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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.
March 1983, Rome: Paul Mazzolini (Gazebo) with Pierluigi Giombini. #1 Germany for 6 weeks, plus the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and Japan - 8M copies. UK and US never noticed. Yamaha CP-80, Jupiter-8, LinnDrum; the melody echoes Chopin's Prelude Op. 28 No. 7 - heirs considered suing in 1985.
Trevor Horn was born 15 July 1949 in County Durham. By 2024 - 34 UK #1s, 3 Grammys and 9 Ivor Novellos. From Buggles' “Video Killed the Radio Star” (1979) through ABC, ZTT with Frankie Goes to Hollywood to Seal's “Kiss from a Rose” (1994). The “studio as instrument” method shaped 80s production.
June 1986: Moroder and Tom Whitlock write a ballad for “Top Gun”. Moroder first offered it to Donna Summer and Linda Ronstadt - both said no. Third pick - Terri Nunn of Berlin at $40,000. By September - Billboard and UK #1, soundtrack 9M copies. 1987 Oscar - Moroder's third. Berlin fell apart in 1987.
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 1983: the second Thriller single. 7 weeks #1 Billboard. Quincy Jones wanted to cut the 29-second intro - Jackson refused. 91 vocal takes, Steve Barron's $250K video broke MTV's “no-Black” wall.
June 1979, New York: #1 Billboard for 6 weeks, 5M copies. Bernard Edwards plays an E-D fingerstyle riff on a Music Man StingRay through an Ampeg SVT. Sugarhill Gang copied it on “Rapper's Delight” - the first hip-hop hit. Queen paraphrased it on “Another One Bites the Dust”. 1,900+ samples by 2024.
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.
December 1982, Hamamatsu: Roland ships the TB-303 as “an automatic bass guitarist”. A flop - 10,000 units in 18 months, discontinued in 1984, leftovers dumped at $50-100. In 1987 Chicago's Phuture, working without the manual, cranked the resonance and stumbled on the “acid” sound. Today - $3,500-5,500.
January 1980, San Rafael: 25-year-old Roger Linn ships the first drum machine with digital samples of real drums. $4,995, Intel 8048, 12 voices, 8-bit. Prince owned ten and cut Purple Rain on them. In four years - 525 units sold and the sound of an era; Linn went bankrupt in 1986 and Linn moved to Akai to design the MPC60.
Musicland Studios ran from 1969 to 1992 in the basement of Munich's Arabella hotel - no windows, no daylight. Moroder cut Donna Summer, Queen, the Stones and Led Zeppelin here. And in 1977 he invented Moog↔MC-8 CV/Gate sync here - the MIDI prototype, ten years early.
April 1983, Rome: Discomagic Records issues the single by Milan's Fabio Roscilli as Ryan Paris. Producer Pierluigi Giombini reuses his “I Like Chopin” template: piano intro, Jupiter-8 bass, LinnDrum, 118 BPM. Summer at UK #5, #1 Germany, 2.6M copies.
June 1985, Milan: EMI Italiana drops Baltimora's debut. Front of the band - 28-year-old Irish dancer Jimmy McShane. By 1986 - #1 Italy, UK #3, US #13, 3.2M copies. But McShane wasn't singing: every lead vocal was tracked by producer Maurizio Bassi himself. The public didn't know until 1993.
February 1984, Milan: 25-year-old Raf writes “Self Control” with Bigazzi. In six weeks - #1 Italy, Switzerland, Austria, France. In April Laura Branigan buys the English rights for $45,000 and her cover hits Billboard #4. William Friedkin shoots the video; MTV pulls it for being “too sexy”. Both versions top-5 at once.
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.
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