Synth Britannia
My brother brought this documentary to my attention recently and boy am I glad he found it.
Synth Britannia follows "a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage" between the mid 1970s to the early 1980s.
The documentary features music I used to listen to on the radio and on TV in the early 1980s (the TV viewing involved renting pirated video recordings of Top of the Pops from our local video store) .
It's music I still love to this day. It's a very good documentary and brought back some good memories. It ends with what I think is a funny line by Andy McCluskey from OMD. I won't give it away, you will have to watch it till the end.
Sit back and enjoy and thank you to the BBC for making documentaries like this.
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
In the late 1970s, small pockets of electronic artists including the Human League, Daniel Miller and Cabaret Volatire were inspired by Kraftwerk and JG Ballard and dreamt of the sound of the future against the backdrop of bleak, high-rise Britain.
The crossover moment came in 1979 when Gary Numan's appearance on Top of the Pops with Tubeway Army's Are Friends Electric heralded the arrival of synthpop. Four lads from Basildon known as Depeche Mode would come to own the new sound whilst post-punk bands like Ultravox, Soft Cell, OMD and Yazoo took the synth out of the pages of the NME and onto the front page of Smash Hits.
By 1983, acts like Pet Shop Boys and New Order were showing that the future of electronic music would lie in dance music.
Contributors include Philip Oakey, Vince Clarke, Martin Gore, Bernard Sumner, Gary Numan and Neil Tennant.