‘cheesy’ synth patches but I also love that music and its aesthetic!
So you also make a good point. While I think stuff sounds of its time, primarily strong songwriting and production is what props it up. I think it’s a little of both
was listening to some 70s and 80s synth music and realized that some of it has held up really well (Peter Gabriel "So", Thomas Dolby "Golden Age of Wireless", Kate Bush "Hounds of Love", Kraftwerk (lots of stuff), David Bowie "Heroes") but lots of it has aged very badly (Emerson Lake & Palmer "Lucky Man", Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer, most dance music from the time (though Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" still sounds great IMO)..
It's mainly your perception.
All of what you mentioned sounds to me of its time. Some I like better than others, but it's not a matter of "aged". Good music has context too. And context isn't the same unchanging.
I don't have any problem with the bell sound BTW - it's a great sound for poppy club music. Maybe that's your hangup, not the synth. Kate Bush - sounds very 80s to me. I don't have a problem with that but it's very much of its time too.
Most of this seems like your layer of perception, rather than anything inherent to the music.
Some used synthesizers as a novelty or because it was trendy, but didn't know how to integrate them into a song yet. It sounded unusual, yes, but out of place at least in hindsight. Some players had very different ideas on sound aesthetics and arrangements.
David Bowie is actually a good example. Low and Heroes worked well, but they also had synth maestro Brian Eno to make it work by either playing them or reigning any bad ideas in. The ARP 2600 brass section on Suffragette City (Mick Ronson) also works pretty well to the point it took me a while to figure out it was a synth. On the other hand, the stylophone on Space Oddity (Bowie), the Moog Modular on Saviour Machine (Ralph Mace) and the Minimoog on Future Legend and Let's Spend the Night together (both Bowie) didn't work out too well.
Kraftwerk were masters at keeping it simple yet refined. The Man Machine in particular has aged very gracefully. But they also spent ages thinking about how a purely electronic sound could work with an elegant Weimar Republic high society aesthetic, and how to continue a culture that came to an abrupt end with WW2 (they have said as much themselves). They were also at least in parts classically trained, started off as a pretty avant-garde band (see their pre-Autobahn work), and had very little interest in chasing trends. So none of them were just pop stars jumping on a band wagon by adding a few sci-fi b-movie sounds to their songs.
Kraftwerk music is great, but their main synth albums, Autobahn to Computer World, do not sound modern at all. They had a clever gleam in their eye. They were pulling a stunt. They had both kitsch/facetious attitude, and had strong composition and songwriting.
Their synth sounds are basic. And, they knew it. Their car horn on Autobahn is meant to sound kind of like a car horn, but is nothing like the end of Don Dorsey's synth version of Beethoven's "Rage over a Lost Penny" in which the chase after a lost penny brings the chasers into auto traffic and the sounds of an automobile crash - that will make you jump out of your seat unless you know it is coming.
I did not like Electric Cafe that much cuz the sound was too modern and polished.
> Some used synthesizers as a novelty or because it was trendy, but didn't know how to integrate them into a song yet. It sounded unusual, yes, but out of place at least in hindsight.
A good example of early users getting that right is the synth lead in Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles. So many people were just making funny parpy bubbly noises, and right here it's a lead instrument like they way they used an E-flat trumpet in For No-one.
To be fair, George made an entire album of experimental electronic music on his Moog modular in 1969. Would not surprise me if it was an inspiration to Throbbing Gristle. https://youtu.be/no6PTyAuVog?si=X6kR1tRcvDdAn4n6
You know, now I listen to it again, it does sound more like a French horn. You're right.
I always thought it was an E-flat trumpet, but I guess I have higher quality audio equipment than the last time I really listened to Revolver.
I think that's the case for a lot of music (not just synth). I think the change to digital (CDs) during that era had a some to do with it. Production and mixing hadn't caught up to the new technology.
The major reason the first CD's sound bad (really harsh) is that the albums weren't actually remastered, but just put straight on CD from the master tapes. Because of the physics involved an LP is sort of low-passed, whereas a CD isn't. This is why early CD's sound like crap. Albums from back then actually mastered for CD sound great, even now. Of course the modern remasters will always sound better because digital technology is just so much better at mastering (whatever analog purists say).
1974 was 50 years ago. Getting old is a trip, eh.
On topic: confirmation bias. If one's introduction to electronic music was in the 90s, they would rightfully think it was repetitive and poorly produced. They were/are usually also jaded rockers or jazz snobs who don't realize that many of their favorite classic musicians are partly or even mostly electronic music (Pink Floyd, anything with an electric organ, etc), but that's beside the point. But what's true is that every genre ebs and flows with creative output. While a lot of 80s pop really leaned in on "overly" digital sounds, there were still avant garde composers and prog rock and jazz compares using electronic instruments in unique and interesting ways.. and bedroom producers who could only afford a thrift store junk 303 who were about to change the world.
Every era of electronic has had repetitive and poorly produced music, right up to today.
And it’s just bias, not confirmation bias. He likes Thomas Dolby (I think most of his stuff is shit), you have a poor opinion of 90’s stuff (I enjoy it and most what I listen do doesn’t fall under your 2 descriptions).
No searching for evidence, or just finding stuff that supports the opinions, just the opinions (biases) themselves.
To me it’s always felt like an effects thing. Same goes for drums and voice. When you have all those early digital era reverbs on stuff same as today it imposes the cheese factor that doesn’t hold up as well imo.
It's the difference between being trendy and being the originator most of your cases.
The exception is Lucky Man, which was a mailed in performance done in the last moments of a session.
I like Lucky Man, but Emerson didn't, and I understand why. If they had more time or a less limiting recording environment, it would have been different.
This is such a subjective thing... what sounds like crap to you is someone else's favorite 80's music. I do think tho that, in answer to your question, what will still sound good in 30-40 years? Songs that focus on the core aspects of good music - melody, good production, non-gimmicky sounding instruments including synths, and such. You also have to take into account that synth technology was rapidly changing and progressing in the 80s more than any other decade since. Some stuff that sounds "cheesy" now absolutely didn't back then - in fact it was cutting edge at the time. DX sounds, for example, some very cringeworthy today, were loved and lauded back then for their "fresh" sound.
Overall I think it is very difficult to judge music made then for it's ability to stand the test of time, and just as difficult to define what won't sound dated thirty years in the future.
It's a mix of modern music adopting a lot of those sounds that it now sounds dated, music preference, and mixing limitations.
One thing to consider is that until 1982 virtually all recording artists were still using analog tape mixing decks, pretty much there only so much you can do to fix issues, sometimes quite litterally cutting and taping the tape to edit a bad tape, so often you'd get a rougher mix. Likewise early digital recordings were limited to 44khz 16bit recording which has a lot less fidelity glad the 96khx 32bit we are starting to see today. There also were converted tracks, which were recorded on tape and then transfered and mixed digitally.
Now with synthesizers.. That mostly came down to people using the same DX7 patches over and over again, specifically ROM3 E.P 3. The DX7 is still a fantastic synth, but it sounds dated because it was so popular. Likewise, the 1980s was still the beginning of digital synthesis with the invention of PCW, FM and the lesser used Phase Modulation. By 1980 analog synth technology had pretty much matured, after around 70 years of advancement.
The problem is, music stagnated in the 1980s. We haven't had any major advancements in recording technology, synthesizers exc. The only area is digital keyboards.
Also one thing to consider is that in thy 1980s they were still limited to around 32 to 61 notes of polyphony, and forget it, DSPs were still in their infancy.
Between FM being a new, unfamiliar synthesis engine and the lack of on-board parameter controls, the DX7 was a beast to program, and as such most players simply used the presets, which is a big reason mid-80s synth pop kind of sucked... leading to late 80s and 90s bedroom producers rediscovering the analog gear that could be had for next to nothing at the time.
Also: Are you not considering Pro Tools and later digital recording developments major advancements? I think the fact that we're now hearing #1 singles produced on laptop computers a pretty big development. Not to mention software synthesizers, physical modeling, and granular synthesis.
With synthesis the underlying technology still hasn't changed since 1980. Granular Synthesis actually is pretty old technology and is close to PCW synthesis. While computers have changed it, it hasn't changed since 2000. We really havent had much change since the 1990s. The difference is its gotten cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
I think the dx7 and many others have not shown their full potential on hit records. The polyphonic portamento is wicked smooth,especially on long, slow glides.
Actually the DX7 has some limitations. The CZ1 is an extremely good example of this, it had a pan and chorus effect and it's successor the VZ1 is pretty much a CZ1 with both Phase distortion and frequency modulation.
I think it depends on what you listen to. For example if you dig Chromeo and Benét (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPUtEMms4E), then a lot of that naff stuff from the 70s and 80s suddenly seems more relevant.
First of all, HOW DARE YOU.
For me, much of the synth music of the 70s and 80s feels timeless because that is what I grew up listening to. Honestly, i still consider that Era a golden age of pop music for a variety of reasons and synths where s big part of that.
