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Sign upBritish and European synth-pop - relatives and neighbours of Italo Disco.
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February 1990: lead single from Violator. UK #6, US #8. Martin Gore wrote it as an acoustic ballad in Tenerife 1988; Alan Wilder insisted on 112 BPM. Violator sold 15M copies, the band's best-seller. Anton Corbijn's video with Gahan as a wandering king took MTV VMA 1990.
September 1983: Culture Club with Boy George. #1 UK 6 weeks, #1 Billboard 3 weeks, #1 in 16 countries, 10M copies. Best-selling UK single of 1983 and the 9th best-selling UK single ever. Judd Lander's £200 harmonica, video on an 1870s riverboat in Buckinghamshire for $220,000.
June 1987: “It's a Sin” - Tennant's autobiography of 12 years at St. Cuthbert's Catholic school in Newcastle. #1 UK for 3 weeks, US #9, 2M copies. Latin Confiteor at the intro, Derek Jarman's $230K stained-glass video. In 2021 the Netlix series of the same name pushed sales up 450%.
November 1984: SAW's first project. 17 weeks to UK #1 - a record-slow climb. Billboard #11, 6M copies. LinnDrum 132 BPM, Jupiter-8, £15,000 budget. Pete Burns (1959-2016) - Liverpool androgynous vocalist, died of thrombosis after 300+ surgeries. In 2008 Flo Rida sampled him on “Right Round”.
The Yamaha CS-80 (1977) was the most expensive production synth of the 70s: $6,900 then, only 2,400 ever built. Vangelis (1943-2022) owned three and used them on Chariots of Fire (1981, Oscar), Blade Runner (1982), 1492 Conquest of Paradise. Polyphonic aftertouch - its unique feature, never reproduced digitally.
August 1979: first UK synth-pop #1 without a guitar band. Polymoog Vox Humana through a Roland RE-201 - the signature sound. Before “Cars”, Numan played punk in Tubeway Army; a chance Minimoog in 1978 flipped him. 3.5M copies.
November 1983: 70s prog legends drop a single from 90125. By January 1984 - Yes's only ever Billboard #1. The architect of the pivot: Trevor Horn. 16 months at SARM East, a $1.1M budget, the Fairlight ORCH5 stab in commercial pop for the first time. Old fans called the album a betrayal.
January 1979, New York: the fifth Parallel Lines track. Harry and Stein wrote it in 1975 as “a Bee Gees parody”; producer Mike Chapman pushed for a serious cut. #1 UK and Billboard, 4M copies. Drummer Clem Burke refused the disco beat for three weeks before giving in.
March 1977, Düsseldorf: Kraftwerk's sixth album on their own Kling Klang label. Modest #67 UK on release. Five years later the title track becomes the spine of Afrika Bambaataa's “Planet Rock” (1982) - the first hip-hop hit. House, techno, IDM and trip-hop all grow out of that chain.
Late 1979, Sydney: Kim Ryrie and Peter Vogel ship the first commercial digital sampler at $30,000 a unit. A light pen instead of a mouse, 8-bit sampling. Over six years the Fairlight rewrote 80s production - Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Trevor Horn's ORCH5 stab.
November 1982: the Doroschuk brothers from Montreal write a synth-pop protest after pogo dancers were thrown out of Quebec's Club 281. Korg Mono/Poly, Pro-One, Juno-60, TR-808. Tim Pope's Wiltshire video in medieval stylisation with 200 extras in 14th-century costume. #3 Billboard, #1 South Africa, 2M copies.
February 1985: after Bryan Ferry, Billy Idol and Corey Hart all said no, Simple Minds reluctantly recorded The Breakfast Club theme. They added their own “la-la-la” intro and rewrote the arrangement. Result - #1 Billboard, 4M copies, 1.3B streams.
October 1983: Melbourne's Real Life with producer Steve Heathcote drops the first global Australian synth-pop hit. Jupiter-8 unison in the chorus on the BRASS 3 preset (the same Duran Duran used on “Rio”), DX7. #1 Australia and the Netherlands, US #29 in 1984; the 1989 reissue put it back in charts.
July 1983: Pascal Languirand from Montreal, formerly Klaus Schulze's technician, releases a solo synth-pop single on Prophet-5 and Jupiter-8. #1 Canada for 11 weeks, UK #2 after Polydor's 1985 reissue. Italian DJs played it as one of their own - it slotted perfectly into Italo-disco. 3M copies, 110M streams.
March 1985: Roland Orzabal writes what he calls “commercial filler” in three days under producer pressure. Two weeks at Wool Hall: DX7 E.PIANO 1, LinnDrum shuffle, Neil Taylor's guitar. The result - #1 Billboard, 7M copies, 1.9B streams. The band's defining track.
March 1985: Austrian Johann Hölzel with the Bolland brothers releases a rap-pop tribute to Mozart. 22 weeks #1 in Austria (an unbeaten record), Billboard #1 in March 1986 - the only German-language song ever to top the US chart. DX7, Jupiter-8, Fairlight CMI, Linn 9000. 8M copies.
December 1984: Moroder protégé Harold Faltermeyer writes the “Beverly Hills Cop” theme in a single morning on a Jupiter-8 BRASS 2 preset. #3 Billboard, #1 in four countries, 5M copies, 17 chart weeks.
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