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Sign upNotes on music, craft, and the era
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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.
September 1985: Dieter Bohlen runs his own template a third time - minor verse, major chorus Am-F-C-G at 118-122 BPM. 5 days at Rüssl Studio, 18,000 Deutschmarks budget. #1 Germany plus four more; the USSR took 10M+ cassettes.
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.
October 1978: failed chansonnier Patrick Hernandez cuts a disco single in one night on an ARP Odyssey. #1 in five European countries, 25M copies by 1980 - the 8th best-selling 70s single. A 21-year-old Madonna danced on his tour.
April 1986: Gabriel knocks Genesis - his own old band - off Billboard #1. Aardman Animations' stop-motion video - 7,450 frames, 16 weeks of filming, 80 hours of Gabriel under glass. Nine 1987 MTV Video Awards (still unbeaten). Kurzweil 250 with shakuhachi, Fairlight CMI, Rick Astley on backing vocals. 5M copies.
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.
September 1980: Liverpool duo Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys name a synth-pop single after the Hiroshima bomber. The BBC refuses rotation; the track still takes UK #8 and #1 in three European countries. £4,000 at Amazon Studios, 2.5M copies - pop's first anti-nuclear hit.
May 1984: Jimmy Somerville with his two co-writers drops the debut on Forbidden Fruit - the first British mainstream group with three openly gay members. Producer Mike Thorne at Hit Factory, Juno-60, Pro-One, TR-606. Somerville's E5 falsetto holds without breaking. UK #3, 1.8M copies - politics arrives in club synth-pop.
The first 1984 version with Bobby Orlando sold 7,000 copies and killed Pet Shop Boys' Bobcat deal. A year later Stephen Hague at Advision Studios rebuilt the track: lower BPM, Emulator II samples, Jupiter-8, TR-909. The result - UK #1, Billboard #1, 6M copies, T. S. Eliot in the lyric.
November 1981: with Human League collapsed, Phil Oakey recruited two Sheffield club girls and cut the track with Martin Rushent on Linn LM-1 and Jupiter-8. Five weeks UK #1 (including Christmas), Billboard #1 July 1982, 6M copies - pop's first gender duet.
September 1979: Trevor Horn and Geoffrey Downes record The Buggles' debut at Sarm East for £18,000. Two months later - #1 in 16 countries, 5.5M copies. Two years later Russell Mulcahy's clip becomes the first ever video aired by MTV - the symbolic start of the era. Jupiter-4, Debbie Harry on backing vocals.
January 1983: the British Buckinghamshire quintet with Limahl - producers Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran) and Colin Thurston. Jupiter-8, a DX7 prototype, Nick Beggs's Chapman Stick, seven weeks at Townhouse Studios. Two months later - UK #1; a year later Limahl is fired and the band falls apart.
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