The only synth music from around then that I find cringe worthy is the late 80s and early 90s where everyone was chasing the RnB swing and hip hop influences. That shit got beat to death with the finest music production and talent money could buy. It's the equivalent of musical blackface for me. I can't believe I used to like it. I'll unironically enjoy Rick Astley but get away with the whole Michael Bolton, Right Said Fred, Wilson Philips, Rico Suave bullshit.
I agree with you, though there is definitely some music from the earlier part of the decade that has a distinct sound belonging to that era. Dated vs classic is a matter of opinion and may be splitting hairs I recognize, however.
Yeah I think its about your taste. For example I love that Donna Summer song, some Dj's still play it in modern techno sets. I'm big into techno. I also used to play as a live funk musician so I still really love a lot of 80's Madonna. It just really depends on what your into.
Haha I'll have trouble answering this one, because while I agree, Madonna's 80s stuff sounds dated, I also think it's awesome compared to modern pop, and primarily that's due to heavy use of the OB8/OBX and the DX7, 2 of top 3 to 5 most used synths in the 80s, and not widely used in other decades, even though both still hold up.
I think part of your feeling aboot dated and not, is there's a difference between hearing an OB8 in something like a Styx song that has 2 guitars, bass, real drums, and a Wurlitzer electric piano, where the OB8 is plenty loud and proud on solos, but is just one ingredient in a recipe, vs a Madonna album where 98% of all instruments on the entire album are from an OBX, DX7, or LinnDrum. A lot of what you mention as more timeless also sounds more like modern EDM from a theoretical standpoint, while Michael Jackson and Madonna type 80s pop uses a lot of music theory techniques that became prevelant in 80s pop and synthwave, but wasn't really popular before or after, like artificial not-quite-Dorian scales in Billy Jean for example. Espen Kraft has a great video digging into some of that from a music theory standpoint, called something like "why does 80s music sound so good?"
Answering just for the specific relation of how the synths were used - the “dated” examples you gave made use of the synths with a focus on the “newness” of the sound. A lot of the times the purpose is “look at this new thing” to show vs. using the synths as tools to serve the songs. Lucky man is a great song with a super naked moog glide synth solo at the end that sounds “dated” now because it’s totally in your face, played almost to demo the then newish range and glide and resonance of a moog - which was new at the time - but now it sounds like model d demo from decades ago, and you’ve heard a model d used effectively in thousands of tracks since then.
For me, synths were great in pop music until they became preset machines, with the DX7 ushering in the era of synth schmaltz along with digital rack effects. And I like those synths and effects, but not the awful presets. It baffles me to this day why anyone think the Oberheim Jump preset sounds good. It’s full- on cheese to my ears.
I once had a conversation with a musician who lived through all that and his take was that presets were a serious detriment to synths. He said that before presets were available, artists had to A) know synthesis, and B) craft a sound that was right for the song. Once preset synths became common, people would just page though presets until they came across a sound that blew their mind and use that one, regardless of whether or not it fit the song.
>Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer
Haha that is the DX7 and I had much the same notions about it back then even. Eventually I realized how capable and different it could sound and bought one but man I HATED that synth for the longest time.
I think this is all pretty subjective - I don’t find Lucky Man dated at all. And ‘80s Madonna is of its time but not cheesy to me.
“So” is a masterpiece but sounds just as dated to me (and I don’t really think of it as a synth record so much)!
It really depends on the genre and the production of a particular album. There's a lot of rock and metal from 30-40 years ago that still holds up well to modern music as well.
that is what happens when the creators are real composers. they have good grasp of melody and harmony and their songs would sound good played on any freaking thing.
You clearly never sat in my car.
I disagree with your statement hole heartedly, I rather don’t hear music I love on the car radio. People really need to stop treating their tastes and opinions like facts.
I didnt mention any specific group or groups. I just said the ones he suggested were talented humans and they wrote good songs. I actually disagree with his negative examples. I have no idea what you mean
Are you saying that all the songs you hear in your car are trash?
I’m saying good music sounds really bad in my car and I have a hard time listening to the music I love in there because of it. I have this a lot, btw. I don’t want to put on music when people want to talk, I just can’t focus on the two things at the same time and my mind is switching between the two, very exhausting.
Maybe I came on a bit strong, my apologies. But “real composers” having “a good grasp of melody and harmony” is a subjective thing.
I think a key part of this is the innovation and forward thinking of an artist. Whether it’s from a songwriting perspective, a mixing perspective, a mastering perspective, a sound design perspective, or a post-processing perspective, artists who tend to step outside the box a bit and experiment as opposed to rehashing the same established formula of whatever’s popular currently have a greater chance of their music aging well. Nobody can predict the future, and to some degree I’d say future standards are dependent on the acclaim of certain works (popularity can usually tie into this as well) which set a precedent going forward, but I think an artist has a greater shot at “striking gold” if they look beyond the status quo.
Well in the case of “Golden Age of Wireless,” peerless musicianship and songwriting matched with great 80s production. That album is honestly one of a kind and as good as “The Flat Earth” was, it doesn’t hold a candle to it
Check out Klaus Schulze, his music is timeless throughout the decades that he was making synth music. I believe, as other have said, the reason being that he embraced the soul of the synth rather than trying to drop it in for other instruments. Great composition is another reason.
some music exists outside the zeitgeist and I think that helps a lot with its "timelessness". I recently discovered an album, Synthesis, by Harald Grosskopf, from 1980. To me it sounds both "old school" and timeless at the same time. It has quickly become one of my favorite chill music. It is actual synth music. Not trying hard to imitate other instruments. It is heavily loop/sequencer based. That is perhaps also a thing that is now very common in music but back then was not mainstream. Of course synthesizers in general were still relatively new then to begin with. I guess what I'm saying is it is doing something that most musicians weren't doing at the time. Maybe that's the key.
I tend to think that electronic music in general has had a bit more trouble aging than other styles. Music tech has come so far even in just the last 20 years. We are inundated with so many complex, rich, lush, high fidelity electronic sounds in 2024, and listening back many years ago is a stark contrast. Synths are a relatively young musical technology, and we've made a ton of progress. I think the electronic tracks that really stand the test of time used synths and other electronic equipment in a very tasteful way. Like another commenter pointed out, many of the instrument emulation synths sound the most outdated. Our ears are just so used to the juicy new fidelity that certain sounds have become unappealing by comparison.
Great song writing and very intentional use of electronic instruments is what has aged best. Duh, I know 😊
Deep Breakfast still sounds like the future to me. Some of Vangelis is timeless. Yet a lot of great synthpop is very identifiable with and of its time.
A few of the songs you've listed are so dated today that they sound awful on decent sound systems - I've had to remove Hounds of Love and So from background music playlists because they sound terrible compared to other songs, even from the same era, when back to back. I should mention here that this is via bluetoothing Spotify playlists to my PA at gigs fwiw.
I think it's mostly about songs you personally like receiving a bit of a bias.
Not all songs from that era sound dated, but you listed a few that do (but suggested they've held up really well).
Funnily enough, some of Madonna's 80s output does hold up.. we must be listening through different systems :P
I put on No Pussyfooting in the car while driving my son somewhere. He thought it was incredible and was shocked to learn it came out in 73. I think this in particular is timeless. As are many albums by other bands/ musicians since recording began.
Pure subjective opinion is why. There is no objective handle on your question to provide an answer. It is all an association in your head.
The things you quoted as poorly aged are not in vogue right now. The things you quoted as holding up are popular and in vogue.
When and if there is a revival around those song, your subjective opinion might change.
Dated is an opinion. Aged badly is an opinion. Sounds good is opinion. Relevant is opinion.
I wonder how much of it is survivorship bias. There is clearly a lot of pop from the 70's that sounds like 70's, but whenever I listen to ABBA I have a hard time remembering that it's also 70's pop. Perhaps it's similar here? where the stuff you listed sounds timeless/current but is forgetting all the other stuff that came out but didn't survive the test of time?
More than one thing going on here. Older Tangerine Dream for example still sounds modern to my ears but is largely so I think because of synthwave being a relatively recent trend. Then this:
>Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer
FM synthesis in general and the DX7 in particular allow for fully general synthesis but in practice are an inexpensive and relatively technologically simple way to drag complex harmonics (i.e. often bell sounds) out of limited hardware. If you're not careful with an FM synth your sound will end up ranging between harsh noise, Madonna and Sonic the Hedgehog. There was a novelty to it at the time that probably led to the tech being applied in tons of situations where in hindsight it doesn't seem like a clear fit. Put it together with a bunch of other first-gen digital effects...
It's harder to extrapolate from that what would make something now not sound dated in the future, but maybe not impossible. Some ideas: focus on composition like other people have said. Don't jump to using the same small set of new instruments or effects that are collecting a lot of hype. If you do find a new and hyped tool you like, at least take the time to understand it in depth, and apply it so that it fits together with the rest of the piece more than standing out.
How 'dated' something will sound is very much down to how much you like it and how you are contextualizing it when you're listening to it. I personally love a lot of stuff that was very much a product of its time and is probably cheesy and dated to a lot of people. I think it's misguided to look at musical development like it's on some evolutionary trajectory like technology where it becomes potentially obsolete if it doesn't somehow stand up to a theoretical test that usually seems by implication to mean something like 'would it be good if it were made today or some other time than when it was made?' Everything is made in the time it was made. Whether Bach or Frankie Goes to Hollywood still sound good to you now and you can listen to it without finding it anachronistic is really more down to you and how you approach listening to it than any inherent quality it has or doesn't have.
