The music and style of late 70s punk had a back-to-basics aesthetic that rejected anything synthetic, artificial and embellished. However by the early 80s many new wave bands were moving beyond punk’s limited musical palette and trading in their guitars for synthesizers (synths) and drum machines. Synths were a major part of the sound of the 80s.
Synth pop was popularised by British artists like Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan, Joy Division/New Order, the Human League, Tears for Fears, the Pet Shop Boys, Eurythmics, the Bronski Beat, Howard Jones and many others.
With liberal doses of hair gel, make-up and marketing, snazzy groups like A Flock of Seagulls, the Thompson Twins and Haircut 100 were suited to the new video medium. They came to be denigrated as ‘haircut bands’.
Synth pop’s use of new technology came with the rise of video games and computers. In fact New Zealand synth pop outfit Mi-Sex wrote a song about ‘Computer Games’ and cultivated a computerised, futuristic image.
Australian major record companies found their own synth pop talent. One act was Real Life, who had an international hit with ‘Send Me an Angel’. Another was a Melbourne outfit called Pseudo Echo, whose early fans identified themselves as part of a goth subculture. Influenced by Ultravox, Duran Duran and Japan, the band came to be labelled as new romantic. Although they did not have a record contract, in 1983 Ian ‘Molly’ Meldrum put them on Countdown. Quickly signed by EMI, Pseudo Echo became known as Australia’s foremost exponents of synth pop. By the end of 1983 they had gone Top 5 with their debut single, ‘Listening’. Dig the classic 80s drum and synth sounds on this clip.
Expect to see some original 80s gear from Pseudo Echo in our 1980s exhibition. The band has generously agreed to lend some great stuff, like one of those 80s keyboard guitars (‘keytars’), some drums, clothing and awards. Singer/guitarist Brian Canham, who runs a studio in Melbourne, even has the shirt he wore in the video clip for ‘Funkytown’, which was an international hit for Pseudo Echo in 1986. The video is living proof that this band could rock.
The 1980s exhibition will feature an exclusive interview with Brian, in which he reveals that the band took its name from one of the settings on a synth.
Flock of seagulls were/are much more than their (very) snazzy haircuts!!!
here’s a 909 drum machine recreated in flash: http://lab.andre-michelle.com/fl-909
hours of fun.
I remember there was something of a debate over the first totally electronic Australian synth pop single. Putting aside the claims of several pioneering electronic acts, notably in Melbourne’s Clifton Hill and Sydney’s Surry Hills, and pub bands with a strong keyboards section (Mi Sex, Machinations, Reels, Flowers, Models, etc); the debate boiled down to the Dugites’ Waiting (August 1981) versus Ignatius Jones’s Like a ghost (April 1982). I vaguely recall that the Dugites ended up being disqualified by the pundits because the percussion in Waiting used analogue high hat cymbals, while Like a ghost was completely electronic in origin.
Synth pop in Australasia had to compete for radio play against the aforementioned pub bands, hence the power chord guitar solo heard in Pseudo Echo’s Listening (listen out for Machinations’ Pressure Sway and NZ band Coconut Rough’s Sierra Leone for slightly earlier examples of this antipodean phenomenon).
With synth pop also came the 12 inch remix. Originally the private domain of the dance club scene, by the mid 1980s even Jimmy Barnes, the Lime Spiders and the Angels were releasing 12″ remixes. Perhaps this exhibition could inspire an Australasian version of the British 12″80s series of cd sets?
The 80s were really something. I really love the designs and often dream back to the days..