Talk:Synth-pop/Archive 1

Text
This is the current text of the article, which I will be removing because it is not correct.

Synth pop is modernized new wave music, with roots stemming from P.I.L. & Depeche Mode.

Two Halves

RE : Awful sense of timeline
I agree there are glaring omissions and undue prominence given to certain acts and events.

I have started makin a revision and dived in at the late 70's early 80's page just to attempt a tidy up and correction.

I removed the entire reference to the Fairlight CMI as it has no baring on synth pop and belongs on the Fairlight pages or the history of electronic instruments. Plus I concur with others about the dubious claims of naked eyes being 'first'

but the whole page needs a rethink and a judicious axe taking to it. I shall make it a pet project for the coming week - input always welcome. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattblackcat (talk • contribs) 22:04, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Awful sense of timeline
This article has an awful sense of timeline, of who came after what, and who was influenced by whom. It's all over the place.

I agree. I think the structure of the article needs to be changed to accurately reflect the timeline. Depeche Mode don't get mentioned until the 90s, and I'd consider them instrumental in the 80s. Johntodd 20:50, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

agreed.depeche mode's speak&spell (1981) and the other Mute record artists defined the early synth pop sound. "just can't get enough" anyone?

Synth pop vs. Synthpop
Is there any particular reason the term "Synth pop" is used as opposed to "Synthpop"? The latter sees nearly exclusive use in my experience. -- Korpios


 * They're both pretty common in mine, and understood to be the same thing - David Gerard 19:48, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
 * There was no such thing as 'synthpop' or 'synth pop' in the 80's. Back then, it was all called technopop. The current meanings of the terms 'Technopop', 'Synthpop' and 'Electropop' are modern terms.


 * I suppose it strikes me as somewhat awkward, for a couple of reasons: similarly named genres (e.g. futurepop, electropop) omit the space, and "synth pop" reads more as "pop with synthesizers" rather than a genre with "its own sylistic tendencies which differentiate it from other music" (from the article). A (completely unscientific) search on Google for the two terms shows "synthpop" outnumbering "synth pop" by nearly 2-1.  -- Korpios


 * 2:1 doesn't strike me as enough reason to fuss about it as yet - David Gerard 21:03, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)


 * Fair enough. I just wanted to raise the issue and get some feedback; I don't suppose there's any sort of authoritative resource to point out which is "correct". - Korpios 21:17, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Not happy with the Definition and the examples
...but I don't want to just hijack the page and change it..

I feel synthpop refers specifically to a certain poppy oldschool sound with a quite mechanical or atmospheric .sound to it.

I'm thinking about something best defined by the following bands. - Jean Michel Jarre - Kraftwerk - the Human League - Depeche Mode - New Order - Elegant Machinery - Erasure - Pet Shop Boys - Book of Love - De/Vision - Michigan - Wolfsheim (maybe, they just don't have that synthpop sound though) - Duran Duran - Kajagoogoo

Discuss? Who are the people writing this article???


 * Synthpop in the eara in which it was coined in the early 80's when I was a teeny bopper

was music <<>>ALMOST INSTANT POP WITH SYNTHESIZERS. IT WAS ACTUALLY A VERY SHORT LIST Depeche Mode OMDTHEY'RE NOT EVEN MENTION ONCE! YAZOO Pet Shop Boys AND OTHERS

NOT Kraftwerk (THEY DESERVE THEIR OWN CATEGORY) New Order (POST PUNK) Book of Love(POST PUNK)

just because it has synth, didn't make it Synthpop. For examples of Synthpop listen to early top 10 hits by Depeche Mode, OMD, YAZOO. For Christs sakes just listen to EARLY sugar bop hits from OMD

You people fail to mention Duran Duran the band that is responsible for bring New wave/New                  romantic/Synth pop to mainstream audience. I've read tons of stuff that Duran Duran made Synth pop more easier to dance to. Listen to the Human league, Omd, Depeche modes 1st album, and Gary Numan. Then listen to them after Duran Durans self title debut. You will notice that Human League, OMD, Depeche Mode, and Gary Numans music became alot easier to dance to. It took New Romantics to make  synth pop alot more easier to. Basicilly almost all New Romantics are also Synth pop except maybe Culture Club, and Spandeau Ballet. Human League, OMD, and Gary Numan become New Romantics themselves.

this page is about synthpop....not new romantics. Duran Duran were not even really synthpop (they had real drums, electric guitar/ bass at the core of their sound) and especially didnt even have that electro beat that made synthpop such a hit in dance clubs and led to italo disco and techno. if u say duran duran made synthpop easier to the masses by making it less synth and more rocky (or roxy music lol)...then we're defenetly going off topic here.