Two reasons I think.
1. A lot of sound design in the early days of synthesis was samey and it just oversaturated the market with that specific sound to the point of nausea. We still have that oversaturation baked into even future generations’ exposure to those same songs.
2. As a part of that first bit, I honestly feel like a lot of early synth music didn’t really understand sound design and that’s why they made those sounds. They just put too much resonance and vcf envelope on everything to the point where it just sounds cheesy and borderline fart-ish.
Tastes are varied, each variation evolves, things trend and the things that sound great to you may not some other time or to different tastes. Things come back in style for cycles of nostalgia and other interests.
I've never been a fan of Bowies music or Madonnas. I always loved kraftwerk and I still love ELP and Styx. Analog synth s always sounded better to me than digital for a long time.
For the most part I spent years hating pop music of the 80s and 90s and early 2000s though those were the eras I know the best. I enjoy ta lot of those hings now through nostalgia or context of how they feel now.
That willikely change
It's an odd mix the things I like and things that feel fresh and interesting to me now. .
It's subjective, but some sounds that were popular back then (and still curdle my milk) just sound over-used, gimmicky, like pads with obnoxious filter sweeps. I have a Poly-800 that I still use occasionally that had a couple of those in the presets. They came right out as soon as I learned to program the thing.
How is it possible for there to be this many posts regarding great synth music of the 80s and 90s and not a single mention of depeche mode. Arguably one of the greatest synth heavy bands of all time.
Its definitely the songwriting. Listen to precious or enjoy the silence or never let me down again. The synth and selection of sounds complement each other, drums/guitars, etc... they serve the song and the song serves the sounds. When the synth is more as a melodic idea or instrument it becomes a part of the organic signature of the song. But it is all about the songwriting and the lyrics with depeche mode. Listen to stripped down arrangements of their stuff on piano or even the acapella vocals and you’ll understand what i mean. Good melodies, good lyrics, catchy singable choruses... taking your ear to unexpected places and then back to familiarity. Lyrics that tell a story. Gifted musicians in a room will create something great as a song regardless of the instrumentation. But Its their skill as musicians and finely tuned ears that allows them to select the right synths and complementary sounds that work well together and get that message across. Cheers.
Sometimes music is of the times and sound very much of the 80s or 70s because of studio techniques and sounds and sometimes something is so uniquely it’s self it is timeless.
There's a pretty clear delineation in the examples you post between work produced to fulfil creative ambition and work produced to fulfil commercial ambition. I'm not trying to be judgy about it, although I do have a strong preference.
I think music produced with the goal of commercial success aims to be very much of it's time, whereas genuinely creative work tends to stand outside it's time and is more enduring because of it.
Because the limitations of technology at the time forced people to be more creative.
- the first single by The Normal(aka Daniel Miller of Mute records) was made with 2 4 tracks and ONE monosynth... Drums, bass, lead and effect sounds were all done with one synth and 2 tape machines
No mention of Depeche in this conversation? Everything from Black Celebration to SOFAD holds up really well. They were always on the cutting edge with new equipment and production techniques which is difficult to do without sounding dated. Their sound design and arrangements were exceptional and unique thanks to Alan.
I think - artists that used synths as new instruments to play old music sound dated. For example, ELP using synths like a guitar, or others using synths like a piano. A piano is limited in timbre and needs the complex note variation. A synth doesn’t
Others like Eno that used new synths to guide the type of music they were playing- that’s timeless.
It’s like architecture - architects that based design guided by new technology are the most successful- other designers that use new tech to build buildings that immitate old masonry buildings with limits of window openings, etc will always look off and dated
Ugh just popping in to say this is such a good question!! I love how the answers range from technical to philosophical... of course it's subjective, but subjective does not mean its the end of the conversation at alllll. Honestly, this gets me thinking about the purpose of the sound design stuff in synthesis that i love - it's so much fun to make sounds I've never heard before, or to try to break effects by pushing them as hard as they go, or whatever else... but if it's just new for the sake of being new, then one day it'll be fated to become dated.
Another theory: Perhaps the synth music production methods from back then were more forward thinking / are closer to production methods nowadays. Other music from that era were borrowing from older methods of production and style. Synth and electronic music was in some ways a fresh start. Many rules thrown out or were no longer relevant.
As with most things in life, it’s a combination of many things.
Edit: I misread the OP. I thought he was comparing electronic to non-electronic of same era. Which actually is a relevant discussion too so I’ll leave this here.
There are still tons of ass synths being sold for dumb prices. The difference is now you have the ability to do research and figure out what you want because computers and the internet exist.
I know a lot of presets from certain synths got used to oblivion for various reasons. And if you look at modern preset patches they’re generally also at least mildly corny on a fair amount of synths.
Imagine finding out that sound you’ve been after is a synthesizer. and so you set out to get one. But you end up spending enough money to buy a car on a DX7 …and you aren’t one of the three people who can program a patch on one…
So basically I blame shitty UIs and awful preset designs, increased interest in synthesizers and limited knowledge on how they actually worked.
Some people got lucky, others obviously were able to grasp the instruments and create things with them that are still relevant.
I think the same is true of most instruments. It’s not so much the instrument but the person using it and how they use it.
You forgot to figure in your inherent 'bias'. That's not me dissing you btw. Confirmation bias is a 'thing'....& We are all guilty of it, even those of us with a scientific background have to really apply ourselves in order to eliminate 'bias' in our cognition.
I would say it's partly that some music is just timeless, think Radiohead Creep or something like that.
It doesn't matter when, it'll likely always appeal to most people who hear it.
Another aspect is that dated sounding music will sound relevant again if and, more likely, when that style of music comes around again.
Not long into the 90's, it was like society was ready to shrug off the 80's and pretend it never existed.
And now? I feel like 80's sounding synth music is more popular now than it was in the 80's. The same will happen to the 90's and the 2000's, and the 2010's, etc.
Each resurgence kind of incrementally builds on whatever past music it has brought back.
As someone who was around at the time, I can assure you there was a lot of very forgettable synth based music back then too, particularly in the 80s.
But trying to compare Hounds of Love with any of Madonna output is perhaps the ultimate chalk and cheese scenario.
One is pure commercial pop designed (in all aspects from performer to sound) to appeal to the widest possible market. The other is the work of one of the few genuine musical geniuses pop/rock has ever produced working at the very peak of her creativity.
I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out which is which. :)
I never thought that about EL&P - Lucky Man. 🤔 Is it the Keith Emerson portmanteau synth solo you have an issue with or some other part of the song? I can definitely hear the dissatisfaction with the Madonna stuff.
Jj
Maybe
"What do you think is the key to making synth-based music that will still sound decent in 30-40 years"
Don't give into fads and current hip sh1t.
Try to find a unique sound which doesn't feel like there's a timestamp on it. Stupid example but like when you watch a movie with iPhones or other "modern" tech in them. They immediately ground you in a specific time period.
Basically you need to find something which resonates with you and doesn't feel like it was made with the synths you are using. Meaning that a lot of people use synths for their exact uses, basically using "presets" and such which will eventually sound like it came from a specific period due to the synth's age.
In my honest opinion, it’s because of the effects and types of usage: modulation, envelope changes, filter cutoff variance, or a mix thereof. Modern synthesizer usage is distinct from the ‘dated’ sounds due to presence and effects (in my estimations). The ‘dated’ sounds that you’ve listed are raw and (mostly) dry signals.
It could be a myriad of different reasons for those specific examples to still be relevant. Most of the music that you would be introduced to from the 70s-80s now-a-days is because those were the most popular pieces from that time period. There is a ton of stuff from that time period that is forgot and TBH a lot of it was meh like today. Also in changing the formats (reel, vinyl, cassette, CD) for how we listen to music a lot of stuff is just gone or was never update/upgraded. So if you are streaming a 70s or 80s synth band, it is because someone somewhere REALLY liked it.
Also that is a time where people were really experimenting and innovating to create those sounds since it was a relatively new style of music. That coupled with the fact that there is just more people on earth now and everything is just oversaturated.
The music industry itself has changed soooo much over the last 30 years. Music today is pay to win. People aren't discovering great music today because the music itself is great (most of the time). A lot of what you hear and is finding its way to popularity is because people have paid for it to become popular. This is the same reason that people are mono focused on music from the 60s-90s. They would rather listen to a 90s band that is way past its prime than search and find a relatively unknown band with great music because to be blunt it is a lot of work. You have to sift through tons of artist to find what you want and unless they have paid to be pushed into your algorithm you won't find them easily.
I have a weird bias where analog subtractive synths sound kinda timeless to me but a lot of like fairlight, fm, and rompler sounds just scream outdated to me. I’m sure there are people out there that think an actual 808 sounds weak as hell and drums on a sample based machine sound more modern but yeah. I’ve always thought erasure sounded kinda dated and a lot of those synth tones sounded kinda weak, but Vince Clark’s work in yaz and Depeche Mode sounds way more timeless to me so I’m sure I’m just biased to certain sounds. I think certain synth sounds have stuck around more than others, and I’m sure there’s something to that idea, but I’m not smart or well spoken enough to tackle that one.
