These past few months I’ve been listening to a lot of synth pop. And when I say synth-pop, I mean the classic groups from the late 70’s and early 80’s: Kraftwerk, Human League, OMD, Tubeway Army, Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, John Foxx, Yazoo, New Order. Wonderful, beautiful stuff.
I’ve also been listening to Depeche Mode’s later albums. I’ve been ignorant of everything post-Violator, so I figured I’d give them a fair chance. And while I like most of the material (I don’t think DM has yet to release a bad album—pretty good track record for a band 30 years old), what's particularly striking to me is their progression throughout the years. From Kraftwerk-inspired robot pop, to industrial-tinged dance tracks, to massive arena-friendly synth rock, to an eventual embrace of 90’s “electronica” and glitch pop. Then, coming full circle, their latest album, “Sounds of the Universe,” incorporates 80’s era analog equipment to fashion songs by a band now aged and seasoned. From the futurism of the 80’s, to digital evolution in the 90’s, to a nostalgia for those bygone days of futurism.
Even aside from DM, though, this return to the analog synth sound is fairly common nowadays. Kanye’s 808 & Heartbreak, the Knife, Crystal Castles, Cut Copy, to name but a few examples. It’s so ubiquitous that charges of synth pop sounding “dated” are themselves out of date; the synth pop sound most associated with the 80’s has now achieved a “classic” status, not unlike 60’s Wall of Sound production effects.
While the textures and tones of classic synth pop live on, almost none of the recent groups or artists labeled as synth pop really have the same essence, the same spirit as the innovators who have haunted my speakers for the past few months. Goldfrapp, Ladytron, Darkel, Cut Copy, Postal Service, La Roux, Lady Gaga. Some I like, some I dislike, but none of them are really synth pop to me. It’s kind of like hearing that Jimmy Eat World is an “emo” band, when the original usage of the term was for bands that actually had earnest emotional conviction in their music. Yes, the 80's synth pop acts used synthesizers (but let's not forget that other instruments were used too; tasteful insertions of guitar were quite common), but more importantly, they forged a philosophy from synthesizers. Dashboard Confessional might reference emotional states (and so did the Beatles!), but the music does not seem emotive enough to warrant the emo label. Similarly, Postal Service might use synths to make their songs, but they don’t labor over those tones and textures like the old bands did. Their bleeps and bloops lack the blood and guts drawn from a group who exalts the synthesizer as the de facto medium of their artistic personalities.
It is true that, like Depeche, many of the old groups are marked by an outmoded pursuit of futurism. This perhaps adds to the charge of synth pop being dated. But it’s no more dated than the blissed-out idealism of late 60’s psychedelia. In truth, the groups’ embrace of new technology as the sound of the future granted them an exciting energy that many of their contemporaries lacked. In the music is the sense that anything is possible. Even if the songs are cold, detached prophesies of a dystopian future, they are performed with the relish of artists fully immersed in the narrative of their new sound. To me, this electric, naïve grandeur is akin to the freewheeling energy of 1950’s rock’n’roll tracks. Sonically, the styles are miles apart, but both contain a vitality that is almost primordial.
To that end, the only band currently labeled "synth pop" who I feel is worthy of inheriting the throne is the Knife. They don't sound like any particular classic synth act (although Gary Numan sometimes comes out in their textured drones), but they have that same spark, that total committment to the philosophy of their sound, that made synth pop more than just a gimmick. Others, such as Patrick Wolf and Bat for Lashes, don't showcase synths enough to warrant the label, but they have an approach to their art that belies a reverence to the classic synth pop pantheon, and so I give them honorable mention.
These other bands can use all the synths they want, analog or digital samples, and Lady Gaga can talk all she wants about celebrating "plastic." But unless they can take that shit to new, unexplored terrains of expression, they're just like the 90's swing revivalists--a stiff historical reinactment of a happening that was once dangerous, thrilling, and alive.
The Magnetic Fields perhaps provide an interesting point of transition. Their early albums can easily be called synth pop, and clearly take lessons from bands like Yazoo, but it seems wrong to say that they offered analog dreams of a digital age. They are hallucinatory, fractured, wounded yet sugary ready-made confections. Perhaps they tap into a self-conscious disposability that early synth pop acts don't articulate in quite the same way.
ReplyDeleteYes, early Fields are a special case. nostalgia is such a big part of Merritt's entire catalog, including these early albums, that older icons like Phil Specter and Irving Berlin are invoked even in the Field's synth pop tunes.
ReplyDeleteThey don't have the same sense of forward-thinking adventurousness as the classics, but still, they fully and deeply embraced all things synthetic, including the woozy buzzes of old synthesizers.
They're kind of in class of their own.
Or they were, until they turned into boring vaudeville pop.