Coming soon. Synth-Pop and Its Repercussions
- Editor: Stahl, Geoff
- Editor: Zuberi, Nabeel
Coming soon. Synth-Pop and Its Repercussions
- Editor: Stahl, Geoff
- Editor: Zuberi, Nabeel
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About
This collection explores synth-pop’s sounds and its hooks, new technologies and production techniques, its media and imagery, its ideologies and discourses about art and culture, society and politics.
Synth-pop is a loose rubric that includes DIY electronic music, post-punk and sounds shot through with the tropes of futurism and dystopia during the Cold War and early neoliberalism that Mark Fisher has called "the eerie.” Synth-pop also refers to melodic hits and chart toppers such as those by a-ha, Bronski Beat, The Buggles, Eurythmics, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, Visage and Yazoo. This book covers synth-pop broadly defined, considering everything between its most rough-hewn and naive forms to its glossier, sophisticated incarnations.
This collection follows synth-pop’s international circuits, not only in the UK and the US, but in Poland, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, India, and through migrations and diasporas; and it opens up local, national and transnational developments and influences with critical and interdisciplinary approaches from musicology, media studies and cultural studies, among others. The volume brings together contributions that critically examine synth-pop in relation to the histories of music genres, gender, sexuality, race, class, the human, technology and politics.
Contents
- Introduction: Just Can’t Get Enough: Synth-Pop and its Repercussions
- Geoff Stahl, Nabeel Zuberi, and Holly Kruse
- Part 1: Prototypes and Precursors
- 1. Towards Tomorrow: Electronic Library Music in the 1960s and 1970s
- Elodie A. Roy, Glasgow School of Art, UK
- 2. Hot Butter Covered “Popcorn”: The Durability of a Plastic Pop Phenomenon
- Geoff Stahl, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand
- Part 2: Synthesising Sounds
- 3. Are Hooks Electric? The Synth as a Hook in Synth-Pop Hits (1978-1983)
- Jadey O’Regan, University of Sydney and Tim Byron, University of Wollongong, Australia
- 4. ‘We Came to Dance’: Synth-Pop and the 12-inch Single
- Adrian Renzo, Macquarie University, Australia
- 5. Constructing New Authenticities in Synth-Pop by Music Technology: Drum Machines and Grooves on the Grid
- Robert Michler, Bern University, Switzerland
- 6. Synthestalgia: Ideology and Aesthetics of Synthesizers in Software and Hardware Recreations
- Pat O’Grady, Australian National University
- Part 3: Politics
- 7. Are ‘Friends’ Electric: Class, Control and Technological Determinism
- Hussein Boon, University of Westminster, UK
- 8. Atomic: Synth-Pop and the Aesthetics of Nuclear Armageddon
- Stephen Hill, The Borgate School, UK
- 9. Spanish Synth-Pop, Radical Ideology, and Electronic Punk: The Techno-Anarchism of Aviador Dro.
- Antonio Pineda and Jorge David Fernández Gómez, University of Seville, Spain
- 10. Black Celebration in Red Prague: Depeche Mode in Concert, March 1988
- Ondrej Daniel, Charles University, Prague
- Part 4: Artists
- 11. “Mensch, Natur, Technik”: Technocriticism and Ecocriticism in Kraftwerk
- Giorgos Zoukas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and Georgia Eirini Tserkezi, Independent Researcher, Greece
- 12. The Media Landscape of Synth-Pop in Japan: Yellow Magic Orchestra and Postmodern Culture in Japan
- Yoshitaka Mori, Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan
- 13. Problèmes d'Amour: Alexander Robotnick’s Italian Post-Disco
- Anomaly
- Guglielmo Bottin, University of Milan, Italy
- 14. Patrick Gibson, Systematics, Ya Ya Choral and M Squared: Australian Adventures on the Fringes of Synth-Pop, 1979-83
- John Encarnação, Western Sydney University, Australia
- 15. Ominous Sounds in the Silence: ABBA’s Voyage into Synth-Pop
- Amanda Mills, University of Otago, New Zealand
- 16. Mapping the Pop Terrain: Visuality, Aesthetics, and the ‘Time-Space’ of Duran Duran
- Alison Blair, University of Otago, New Zealand
- 17. “A Sonic Abortion”: The Synth-Pop Debuts of Ministry
- Manuel Neyssensas, University of Nice, France
- Part 5: Spaces, Imaginaries and Circulations
- 18. Two Gendered Spaces of Early Synth-Pop: A Brief Autoethnography
- Holly Kruse, Rogers State University, USA
- 19. Imaginative Geographies Made Concrete: Utopian Pasts, Alienated Presents, Synthetic Futures
- Kevin Milburn, London South Bank University, UK
- 20. Polish Popular Music and Synth-Pop of the 1980s
- Marek Jezinski, Nicolas Copernicus University, Poland
- 21. Beyond Disco: South Asian Synth-Pop from Birmingham and Beyond
- Nabeel Zuberi, University of Auckland, New Zealand
- 22. Generation Blitz: Mapping the Contemporary Global Synth-Pop Ecosystem
- Martin James, Solent University, UK