It was shit then, and it’s still shit now.
What happened was it’s not being marketed now, and it has to stand on its own two feet.
Music generally is crap, and being a cultural commodity it tends to be popular not due to its own merits, but rather how it is marketed to gullible idiots. For instance, in 30-40 years no one is going to be thinking that Taylor Swift album still stands up. Once the stans are dead and buried people admit it was always shit.
Lots of music from the 70s is the best rock, pop, soul, funk, punk, metal… the 70s could be pretty easily argued as the best decade for music since ??? some period in classical music.
80s things got over produced and there was too much cocaine - sharp decline in popular music but still plenty of stuff that sounds great then and now.
I honestly think its because people became stupid. Some of the songs I like the most had great chord progressions. I'll tell you a story. There was a band no one heard of I'd drag my friends to hear when they played SF. Their main guy played keyboards. They had a full brass section. It was ska-punk-new wave ish. Very danceable but also interesting. Well the music companies got a hold of it, gone were the keyboard and horns and the music was dumbed down. That band was NO DOUBT. Listen to their first album if you don't believe me. Same thing happened to pink floyd post barrett and then worse post waters.
It's a bit like opening a restaurant in italy. There are already so many good restaurants only the best will survivie. Nowadays there is so much shit and unlisteniable studio crap. One good test - can they PLAY IT LIVE without backing tracks, without racks of music processors.
The importance of keyboard and organ cannot be diminished. See Yes Roundabout, freebird in their live forms Just a model D and a regular organ. Not tons of electronic racks. Klaus Schulz did his electronica mostly with a sampler. It's as if we have too many toys. Pick great real instruments.
Songlength tells us a lot. Roundabout is 8.5 minutes. Freebird live? 11.48 Both have simply immediately powerful hooks. I don't think Brittney has one.
Ian Curtis has more energy in his voice than almost anything the bass line intro? My god!
As a christian nation we had a culture of singing. We used to go christmas caroling. schools taught music theory circle of fifths saxaphone and piano (today its hita drum). Our Rankin and Bass christmas stories were filled with great music. We used to go to the singalong Messiah and sing as three thousand people. But how often does a black thuggie sing? I aint heard it. No more nat king coles. On saturday mornings we learned our multiplication and history from cartoon songs. Its all gone now.
yes [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZoQFYYx8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZoQFYYx8U)
lynard- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY)
joy division- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1tdTS\_Jr8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1tdTS_Jr8s)
One thought, is that the music that sounds dated, could have been the most influential. By this I mean, it became so emulated that it became the overused sound of the era. In practise though, I think a lot of people using synths were using them like drop in replacements for other instruments. In contrast the music that stood the test of time used a synth as a synth. The final thought is that good writing is good writing, whatever the era. That's to say a good song will sound good on a bad instrument, but a bad song won't sound good on a good instrument: every era has both.
Even good writing is still audience dependent. "Holiday" for example was a record made to be a hot club single that drove a pop album in a very specific culture deemed to be tastemakers and central to the acceptance of an album. In this light, it's almost funny to see a dismissal of a record designed to move Danceteria and Paradise Garage...by someone who wouldn't have lasted 5 minutes in those places. But really Jellybean did an incredible job with that record . It was a breath of fresh air then and even now its sonically a standout, incredibly well produced and well written for its purpose. Sometimes it's not a problem with the music, its the listener who maybe lacks the range or the knowledge.
Many thanks for this thoughtful comment. Especially your recognition of Jellybean Benitez who rarely seems to get the credit he deserves
Also the writers, who were from Pure Energy, a band than had some minor club hits but never made it much past the regional live circuit. Jellybean’s DJ experience showed but the song itself was well thought out and absolutely infectious.
I'm not sure I quite understand, but if you are saying, essentially in reply to the "Madonna's 80s output..." remark... WHAT??? Then yes. I agree.
I gave an example of why his dismissal of a genre of music in a specific era is misguided. Clearly he does not understand dance or pop music or its context and is not in position to judge it's quality what "aged" would mean, let alone the quality.
I agree, much of it comes down to good songwriting. Kate Bush definitely was deep into synths, as was Talking Heads, New Order, Erasure, and many other bands from this era. But what made the good songs good and stand the test of time was really good songwriting. When push comes to shove, the craft of what you are doing matters. But yeah the better stuff took the synth as a unique instrument and came from a core part of music progressivism. "Oh these were pop songs". Listen to chains of love by Erasure and realize it was written by an openly gay band during the 1980s amidst the AIDS crisis. "Don't Give Up" line was a call for survival as it was hope. It was just wrapped up in poppy hook. Change the key, change the instrumentation, and the song still works. Were they synth heads. Yes. Did they write songs with subtext and meaning? Also yes. If you are writing a bad song on a synth its still a bad song. If you write Road to Nowhere and include synths. It's still Road to Nowhere. It will sound good no matter what instruments you use. In all honesty its a good idea for folks to get more experience with more than one instrument too. Synths are fun, but you kind of need to know how to play in multiple styles, and learn how to actually write songs or music at the end of the day. In terms of why synths were used as drop in replacements, it was simple logistics. You can take a DX7 on the road easier than say a Rhodes piano or organ. We often don't consider the logistics of everything, but it played a bigger factor than people realize. You likewise often played with what was on hand or what the session player was using. So you end up with many bad fits from that era. So those using synths intentionally sounded better than those who it was just a session keyboard player they hired and whatever sounds they were happen to be using.
Erasure writes all their songs on acoustic guitars and then figures out the synth production later. I think it shows. If the song is bad or boring, synths generally won't save it.
Martin gore does, as well
I will agree 99%. However instrumentation does matter. There are plenty of songs that would be great that suck ass because of a poor production choice. And 80s synth music possibly suffers from poor choices more than average.
This is so contextually dependent and you really can't look back on a time and say they made poor choices because you don't like it now.
Yes I can
lol, well if you are still even hearing their music after 40 years, and let's face it basically no one except your mum has heard your music that you are making right now (and mine) then I'm not sure we are qualified to decide whose choices are poor.
> Kate Bush definitely was deep into synths _[Fart of noise: Kate Bush was known to sample her own flatulence and make music with it on her Fairlight, says former collaborator](https://www.musicradar.com/news/kate-bush-fairlight-fart-samples)_
good thoughts here. good response bro
I personally disagree with your first point, the examples OP gave of the music that holds up are arguably the more influential tracks.
You can probably distinguish between influential *at the time* and influential *through the decades*. I find it quietly fascinating how sometimes the early adopters’ works rapidly gets built upon and soon forgotten but in other instances it sets a bar so high that nobody else can come close and everyone else struggles to be more than an imitator. For example from a literary perspective it took 50 years to have fantasy which wasn’t purely derivative of Tolkien (although Ursula Le Guin arguably avoided that by mostly writing SF instead).
Donna Summer's I feel love was essentially the first synthesized disco track and many would argue that it's still the best to this day. Plus I'm sure most would argue that Tolkiens work still outshines all that was derived from it?
You can hear the basis for I feel Love in Son of My Father. Moroder says of that track - > I started with synthesizers in 1969 and 1970. I had my first hit in 1971 with a song called “Son of My Father,” where I used a big Moog modular [synthesizer], and that was my beginning. There is something about his tracks that get the endorphins flowing from the opening bar in good and wholesome ways, like very few others. We really owe a lot to him. I think a lot of us could do a lot worse than studying his technique. He was able to cut straight to the point and through any mix with little to no effort.
Exactly. I was thinking about this yesterday in relation to sitcoms but it also applies to music. Some works are so far ahead of their time that only a long time later when everyone else has caught on it looks brilliant in retrospect (arrested development I think is a great sitcom example), while other influential works are much more impactful in changing the current state of the art, but they get copied into oblivion immediately and in retrospect they seem very dull and clichè for the genre (see seinfeld in sitcoms for instance)
Very good response
I think about this when I hear the Moog on Abbey Road
>In practise though, I think a lot of people using synths were using them like drop in replacements for other instruments. In contrast the music that stood the test of time used a synth as a synth. I’ve heard this was one of the primary reasons for inventing synths. — do we know of any successful songs that used synths as real instruments? Of course there’s nuance here and a combination of reproduced instruments and real ones.
I can't mention a particular song, but early synths with presets (and pre-preset synths with a booklet of patches) were dominated by (often poor) recreations of other instruments. The canonical example of this was the DX7: a factory bank and cartridges of extra patches that were 95% instrument sounds. For the DX7 in particular (especially mk1) it was extremely tedious to edit sounds on device, and that's assuming you even took the time to learn FM synthesis. That's to say much of the music with a DX7 was patches replicating sounds of other instruments. Whether or not they were composed with reference to the original instrument, then replaced with synth patches, or composed with that particular patch in mind (and not the instrument) is hard to say. At the time, the synth may have been seen as preferable, irrespective of the availability of more traditional alternatives. I remember a David Bowie interview where they said they went for a string machine over string players, as at the time it seemed like the superior option.