Duran Duran is Synth pop thank you. Espiccally since many people dont consider New Romantic to even be a music genre. They are as much Synth pop as New order who also used guitar and drums. Just because a band doesn't use a orchestra of synths does not mean its not SynthPop. And Seriously who the heck thinks Book of Love isn't Synth pop? They very much are as well as Duran Duran. read up on your stuff on amg.com and other music sites it is noted that Duran Duran brought New Wave to mainsteam audience and personified the music for a mainstream audience. Furthermore it is also said that they made the music more danceable. Listen to the music yourself. Go and purchase The Human League, Gary Numan, Depeche mode and Omd which all had albums before Duran Durans self titled album. Now listen to them after Duran Durans self title debut. There music gets alot more danceable. Also according to this article Synth pop has "mechanical rhythms" Listen to Planet earth it starts wit mechanical rhythms. Rio has Mechanical rhythms in it. Union of the snake has Mechanical rhythms. Seventh Stranger has Mechanical rhythms. Do you need anymore examples because if you do there is alot more where that came from. Synth pop isn't just mechanical rhythms. Its Synth driven Pop music where the syntheiser is just as important as guitar and drums but using the syntheiser to create not only mechanical rhythms but a unique sound that brings something more to the table. Yamchaken (talk) 08:21, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Mattlach 15:48, 2005 Apr 27 (UTC)


 * I agree. Covenant and Apoptygma, etc, do not belong in the synthpop classification.  Dario 05:40, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

The term Synthpop and synth pop'' were almost never used along the 1980s, anyone aged above forty, can witness this fact. I guess it's more a sort of new way to put some artists in the same cathegory or regardless the historical evidence that they were seen as very different in matter of style and genre. Along the 1980s we used the following terms: New Wave, Post-punk, technopop, technorock, electronic rock. Brian W 00:51, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

I see Synth-pop and New Romantics as sub-genres of New Wave. All electronic in nature, all originating in the post-disco era of the Late 70s to the very early Eighties. Would this be an appropriate timeline? --Johntodd 20:47, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I feel like New Musik really should be mentioned. They were pioneers of the poppier side of the genre (gained notoriety in 1979). Scarymuppet 19:18, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge with Modern Synthpop
I agree that the two articles should merge and they should merge into this one (obviously). Since I am not conversant with these genres I will not attempt to do it myself though. __meco 08:34, 23 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I think it should be merged also. Although some bands incorporate EBM, and some are of the "Futurepop" description (label originated by VNV Nation) such as VNV Nation and Beborn Beton, there are still a lot of modernized Synthpop bands out there that associate themselves closely to being inspired by Depeche Mode, Gary Numan and the like. Wolfsheim is the perfect example, they have been around since the late 80's. They in return spawned a lot of bands similiar in style (B! Machine for example). JanderVK

+++++++

It's fine to merger modern synthpop and synthpop. One spawned the other. Perhaps, it should be under the section header '80s and beyond. '80s synthpop inspired the EBM, Futurepop, etc. of today. Modern synthpop is just synthpop made today. - added by Randall Erkelens

Human League not primarily and initially Post-Punk
Other British Synthpop acts began to surface out of the Post-Punk scene, including Gary Numan and The Human League. While this might be true for Gary Numan, it is not for the Human League. They might have been Post-Punk all along, but they were not Post-Punk before they became Synth-Pop. It would have also been pretty hard to become Post-Punk in 1977 when Punk was just up and coming. They were far more Synth-Pop and earlier so (as the Future) than Post-Punk. Otherwise this article has improved, but modern Synth-Pop is described from a very US-centric view. Skraelinger 23:42, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Uh... Punk was up and coming in 1975, and by 1977, Sex Pistols dissolved, and many punks shifted to several other subcultures, such as 2 Tone, Skinhead Culture, New Wave, Mod Revival, Post Punk, Goths and New Romantics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.63.232.54 (talk) 08:45, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Inconsistency between text and label
If the Yellow Magic Orchestra is credited as one of the pioneers of the style, why are only Germany, the US and the UK listed as a "Cultural Origin", given that YMO was a Japanese group? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)
 * Cynically? Because genre articles/categories/lists are fundamentally unstable, as people come and go and alter them without regard to any kind of citation. Specifically? Because someone added YMO some time ago, and didn't bother to update the infobox. --Eyrian 18:56, 2 August 2007 (UTC)

A Different Drum???
Is this really a label worthy of its own unique section? Sentences like "In online discussions the band has said that several thousand copies of that album have been sold" sound like the self-promotion of a small local label. I'd like to hear support for the overall importance of this one label, considering its own Wikipedia entry is barely a stub. Midnightcoffee 04:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

it is the only synthpop label still in existance as far as I can tell. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.80.34.61 (talk) 23:14, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

burning bridges (1983) first to extensively use the fairlight?!
what about peter gabriel's fourth solo album, released september '82? that whole album was built on the fairlight CMI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Gabriel_%281982_album%29 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.133.254.73 (talk) 12:17, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Influence on today's music
I have been listening to the most recent stuff lately and apparently a synth-pop type feel is occurring in some songs..in different music categories that makes almost indistinguishable from each other....Unknowingly...Alt bands like Hellogoodbye, The Killers and rap producers Kanye West and Timbaland have reignited a synth-pop sound in rock and R&B/rap music - even though the phase was already over in the 80s... Listened to the new Chris Brown song, "Forever" and it's almost indistinguishable from the 2006 hit by Hellogoodbye "In Your Arms." Their voices are heavily synthesized...but Brown has more of an R&B feel of course with his voice - but still singing in a neutral tone... I have a whole bunch of 45s from the synth era and I didn't think some of the 80's type music would return - but I guess it did.

19:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

I don't think there's been a decline in synthpop, its just so vastly influencing used these days that it is seldom found in pure form. having said that, bands like Hot Chip, The Knife and Simian Mobile Disco are very well known modern synthpop acts (although the latter two are influenced by other electronic genres aswell). A think the "decline" section is opinionated as pop music never really stopped using synthpop elements, and now hip hop is being influenced heavily by it to (although more in an electropop and house sense). Oh and to the guy above, your taste in music is shit.