Science Fair Project Encyclopedia
Synth pop
Synth pop is a style of popular music in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. While it might be argued that most current popular and commercial music in the industrialized world is realized via electronic instruments, synth pop has its own stylistic tendencies which differentiate it from other music produced by the same means. These include: the exploitation of artificiality (the synthesizers are not used to imitate acoustic instruments), the use of mechanical rhythms and "feel", the use of vocal arrangements as a counterpoint to the artificiality of the instruments, and the use of ostinato patterns as an effect. Synth pop song forms are generally the same as in "regular" pop music. Lyrically, synth pop has an affection for science-fiction themes.
Synth pop is sometimes referred to as electropop although electropop is generally regarded to be a particular style of synth pop that flourished during the early 1980s most closely associated with the post-punk New Wave music scene.
Several of these bands in the 1980s were quite successful. None of the newer acts have had more than a modicum of commercial success in the United States, although some have done very well in Europe, South America, and/or Asia.
Synth pop is increasingly used in gothic and industrial circles to describe various dark electronic artists, particularly those in the electronic body music and futurepop genres. It is otherwise generally used in its more classic sense, referring to early 1980s synthesizer driven pop acts (e.g., Depeche Mode, Erasure) as well as a variety of New Romantic pop acts from the same era (e.g., Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet).
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Representative artists and ensembles
1980s
- a-ha
- Alphaville
- Bronski Beat
- Camouflage
- Dalida
- Thomas Dolby
- Depeche Mode
- Erasure
- A Flock Of Seagulls
- The Human League
- Howard Jones
- New Musik
- Level 42
- Men Without Hats
- New Order
- Gary Numan
- Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
- Pet Shop Boys
- Real Life
- Talk Talk
- Telex
- The Units
- Winston Tong
- Yello
1990s and thereafter
- Apoptygma Berzerk
- Assemblage 23
- B! Machine
- Blue October
- Brave New World
- Colony 5
- Covenant
- De/Vision
- Distorted Reality
- Echo Image
- Echoing Green, The
- Faint, The (post-Media)
- Faith Assembly
- Fischerspooner
- Freezepop
- Glow
- I SATELLITE
- Intuition
- Iris
- Joy Electric
- Ladytron
- Melotron
- Mesh
- Monolithic
- Neuroactive
- Neuropa
- The Postal Service
- The Nine
- Spray
- S.P.O.C.K.
- Umilenie
- Vespin Love Kit
- Voice Industrie
- VNV Nation
- Wave In Head
- Wolfsheim
See also
- New Wave music — One of the main influences on modern synthpop
- Electroclash — a 1990s - 2000s take on synthpop
- Electropop — cold robotic analog synth pop music
- Futurepop — EBM with stronger synthpop influences
External links
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