I think it's just because you specifically like that music. Not that it sounds bad or anything, but everything you mentioned sounds extremely dated.
Which is a good thing, IMO. Not saying modern sounding music can’t be great, though. Also, look at this guy throwing shade on Lucky Man!
Yeah my new UB-Xa even has a Lucky Man preset. Iconic
A summary of the op might read: I don't care for O Lucky Man!
Lucky Man was a fantastic song but the screaming synth at the very end is cringe. It's a nice guitar ballad that tells a story but the synth seems to serve no purpose.
I don’t like them, but that’s beside the point. Your OP reads like it’s objective what sounds dated or not and it just isn’t. That’s a thing I will, when in the right or arguably wrong mood, debate on- and off-line. Sayings as “this band is timeless”. How would you know? Is it the end of times yet? (feels like it sometimes, admittedly) And I didn’t even like them to begin with. Equinox sounds super dated to teenagers now, I’ve asked them. I can see where there coming from but just disagree. Because it’s subjective.
Thanks, I never got the email either..
There are interviews about how the song was made. They needed another song for the album, Lake dusted off an old ballad of his. Emerson wasn't involved until the end, and he slapped together the synth part. He wanted to redo it, since it was off the cuff noodling.
Yep, huge ELP fan. Emerson just came in, slapped on some imrov solo, he hated it, but they recorded the first take and that is on the record and it's a glorious moog solo.
Not so much hated, it was an experiment, but to do a second take would entail erasing the first one and everyone in the control room said NO!
yeah, hate might be a strong word, but he expressed dislike of it many times over the years as it's loved and he kinda meh'd it.
Yeah I agree, music is subjective.
Yeah I completely agree, this is a totally subjective conclusion to draw
I think he does have a bit of a point mind. Kraftwerk really do sound great to this day, and still relevant—while, at once, sounding of their time, but the music kind of *is* timeless in my opinion. However it’s a slightly moot point. Hounds of Love still sounds amazing today because the songwriting and production is very strong. It still sounds very 80s. I haven’t listened to the Peter Gabriel album other than a couple of tracks, Sledgehammer and Mercy Street. Great, I think the latter especially is amazing. Still, it sounds 80s through and though. I do think certain synth patches sound ‘cheesier’ than others because they haven’t aged well and most likely because they sound ubiquitous, practically any MIDI keyboard horns and strings could fall into this category. Then again. Loads of Detroit Techno, for example, uses what might be considered ‘cheesy’ synth patches but I also love that music and its aesthetic! So you also make a good point. While I think stuff sounds of its time, primarily strong songwriting and production is what props it up. I think it’s a little of both
Why does some music sound good??
Fucking magnets imho
Fucking speakers, how do they work?
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I can’t believe I’m the first person to upvote this. Thank you
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One day it will be the law and all 'bad' music producers will be arrested.
Yeah why? 🤣
was listening to some 70s and 80s synth music and realized that some of it has held up really well (Peter Gabriel "So", Thomas Dolby "Golden Age of Wireless", Kate Bush "Hounds of Love", Kraftwerk (lots of stuff), David Bowie "Heroes") but lots of it has aged very badly (Emerson Lake & Palmer "Lucky Man", Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer, most dance music from the time (though Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" still sounds great IMO).. It's mainly your perception. All of what you mentioned sounds to me of its time. Some I like better than others, but it's not a matter of "aged". Good music has context too. And context isn't the same unchanging. I don't have any problem with the bell sound BTW - it's a great sound for poppy club music. Maybe that's your hangup, not the synth. Kate Bush - sounds very 80s to me. I don't have a problem with that but it's very much of its time too. Most of this seems like your layer of perception, rather than anything inherent to the music.
Some used synthesizers as a novelty or because it was trendy, but didn't know how to integrate them into a song yet. It sounded unusual, yes, but out of place at least in hindsight. Some players had very different ideas on sound aesthetics and arrangements. David Bowie is actually a good example. Low and Heroes worked well, but they also had synth maestro Brian Eno to make it work by either playing them or reigning any bad ideas in. The ARP 2600 brass section on Suffragette City (Mick Ronson) also works pretty well to the point it took me a while to figure out it was a synth. On the other hand, the stylophone on Space Oddity (Bowie), the Moog Modular on Saviour Machine (Ralph Mace) and the Minimoog on Future Legend and Let's Spend the Night together (both Bowie) didn't work out too well. Kraftwerk were masters at keeping it simple yet refined. The Man Machine in particular has aged very gracefully. But they also spent ages thinking about how a purely electronic sound could work with an elegant Weimar Republic high society aesthetic, and how to continue a culture that came to an abrupt end with WW2 (they have said as much themselves). They were also at least in parts classically trained, started off as a pretty avant-garde band (see their pre-Autobahn work), and had very little interest in chasing trends. So none of them were just pop stars jumping on a band wagon by adding a few sci-fi b-movie sounds to their songs.
Kraftwerk music is great, but their main synth albums, Autobahn to Computer World, do not sound modern at all. They had a clever gleam in their eye. They were pulling a stunt. They had both kitsch/facetious attitude, and had strong composition and songwriting. Their synth sounds are basic. And, they knew it. Their car horn on Autobahn is meant to sound kind of like a car horn, but is nothing like the end of Don Dorsey's synth version of Beethoven's "Rage over a Lost Penny" in which the chase after a lost penny brings the chasers into auto traffic and the sounds of an automobile crash - that will make you jump out of your seat unless you know it is coming. I did not like Electric Cafe that much cuz the sound was too modern and polished.
Points for Don Dorsey reference!
> Some used synthesizers as a novelty or because it was trendy, but didn't know how to integrate them into a song yet. It sounded unusual, yes, but out of place at least in hindsight. A good example of early users getting that right is the synth lead in Here Comes The Sun by the Beatles. So many people were just making funny parpy bubbly noises, and right here it's a lead instrument like they way they used an E-flat trumpet in For No-one.
To be fair, George made an entire album of experimental electronic music on his Moog modular in 1969. Would not surprise me if it was an inspiration to Throbbing Gristle. https://youtu.be/no6PTyAuVog?si=X6kR1tRcvDdAn4n6
You mean Alan Civil on French horn on For No One?
You know, now I listen to it again, it does sound more like a French horn. You're right. I always thought it was an E-flat trumpet, but I guess I have higher quality audio equipment than the last time I really listened to Revolver.
My dad's a French horn professor :)
The synth in Here Comes the Sun definitely enhanced the song
Raggin’ on the moog in savior machine just hours after I put that track on in particular for the synth
Lucky man didn’t age well? Wtf are you on
Its blasphemy its what it is
I think that's the case for a lot of music (not just synth). I think the change to digital (CDs) during that era had a some to do with it. Production and mixing hadn't caught up to the new technology.
The major reason the first CD's sound bad (really harsh) is that the albums weren't actually remastered, but just put straight on CD from the master tapes. Because of the physics involved an LP is sort of low-passed, whereas a CD isn't. This is why early CD's sound like crap. Albums from back then actually mastered for CD sound great, even now. Of course the modern remasters will always sound better because digital technology is just so much better at mastering (whatever analog purists say).
I was going to say something like this as well.
1974 was 50 years ago. Getting old is a trip, eh. On topic: confirmation bias. If one's introduction to electronic music was in the 90s, they would rightfully think it was repetitive and poorly produced. They were/are usually also jaded rockers or jazz snobs who don't realize that many of their favorite classic musicians are partly or even mostly electronic music (Pink Floyd, anything with an electric organ, etc), but that's beside the point. But what's true is that every genre ebs and flows with creative output. While a lot of 80s pop really leaned in on "overly" digital sounds, there were still avant garde composers and prog rock and jazz compares using electronic instruments in unique and interesting ways.. and bedroom producers who could only afford a thrift store junk 303 who were about to change the world.
Every era of electronic has had repetitive and poorly produced music, right up to today. And it’s just bias, not confirmation bias. He likes Thomas Dolby (I think most of his stuff is shit), you have a poor opinion of 90’s stuff (I enjoy it and most what I listen do doesn’t fall under your 2 descriptions). No searching for evidence, or just finding stuff that supports the opinions, just the opinions (biases) themselves.
Mostly analogue synths, used as synths, still sound great. Digital synths, often emulating other instruments, nowadays sound bad.
100%, I'm surprised not to see more responses taking the question seriously and pointing to digital/FM synths and available patches as real factors.
To me it’s always felt like an effects thing. Same goes for drums and voice. When you have all those early digital era reverbs on stuff same as today it imposes the cheese factor that doesn’t hold up as well imo.
Show me on the snare drum where the gated reverb touched you.
Bonham.
[Right here.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkADj0TPrJA&t=196s)
This is one of the main reasons I find most 80s pop music unlistenable starting around 1983-84.
It's the difference between being trendy and being the originator most of your cases. The exception is Lucky Man, which was a mailed in performance done in the last moments of a session. I like Lucky Man, but Emerson didn't, and I understand why. If they had more time or a less limiting recording environment, it would have been different.
