What is Synth-Pop?

It’s 1977, Brian Eno is based in divided Berlin making Heroes with David Bowie. On the very first day of the year, Boston-born artist Donna Summer released a track that would have a significant impact on Eno and Bowie’s creative direction with the album, ‘I Feel Love’, an iconic tune of the disco era. Armed with the 7” single, Eno, fuelled with creative inspiration, rushed to the studio and declared to Bowie, “This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next 15 years.” He was, of course, correct. But what was it that made this track specifically so unique? And what sound from it created its own subgenre within pop. That would be its distinct use of synthesizers, and the subsequent synth-pop.

The Birth of Synth-Pop

The synthesizer, according to its dictionary definition, is an electronic musical instrument, typically operated by a keyboard, producing a wide variety of sounds by generating and combining signals of different frequencies. It opened up an entirely untouched sound that would become a cornerstone of the 80s new wave and post-punk movements. However, it wasn’t just any synthesizer that ignited this move towards electronic music. The Fairlight CMI, short for Computer Musical Instrument, changed the game of electronic music. Rising to prominence in the early 1980s, it revolutionised the musical process, with Stevie Wonder using the instrument on his 1979 album Journey Through “The Secret Life of Plants”, where the Fairlight CMI replaced the Computer Music Melodian sampler that Wonder had originally used on the recording. By 1984, Devo were using the Fairlight CMI at the expense of analogue instruments on their debut album Shout, much to the dismay of classical and rock icons.

Synth-pop controversies: from Tony Kaye to Queen

The history of synth-pop, however, is not a straightforward one. Out of the use of synthetic sounds arose a debate between those who welcomed electronic music and those who believed it degraded ‘real’ music made with analogue instruments. The synthesizer was seen as a faux pas for people who considered themselves ‘real artists’, as they argued it made approximations of sound rather than the ‘real thing’. According to an article by MusicRadar, the famous keyboard player, Tony Kaye, proudly denounced the use of synth tech, arguing that rock’s holy combination of piano and Hammond organ was all that was needed to create true artful rock.

As the controversy around synthesizers raged on into the 80s, Queen famously wrote ‘No Synthesizers!’ on the sleeve notes of their early albums. Marking one of the most infamous anti-synth statements of the era. The truth behind this statement is a mixture of misunderstanding and sensationalism. Sounds that critics assumed came about through the use of technology were actually the pure talent of guitarist Brian May, and once the band ran the joke thin, they removed the sleeve note boast and actually began experimenting with synth sounds.

Credit: ‘No Synths! Use of AI in scientific publications’ by Stephen Royle, Quantixed 2023.

Germany and the Synthesizer

Despite rock icons expressing their dismay with synth-pop, others championed the artists who were not afraid to introduce synthetic sounds. Returning to Eno and Bowie in Berlin, it seems almost ironic that Eno discovered synth sounds through an American artist, when electronic music originated in the country where they were recording, Germany.

German-based band Kraftwerk helped pioneer the sound with their iconic 1978 album The Man-Machine (a rather fitting title). With the band being inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, they were credited with being the ‘fathers of electronic music’. The induction ceremony included a video tribute featuring many artists such as, Depeche Mode, LCD Soundsystem, and The Human League, expressing their admiration for the group. Many of the artists featured, in particular those listed, utilised the synth/electronic sounds of Kraftwerk in their works, creating some of the most recognisable albums of the new wave era, such as, The Human League’s Dare, Gary Newman’s The Pleasure Principle, and Depeche Mode’s Violator.

Legacy & Modern Synth-Pop

Despite its slightly tumultuous history, synth pop still rages on in the twenty-first century. Albums such as Tame Impala’s Currents, Magdalena Bay’s Imaginal Disk, and Grimes’s Visions, are all examples of highly successful synth-pop albums released in the past fifteen years.

The previously mentioned album Imaginal Disk, by pop-duo Magdalena Bay, released in August 2024, received 5 stars from NME. The album has been described as avoiding the influence of new music ‘almost entirely’. With much of this sound being credited to its synth-pop edge, which gives the album a sort of timelessness, in the opinion of NME’s Otis Robinson.

This emphasis on timelessness is important for the ongoing use of electronic/synth sounds in modern music. While to some it may feel dated, by just listening to Magdalena Bay and comparing it to The Human League, for example, we can uncover the ever-changing sounds of the synthesizer. In this way, despite controversies and arguably pretentious dismissals of the electronic musical instrument, we have a lot of great music that we have the synthesiser to thank for.

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