Listening to the Music the Machines Make - Inventing Electronic Pop 1978 to 1983: Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983

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There are a couple of people who I have come to recognise that they played much bigger roles in this story and in some other stories as well than they are given credit for. But it’s going to take a bit more research in those directions to find out whether there’s a book’s worth of material. One of the things that irked Branson in particular was how OMD were the biggest selling act in the Virgin group in 1980 via the Dinsdisc subsidiary. This had embarrassed him so ultimately he was keen to see Dindisc fall apart so that he could get OMD for the parent company… As it turned out that was the easy part. Then I had to write an actual book! What was the writing process for the book? The book talks about a lot of acts who are basically canon now and many of them are still performing in some form or another. But is there an underrated act for you from this period? One thing that your book does unashamedly focus on which I am pleased about, is that it focusses on the “ pop” in electronic pop… other books about electronic music in the past have been a bit “too cool for school”…

That’s true, I think A-HA are a really important band and yes, they are not in the scope of the book but if they could have been, I would have been delighted to include them because their canon is quite ambitious and wide-ranging. Listening To The Music The Machines Make’ is published by Ominbus Press, available from the usual bookshops and online retailers, except North America where the book will be on sale from 26th January 2023 Overcoming any musical shortcomings through their use of new technology, in January 1978 The Human League demoed their first electronic experimentations. The band that entered their Devonshire Lane rehearsal space in Sheffield to commit those first recordings to tape was a trio of rather earnest young men – Martyn Ware (synthesisers), Ian Craig Marsh (synthesisers) and Philip Oakey (vocals, and owner of a saxophone he had conspicuously failed to learn how to play) – who had come together to realise a musical vision that was entirely their own, and which was in part dictated by a musical proclamation displayed on the wall of their workspace. With the exception of the human voice, only electronic instruments were to be used in the band’s compositions, and ‘bland’ words – and in particular the word ‘love’ – were to be avoided at all costs. I hope it was a nice moment for her. In 1982 I think, she changed papers and went to the short-lived Noise magazine and then Record Mirror… hopefully, that was in recognition of her being a leading light in this particular movement. So none of these things had quite happened with these electronic pop bands and the music press didn’t know what to make of it. So they could choose to either embrace it as the next big thing, or they could reject it, and many rejected it roundly so…It’s the way that Evans weaves and knits these familiar names into such a rich and enormous tapestry that makes the book stand out. It is also done with humour and an affable tone that adds a human touch to the academic … Plus, it’s so bloody lovely to immerse oneself into this utterly fascinating and key period in the evolution of electronic music once again and realise how important it is.”– Louder Than War SL: Have you always been a big fan of electro music? Where did your interest in this music genre come from? I think I was already at least aware of all the bands and artists I cover in the book, but I didn’t know all their music. It’s not a critical book in the sense that I don’t often judge the quality of the music that I write about, but in the course of writing it I did listen to everything I was writing about and that was interesting. But I think it was the events outside the music itself that were the most interesting, like the Musicians’ Union’s attempts to ban synthesisers for fear they were putting ‘proper’ musicians out of work. Did listening to all that music throw up any discoveries for you? Bands or records that you might have missed at the time but which you particularly enjoyed? There are loads out there but it was while reading those that made me realise that those stories didn’t always quite marry up. There are two reasons for it; one is this period started 45 years ago, you’re not going to remember these details. Two, these stories have been told so many times that they lose their resonance and the facts just change a little bit to make everything look better or to fit with someone else’s narrative. But if you are looking for a deeper more analytical approach that seeks to place the music into its relevant political and cultural landscape, as Jon Savage did for Punk and Simon Reynolds did for Post-punk and Glam, then this work will leave you unsatisfied. And the author provides almost no conclusion, with the narrative simply coming to a fairly abrupt end.

ANDY BELL: SAVE THE DATE - ANDY BELL WILL BE IN CONVERSATION AT THE 'LISTENING TO THE MUSIC THE MACHINES MAKE' LONDON BOOK LAUNCH IN NOVEMBER

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS & EVENTS

Martyn Ware – previously of Sheffield experimental electronic act The Future, but by 1978 one of the founding members of The Human League – had already outgrown a series of punk-influenced acts, amongst them the dubiously named, and thankfully short-lived, Musical Vomit and The Dead Daughters. Ware was among the first wave of musicians and non-musicians alike who had come to recognise punk’s limitations while simultaneously embracing and celebrating the new possibilities and opportunities the genre had opened up for them: ‘All the infrastructure around punk we absolutely loved,’ he explained later, ‘it’s just that the actual music we saw as being quite old-fashioned.’ Obviously, I have to say Erasure because I’ve worked with them for so long, but if I put them to one side then maybe OMD. A scroll of chronological, interwoven but often disparate stories featuring every purveyor of synthpop you can possibly think of … a must-read.”– Record Collector