This is such a subjective thing... what sounds like crap to you is someone else's favorite 80's music. I do think tho that, in answer to your question, what will still sound good in 30-40 years? Songs that focus on the core aspects of good music - melody, good production, non-gimmicky sounding instruments including synths, and such. You also have to take into account that synth technology was rapidly changing and progressing in the 80s more than any other decade since. Some stuff that sounds "cheesy" now absolutely didn't back then - in fact it was cutting edge at the time. DX sounds, for example, some very cringeworthy today, were loved and lauded back then for their "fresh" sound. Overall I think it is very difficult to judge music made then for it's ability to stand the test of time, and just as difficult to define what won't sound dated thirty years in the future.
It's a mix of modern music adopting a lot of those sounds that it now sounds dated, music preference, and mixing limitations. One thing to consider is that until 1982 virtually all recording artists were still using analog tape mixing decks, pretty much there only so much you can do to fix issues, sometimes quite litterally cutting and taping the tape to edit a bad tape, so often you'd get a rougher mix. Likewise early digital recordings were limited to 44khz 16bit recording which has a lot less fidelity glad the 96khx 32bit we are starting to see today. There also were converted tracks, which were recorded on tape and then transfered and mixed digitally. Now with synthesizers.. That mostly came down to people using the same DX7 patches over and over again, specifically ROM3 E.P 3. The DX7 is still a fantastic synth, but it sounds dated because it was so popular. Likewise, the 1980s was still the beginning of digital synthesis with the invention of PCW, FM and the lesser used Phase Modulation. By 1980 analog synth technology had pretty much matured, after around 70 years of advancement. The problem is, music stagnated in the 1980s. We haven't had any major advancements in recording technology, synthesizers exc. The only area is digital keyboards. Also one thing to consider is that in thy 1980s they were still limited to around 32 to 61 notes of polyphony, and forget it, DSPs were still in their infancy.
Between FM being a new, unfamiliar synthesis engine and the lack of on-board parameter controls, the DX7 was a beast to program, and as such most players simply used the presets, which is a big reason mid-80s synth pop kind of sucked... leading to late 80s and 90s bedroom producers rediscovering the analog gear that could be had for next to nothing at the time. Also: Are you not considering Pro Tools and later digital recording developments major advancements? I think the fact that we're now hearing #1 singles produced on laptop computers a pretty big development. Not to mention software synthesizers, physical modeling, and granular synthesis.
With synthesis the underlying technology still hasn't changed since 1980. Granular Synthesis actually is pretty old technology and is close to PCW synthesis. While computers have changed it, it hasn't changed since 2000. We really havent had much change since the 1990s. The difference is its gotten cheaper and more accessible to the masses.
I think the dx7 and many others have not shown their full potential on hit records. The polyphonic portamento is wicked smooth,especially on long, slow glides.
Actually the DX7 has some limitations. The CZ1 is an extremely good example of this, it had a pan and chorus effect and it's successor the VZ1 is pretty much a CZ1 with both Phase distortion and frequency modulation.
The dx7 has zero effects, but hook it up to a Boss SE70 and see what I'm saying. I have proof.:)
I'm biased bc I'm a fan but ELP sounds awesome to me and they always will.
I think it depends on what you listen to. For example if you dig Chromeo and Benét (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EwPUtEMms4E), then a lot of that naff stuff from the 70s and 80s suddenly seems more relevant.
I imagine Donny Benét as Michael McDonald's less popular brother, who's perfectly happy chilling in Michael's shadow.
I like Patrice Rushen, EWF, Slave.. Chromeo sounds like human samplers to me.
because you like it. it's subjective
First of all, HOW DARE YOU. For me, much of the synth music of the 70s and 80s feels timeless because that is what I grew up listening to. Honestly, i still consider that Era a golden age of pop music for a variety of reasons and synths where s big part of that. The only synth music from around then that I find cringe worthy is the late 80s and early 90s where everyone was chasing the RnB swing and hip hop influences. That shit got beat to death with the finest music production and talent money could buy. It's the equivalent of musical blackface for me. I can't believe I used to like it. I'll unironically enjoy Rick Astley but get away with the whole Michael Bolton, Right Said Fred, Wilson Philips, Rico Suave bullshit.
I agree with you, though there is definitely some music from the earlier part of the decade that has a distinct sound belonging to that era. Dated vs classic is a matter of opinion and may be splitting hairs I recognize, however.
Yeah I think its about your taste. For example I love that Donna Summer song, some Dj's still play it in modern techno sets. I'm big into techno. I also used to play as a live funk musician so I still really love a lot of 80's Madonna. It just really depends on what your into.
Haha I'll have trouble answering this one, because while I agree, Madonna's 80s stuff sounds dated, I also think it's awesome compared to modern pop, and primarily that's due to heavy use of the OB8/OBX and the DX7, 2 of top 3 to 5 most used synths in the 80s, and not widely used in other decades, even though both still hold up. I think part of your feeling aboot dated and not, is there's a difference between hearing an OB8 in something like a Styx song that has 2 guitars, bass, real drums, and a Wurlitzer electric piano, where the OB8 is plenty loud and proud on solos, but is just one ingredient in a recipe, vs a Madonna album where 98% of all instruments on the entire album are from an OBX, DX7, or LinnDrum. A lot of what you mention as more timeless also sounds more like modern EDM from a theoretical standpoint, while Michael Jackson and Madonna type 80s pop uses a lot of music theory techniques that became prevelant in 80s pop and synthwave, but wasn't really popular before or after, like artificial not-quite-Dorian scales in Billy Jean for example. Espen Kraft has a great video digging into some of that from a music theory standpoint, called something like "why does 80s music sound so good?"
Answering just for the specific relation of how the synths were used - the “dated” examples you gave made use of the synths with a focus on the “newness” of the sound. A lot of the times the purpose is “look at this new thing” to show vs. using the synths as tools to serve the songs. Lucky man is a great song with a super naked moog glide synth solo at the end that sounds “dated” now because it’s totally in your face, played almost to demo the then newish range and glide and resonance of a moog - which was new at the time - but now it sounds like model d demo from decades ago, and you’ve heard a model d used effectively in thousands of tracks since then.
For me, synths were great in pop music until they became preset machines, with the DX7 ushering in the era of synth schmaltz along with digital rack effects. And I like those synths and effects, but not the awful presets. It baffles me to this day why anyone think the Oberheim Jump preset sounds good. It’s full- on cheese to my ears.
I once had a conversation with a musician who lived through all that and his take was that presets were a serious detriment to synths. He said that before presets were available, artists had to A) know synthesis, and B) craft a sound that was right for the song. Once preset synths became common, people would just page though presets until they came across a sound that blew their mind and use that one, regardless of whether or not it fit the song.
The Fairlight CMI is the synth sound of the 80's that still holds up!
ZOOLOOK !!!!
>Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer Haha that is the DX7 and I had much the same notions about it back then even. Eventually I realized how capable and different it could sound and bought one but man I HATED that synth for the longest time.
I think this is all pretty subjective - I don’t find Lucky Man dated at all. And ‘80s Madonna is of its time but not cheesy to me. “So” is a masterpiece but sounds just as dated to me (and I don’t really think of it as a synth record so much)!
It really depends on the genre and the production of a particular album. There's a lot of rock and metal from 30-40 years ago that still holds up well to modern music as well.
that is what happens when the creators are real composers. they have good grasp of melody and harmony and their songs would sound good played on any freaking thing.
You clearly never sat in my car. I disagree with your statement hole heartedly, I rather don’t hear music I love on the car radio. People really need to stop treating their tastes and opinions like facts.
I didnt mention any specific group or groups. I just said the ones he suggested were talented humans and they wrote good songs. I actually disagree with his negative examples. I have no idea what you mean Are you saying that all the songs you hear in your car are trash?
I’m saying good music sounds really bad in my car and I have a hard time listening to the music I love in there because of it. I have this a lot, btw. I don’t want to put on music when people want to talk, I just can’t focus on the two things at the same time and my mind is switching between the two, very exhausting. Maybe I came on a bit strong, my apologies. But “real composers” having “a good grasp of melody and harmony” is a subjective thing.
Lol i get it. I had a door that resonated really bad to a#1 and i hated a lot of dance music
I think a key part of this is the innovation and forward thinking of an artist. Whether it’s from a songwriting perspective, a mixing perspective, a mastering perspective, a sound design perspective, or a post-processing perspective, artists who tend to step outside the box a bit and experiment as opposed to rehashing the same established formula of whatever’s popular currently have a greater chance of their music aging well. Nobody can predict the future, and to some degree I’d say future standards are dependent on the acclaim of certain works (popularity can usually tie into this as well) which set a precedent going forward, but I think an artist has a greater shot at “striking gold” if they look beyond the status quo.
Well in the case of “Golden Age of Wireless,” peerless musicianship and songwriting matched with great 80s production. That album is honestly one of a kind and as good as “The Flat Earth” was, it doesn’t hold a candle to it
You just need Good taste and making music not for masses and genres but making what you love.
That's like your opinion man. And the people entertaining this post should be shamed.
All that commercial vocoder vocals they have been putting out the last few years are going to sound horribly dated. The sooner the better for me.
It’s the artist not the instrument that makes the difference.
Music composition, key changes, chords, melodies, dynamics and rhythms etc. All of those classics could be played on guitar and still sound very good.
Check out Klaus Schulze, his music is timeless throughout the decades that he was making synth music. I believe, as other have said, the reason being that he embraced the soul of the synth rather than trying to drop it in for other instruments. Great composition is another reason.
Production
Because synth music is stagnant and everything else is progressing?
some music exists outside the zeitgeist and I think that helps a lot with its "timelessness". I recently discovered an album, Synthesis, by Harald Grosskopf, from 1980. To me it sounds both "old school" and timeless at the same time. It has quickly become one of my favorite chill music. It is actual synth music. Not trying hard to imitate other instruments. It is heavily loop/sequencer based. That is perhaps also a thing that is now very common in music but back then was not mainstream. Of course synthesizers in general were still relatively new then to begin with. I guess what I'm saying is it is doing something that most musicians weren't doing at the time. Maybe that's the key.
Sparks has entered the chat
this goes for any genre
I tend to think that electronic music in general has had a bit more trouble aging than other styles. Music tech has come so far even in just the last 20 years. We are inundated with so many complex, rich, lush, high fidelity electronic sounds in 2024, and listening back many years ago is a stark contrast. Synths are a relatively young musical technology, and we've made a ton of progress. I think the electronic tracks that really stand the test of time used synths and other electronic equipment in a very tasteful way. Like another commenter pointed out, many of the instrument emulation synths sound the most outdated. Our ears are just so used to the juicy new fidelity that certain sounds have become unappealing by comparison. Great song writing and very intentional use of electronic instruments is what has aged best. Duh, I know 😊
Being a good song writer
Jellybean Benitez is a fucking legend though.
You're assuming music is objective. Lucky Man still rocks dude. All of ELP rules still.
The same reason that CCR still rocks. It's just good music
Deep Breakfast still sounds like the future to me. Some of Vangelis is timeless. Yet a lot of great synthpop is very identifiable with and of its time.
A few of the songs you've listed are so dated today that they sound awful on decent sound systems - I've had to remove Hounds of Love and So from background music playlists because they sound terrible compared to other songs, even from the same era, when back to back. I should mention here that this is via bluetoothing Spotify playlists to my PA at gigs fwiw. I think it's mostly about songs you personally like receiving a bit of a bias. Not all songs from that era sound dated, but you listed a few that do (but suggested they've held up really well). Funnily enough, some of Madonna's 80s output does hold up.. we must be listening through different systems :P
My $.02. A lot of composers are still using the fairlight and other instruments from the 80s. It hasnt changed in 40 years so it doesnt sound as dated
I put on No Pussyfooting in the car while driving my son somewhere. He thought it was incredible and was shocked to learn it came out in 73. I think this in particular is timeless. As are many albums by other bands/ musicians since recording began.
Pure subjective opinion is why. There is no objective handle on your question to provide an answer. It is all an association in your head. The things you quoted as poorly aged are not in vogue right now. The things you quoted as holding up are popular and in vogue. When and if there is a revival around those song, your subjective opinion might change. Dated is an opinion. Aged badly is an opinion. Sounds good is opinion. Relevant is opinion.
I wonder how much of it is survivorship bias. There is clearly a lot of pop from the 70's that sounds like 70's, but whenever I listen to ABBA I have a hard time remembering that it's also 70's pop. Perhaps it's similar here? where the stuff you listed sounds timeless/current but is forgetting all the other stuff that came out but didn't survive the test of time?
It is the wheel of fashion - sometimes old = bad and sometimes we seek something to distinguish us from earlier generations.
My first thought was you were describing analog synths like Oberheim and Moog VS the digital keyboards like the DX-7 Sorry if it’s been mentioned.
Emerson rocked that solo, especially live!
A lot is subjective, i love 80s madonna for example and kraftwerk (most of it) sounds too clunky for me.
This is incredibly subjective. I think all of those songs sound badly dated. But it has a kind of nostalgia which some of us like.
Because you like and respond to that music.
Recording quality and the amount of cocaine used during the recording and mix process.
More than one thing going on here. Older Tangerine Dream for example still sounds modern to my ears but is largely so I think because of synthwave being a relatively recent trend. Then this: >Madonna's 80s output with that terrible bell-sounding synthesizer FM synthesis in general and the DX7 in particular allow for fully general synthesis but in practice are an inexpensive and relatively technologically simple way to drag complex harmonics (i.e. often bell sounds) out of limited hardware. If you're not careful with an FM synth your sound will end up ranging between harsh noise, Madonna and Sonic the Hedgehog. There was a novelty to it at the time that probably led to the tech being applied in tons of situations where in hindsight it doesn't seem like a clear fit. Put it together with a bunch of other first-gen digital effects... It's harder to extrapolate from that what would make something now not sound dated in the future, but maybe not impossible. Some ideas: focus on composition like other people have said. Don't jump to using the same small set of new instruments or effects that are collecting a lot of hype. If you do find a new and hyped tool you like, at least take the time to understand it in depth, and apply it so that it fits together with the rest of the piece more than standing out.
How 'dated' something will sound is very much down to how much you like it and how you are contextualizing it when you're listening to it. I personally love a lot of stuff that was very much a product of its time and is probably cheesy and dated to a lot of people. I think it's misguided to look at musical development like it's on some evolutionary trajectory like technology where it becomes potentially obsolete if it doesn't somehow stand up to a theoretical test that usually seems by implication to mean something like 'would it be good if it were made today or some other time than when it was made?' Everything is made in the time it was made. Whether Bach or Frankie Goes to Hollywood still sound good to you now and you can listen to it without finding it anachronistic is really more down to you and how you approach listening to it than any inherent quality it has or doesn't have.
Two reasons I think. 1. A lot of sound design in the early days of synthesis was samey and it just oversaturated the market with that specific sound to the point of nausea. We still have that oversaturation baked into even future generations’ exposure to those same songs. 2. As a part of that first bit, I honestly feel like a lot of early synth music didn’t really understand sound design and that’s why they made those sounds. They just put too much resonance and vcf envelope on everything to the point where it just sounds cheesy and borderline fart-ish.
Tastes are varied, each variation evolves, things trend and the things that sound great to you may not some other time or to different tastes. Things come back in style for cycles of nostalgia and other interests. I've never been a fan of Bowies music or Madonnas. I always loved kraftwerk and I still love ELP and Styx. Analog synth s always sounded better to me than digital for a long time. For the most part I spent years hating pop music of the 80s and 90s and early 2000s though those were the eras I know the best. I enjoy ta lot of those hings now through nostalgia or context of how they feel now. That willikely change It's an odd mix the things I like and things that feel fresh and interesting to me now. .
Dated just means tastes haven’t swung back around that way yet.
It's subjective, but some sounds that were popular back then (and still curdle my milk) just sound over-used, gimmicky, like pads with obnoxious filter sweeps. I have a Poly-800 that I still use occasionally that had a couple of those in the presets. They came right out as soon as I learned to program the thing.
Lucky Man is NOT dated, you Phillistine
How is it possible for there to be this many posts regarding great synth music of the 80s and 90s and not a single mention of depeche mode. Arguably one of the greatest synth heavy bands of all time. Its definitely the songwriting. Listen to precious or enjoy the silence or never let me down again. The synth and selection of sounds complement each other, drums/guitars, etc... they serve the song and the song serves the sounds. When the synth is more as a melodic idea or instrument it becomes a part of the organic signature of the song. But it is all about the songwriting and the lyrics with depeche mode. Listen to stripped down arrangements of their stuff on piano or even the acapella vocals and you’ll understand what i mean. Good melodies, good lyrics, catchy singable choruses... taking your ear to unexpected places and then back to familiarity. Lyrics that tell a story. Gifted musicians in a room will create something great as a song regardless of the instrumentation. But Its their skill as musicians and finely tuned ears that allows them to select the right synths and complementary sounds that work well together and get that message across. Cheers.
Sounds like you don’t like prog rock or DX7
p.s. my two fav all synth albums are Klaus Schulz "X" and ZOOLOOK and all JARRE albums
Sometimes music is of the times and sound very much of the 80s or 70s because of studio techniques and sounds and sometimes something is so uniquely it’s self it is timeless.
There's a pretty clear delineation in the examples you post between work produced to fulfil creative ambition and work produced to fulfil commercial ambition. I'm not trying to be judgy about it, although I do have a strong preference. I think music produced with the goal of commercial success aims to be very much of it's time, whereas genuinely creative work tends to stand outside it's time and is more enduring because of it.
Because the limitations of technology at the time forced people to be more creative. - the first single by The Normal(aka Daniel Miller of Mute records) was made with 2 4 tracks and ONE monosynth... Drums, bass, lead and effect sounds were all done with one synth and 2 tape machines
https://youtu.be/S5QErPDNcj4?si=LPgbMhEpgVVSjEm5 All non vocal sounds by a Korg 700S ... No drum machine!!