A scroll of chronological, interwoven but often disparate stories featuring every purveyor of synthpop you can possibly think of... a must-read.' Record Collector, 4* That’s absolutely right. There is a brief section at the beginning within the context of the whole book that joins together some of the dots, things that people were taking in their early electronic experiments. Things that Vince Clarke was listening to like SPARKS, things that OMD were listening to like Brian Eno, things that THE HUMAN LEAGUE were listening to like Giorgio Moroder. Including an extensive collection of archive images throughout, Richard Evans’s kaleidoscopic narrative draws on years of research, a plethora of archive press materials and the input of key figures, including Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure), Martyn Ware (The Human League, B.E.F., Heaven 17) and Daniel Miller (The Normal, Mute Records). Listening to the Music the Machines make could be a sequel to Jon Savage’s ultimate U.K. punk bible England’s Dreaming … the defining tome for electronic pop””– The Big Takeover Magazine (USA)

INTERVIEWS

Your book cuts off at 1983 and that’s for the context reasons rather than stopping liking music. But Simon Reynolds said in ‘Synth Britannia’ that it was Howard Jones that made him feel that electronic pop was now no longer special and part into the mainstream… was there a moment when this music changed for you? Martin’s interests include: music cities and future cities; hidden histories of late twentieth-century alternative music - specifically punk, post-punk and electronic music; and also music journalism in the UK and US printed and online music presses. His current research projects explore the cultural economy of key cities, the role of music in future cultural growth, and the place of music archive in the creation of a cultural city identity. Cleverly combines impressive research with an effortless and enjoyable readability, and is surely destined to become the definitive final word on this subject.”– The Afterword

I looked at all the records I wanted to talk about and at the beginning, there’s relatively few. But the important ones for me were THE NORMAL ‘TVOD’ / ‘Warm Leatherette’ and THE HUMAN LEAGUE ‘Being Boiled’. In fact, ‘Being Boiled’ was my key one and an early version of the book had the subtitle ‘From Being Boiled To Blue Monday’; I thought that sounded quite snappy and explained what the book covered. But then Daniel Miller said to me “You do know ‘TVOD’ / ‘Warm Leatherette’ came out before ‘Being Boiled’?” *laughs*A few weeks ago I saw Front 242’s concert in London which I think I was supposed to see in 2020 and which had been rescheduled four or maybe five times before it finally happened. It was a great show though. And I’m off to see Blancmange next week which I’m looking forward to as I really like their new album. As for a concerts wish list, I never saw the Eurythmics so I think they would be top of the list for me. Such was the band’s enthusiasm for ‘My Sex’ that they used it as the B-side on the debut Ultravox! single ‘Dangerous Rhythm’ when it was released in February 1977 to a broadly enthusiastic critical reception. Sounds archly proclaimed the release as their ‘Debut Single & Eno Production of the Week’, noting that the ‘Rich emetic bass, precise Ringo drums, synthesiser cascades and Eno’s hand in the production make this the best and most confident debut single since ‘Anarchy’.’ The media’s insistence on allocating swathes of praise to Eno, however, was a situation which would increasingly irritate the band over the course of the Ultravox! album project, given that they had decided against using the bulk of their co-producer’s work on the finished record. That said, even Warren Cann would later concede that Eno’s name ‘did help bring about some attention that might not otherwise have been paid to us concerning that first album, but it had never been our intention to do that’. Further inspirational cornerstones came from the dancefloor, and were rooted in the precision electronic sounds coming out of Germany: from Düsseldorf the stark electronic purity of Kraftwerk, and in particular their 1977 album Trans-Europe Express; and from Munich the dance-floor sheen of disco, courtesy of Giorgio Moroder, whose pulsing beats underpinned Donna Summer’s epic ‘I Feel Love’ among others. After 1984 and then into the new decade, a lot of people were trying to kill off electronic pop, especially around Britpop but was there a point later, and this might tie in with Remember The Eighties, when you thought “this stuff has value and people are liking it again”, that there might actually be a legacy? Music is always evolving from one thing into another, and it’s a very interesting process to read about. Richard’s book is a thorough, well-executed delight for fans of the electronic music genre and puts together all the pieces of information which you possibly already knew in the correct sequence, with myths dissolved and facts confirmed. It draws on actual reality from the time it happened rather than myth and misinformation and is a highly researched report of the music that machines make.