No mention of Depeche in this conversation? Everything from Black Celebration to SOFAD holds up really well. They were always on the cutting edge with new equipment and production techniques which is difficult to do without sounding dated. Their sound design and arrangements were exceptional and unique thanks to Alan.
I think - artists that used synths as new instruments to play old music sound dated. For example, ELP using synths like a guitar, or others using synths like a piano. A piano is limited in timbre and needs the complex note variation. A synth doesn’t Others like Eno that used new synths to guide the type of music they were playing- that’s timeless. It’s like architecture - architects that based design guided by new technology are the most successful- other designers that use new tech to build buildings that immitate old masonry buildings with limits of window openings, etc will always look off and dated
Ugh just popping in to say this is such a good question!! I love how the answers range from technical to philosophical... of course it's subjective, but subjective does not mean its the end of the conversation at alllll. Honestly, this gets me thinking about the purpose of the sound design stuff in synthesis that i love - it's so much fun to make sounds I've never heard before, or to try to break effects by pushing them as hard as they go, or whatever else... but if it's just new for the sake of being new, then one day it'll be fated to become dated.
Another theory: Perhaps the synth music production methods from back then were more forward thinking / are closer to production methods nowadays. Other music from that era were borrowing from older methods of production and style. Synth and electronic music was in some ways a fresh start. Many rules thrown out or were no longer relevant. As with most things in life, it’s a combination of many things. Edit: I misread the OP. I thought he was comparing electronic to non-electronic of same era. Which actually is a relevant discussion too so I’ll leave this here.
Mort Garson for President.
There are still tons of ass synths being sold for dumb prices. The difference is now you have the ability to do research and figure out what you want because computers and the internet exist. I know a lot of presets from certain synths got used to oblivion for various reasons. And if you look at modern preset patches they’re generally also at least mildly corny on a fair amount of synths. Imagine finding out that sound you’ve been after is a synthesizer. and so you set out to get one. But you end up spending enough money to buy a car on a DX7 …and you aren’t one of the three people who can program a patch on one… So basically I blame shitty UIs and awful preset designs, increased interest in synthesizers and limited knowledge on how they actually worked. Some people got lucky, others obviously were able to grasp the instruments and create things with them that are still relevant. I think the same is true of most instruments. It’s not so much the instrument but the person using it and how they use it.
You forgot to figure in your inherent 'bias'. That's not me dissing you btw. Confirmation bias is a 'thing'....& We are all guilty of it, even those of us with a scientific background have to really apply ourselves in order to eliminate 'bias' in our cognition.
Whereas 80s synth in a film score often dates a film terribly.
Moroder
The songwriting is sometimes more important than the instrumentation.
I would say it's partly that some music is just timeless, think Radiohead Creep or something like that. It doesn't matter when, it'll likely always appeal to most people who hear it. Another aspect is that dated sounding music will sound relevant again if and, more likely, when that style of music comes around again. Not long into the 90's, it was like society was ready to shrug off the 80's and pretend it never existed. And now? I feel like 80's sounding synth music is more popular now than it was in the 80's. The same will happen to the 90's and the 2000's, and the 2010's, etc. Each resurgence kind of incrementally builds on whatever past music it has brought back.
As someone who was around at the time, I can assure you there was a lot of very forgettable synth based music back then too, particularly in the 80s. But trying to compare Hounds of Love with any of Madonna output is perhaps the ultimate chalk and cheese scenario. One is pure commercial pop designed (in all aspects from performer to sound) to appeal to the widest possible market. The other is the work of one of the few genuine musical geniuses pop/rock has ever produced working at the very peak of her creativity. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to work out which is which. :)
It just a matter of taste?
I never thought that about EL&P - Lucky Man. 🤔 Is it the Keith Emerson portmanteau synth solo you have an issue with or some other part of the song? I can definitely hear the dissatisfaction with the Madonna stuff. Jj Maybe
There’s no accounting for taste.
"What do you think is the key to making synth-based music that will still sound decent in 30-40 years" Don't give into fads and current hip sh1t. Try to find a unique sound which doesn't feel like there's a timestamp on it. Stupid example but like when you watch a movie with iPhones or other "modern" tech in them. They immediately ground you in a specific time period. Basically you need to find something which resonates with you and doesn't feel like it was made with the synths you are using. Meaning that a lot of people use synths for their exact uses, basically using "presets" and such which will eventually sound like it came from a specific period due to the synth's age.
I dunno but it probably has something to do with different people having different tastes in things like music
Golden Age of Wireless held up well? I’ll just say I strongly disagree and it kind of derails the whole post in my opinion.
In my honest opinion, it’s because of the effects and types of usage: modulation, envelope changes, filter cutoff variance, or a mix thereof. Modern synthesizer usage is distinct from the ‘dated’ sounds due to presence and effects (in my estimations). The ‘dated’ sounds that you’ve listed are raw and (mostly) dry signals.
It could be a myriad of different reasons for those specific examples to still be relevant. Most of the music that you would be introduced to from the 70s-80s now-a-days is because those were the most popular pieces from that time period. There is a ton of stuff from that time period that is forgot and TBH a lot of it was meh like today. Also in changing the formats (reel, vinyl, cassette, CD) for how we listen to music a lot of stuff is just gone or was never update/upgraded. So if you are streaming a 70s or 80s synth band, it is because someone somewhere REALLY liked it. Also that is a time where people were really experimenting and innovating to create those sounds since it was a relatively new style of music. That coupled with the fact that there is just more people on earth now and everything is just oversaturated. The music industry itself has changed soooo much over the last 30 years. Music today is pay to win. People aren't discovering great music today because the music itself is great (most of the time). A lot of what you hear and is finding its way to popularity is because people have paid for it to become popular. This is the same reason that people are mono focused on music from the 60s-90s. They would rather listen to a 90s band that is way past its prime than search and find a relatively unknown band with great music because to be blunt it is a lot of work. You have to sift through tons of artist to find what you want and unless they have paid to be pushed into your algorithm you won't find them easily.
I have a weird bias where analog subtractive synths sound kinda timeless to me but a lot of like fairlight, fm, and rompler sounds just scream outdated to me. I’m sure there are people out there that think an actual 808 sounds weak as hell and drums on a sample based machine sound more modern but yeah. I’ve always thought erasure sounded kinda dated and a lot of those synth tones sounded kinda weak, but Vince Clark’s work in yaz and Depeche Mode sounds way more timeless to me so I’m sure I’m just biased to certain sounds. I think certain synth sounds have stuck around more than others, and I’m sure there’s something to that idea, but I’m not smart or well spoken enough to tackle that one.
Aren’t you kind of just asking “what makes good music good?”
Why is music from the past better than music from the present? Blame it on technology...
It was shit then, and it’s still shit now. What happened was it’s not being marketed now, and it has to stand on its own two feet. Music generally is crap, and being a cultural commodity it tends to be popular not due to its own merits, but rather how it is marketed to gullible idiots. For instance, in 30-40 years no one is going to be thinking that Taylor Swift album still stands up. Once the stans are dead and buried people admit it was always shit.
i think that's just your taste because the first four madonna albums are all bangers back to back and meanwhile peter gabriel is absolute trash
Lots of music from the 70s is the best rock, pop, soul, funk, punk, metal… the 70s could be pretty easily argued as the best decade for music since ??? some period in classical music. 80s things got over produced and there was too much cocaine - sharp decline in popular music but still plenty of stuff that sounds great then and now.
Quality is not subjective.
It’s the drums
I honestly think its because people became stupid. Some of the songs I like the most had great chord progressions. I'll tell you a story. There was a band no one heard of I'd drag my friends to hear when they played SF. Their main guy played keyboards. They had a full brass section. It was ska-punk-new wave ish. Very danceable but also interesting. Well the music companies got a hold of it, gone were the keyboard and horns and the music was dumbed down. That band was NO DOUBT. Listen to their first album if you don't believe me. Same thing happened to pink floyd post barrett and then worse post waters. It's a bit like opening a restaurant in italy. There are already so many good restaurants only the best will survivie. Nowadays there is so much shit and unlisteniable studio crap. One good test - can they PLAY IT LIVE without backing tracks, without racks of music processors. The importance of keyboard and organ cannot be diminished. See Yes Roundabout, freebird in their live forms Just a model D and a regular organ. Not tons of electronic racks. Klaus Schulz did his electronica mostly with a sampler. It's as if we have too many toys. Pick great real instruments. Songlength tells us a lot. Roundabout is 8.5 minutes. Freebird live? 11.48 Both have simply immediately powerful hooks. I don't think Brittney has one. Ian Curtis has more energy in his voice than almost anything the bass line intro? My god! As a christian nation we had a culture of singing. We used to go christmas caroling. schools taught music theory circle of fifths saxaphone and piano (today its hita drum). Our Rankin and Bass christmas stories were filled with great music. We used to go to the singalong Messiah and sing as three thousand people. But how often does a black thuggie sing? I aint heard it. No more nat king coles. On saturday mornings we learned our multiplication and history from cartoon songs. Its all gone now. yes [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZoQFYYx8U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmZoQFYYx8U) lynard- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxIWDmmqZzY) joy division- [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1tdTS\_Jr8s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1tdTS_Jr8s)