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1970s early synth music appreciation thread

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  • 09-04-2018 07:41AM
    #1
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,985 ✭✭✭✭


    There is a serious bias here towards 1990s and 2000s electronic music, and don’t get me wrong, I love stuff like The Prodigy, Orbital, Chemical Brothers, Boards of Canada etc.

    But am I the only one who has a real appreciation for the pioneers of early synthesizer music, like Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder, Vangelis and others? They paved the way for 80s synth pop and later on, techno. Some of their stuff was amazing for its time.

    Here’s a Kraftwerk track from their seminal 1974 album Autobahn. Way way ahead of its time and might amaze some people what was possible with the Moog and ARP synthesizers back in 1974.


    Kraftwerk - Kometenmelodie 2 (1974). Released 44 years ago this month.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlHFlrXZmKQ


    Feel free to post up your 1970s electronic/synth music here.:)


«1

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    #2
    francois
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭francois




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    #3
    francois
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭francois




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    #4
    francois
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭francois




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    #5
    francois
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭francois




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    #6
    francois
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 3,765 ✭✭✭francois




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    #7
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,985 ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Great to see this thread develop in a forum that has for far too long ignored the massively important pioneers of early synth music.

    Just listen to Donna Summer’s classic I Feel Love, produced by Giorgio Moroder and tell me that this was just mind blowing for 1977. The pioneers of electronic music are very very important.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2qI6UDD2uQ


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    #8
    Doge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,660 ✭✭✭Doge


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiZGti2eykk


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    #9
    Stab*City
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,413 ✭✭✭Stab*City


    This guy was doing it 10 years before any of them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSRCemf2JHc


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    #10
    Tenshot
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 649 ✭✭✭Tenshot


    The entire Stuntman album is great; this is my favourite track (esp from about 5:50):



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    #11
    Doge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,660 ✭✭✭Doge


    Stab*City wrote: »
    This guy was doing it 10 years before any of them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSRCemf2JHc

    Boiler Room 1969! :pac:


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4E7BLSSLgtw


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    #12
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    Class thread. I write a lot of late 70's/early 80's style synth, so this is a nice little vault for finding new/old influences.


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    #13
    CrankyHaus
    Closed Accounts Posts: 2,280 ✭✭✭CrankyHaus


    Yeah great thread!



    Gangstarr and Futurama influence.


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    #14
    Doge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,660 ✭✭✭Doge


    Grayditch wrote: »
    Class thread. I write a lot of late 70's/early 80's style synth, so this is a nice little vault for finding new/old influences.

    Have you any links to your stuff?


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    #15
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    Doge wrote: »
    Have you any links to your stuff?

    I hope it doesn't mess with the thread, but yeah :)

    Dystopiate
    Beyond
    As One

    Back to the good stuff though, Goblin are always considered prog rock but this is some synth gold.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pins1y0XAa0


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    #16
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZtWTUt2RZh0


    Even Coldplay couldn't ruin this for me :)


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    #17
    Doge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,660 ✭✭✭Doge


    Love the 2nd part of this:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0hg_9fLcIk



    It was actually sampled by Jackpot and turned into a more DJ friendly kind of track:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3d_96woABY



    The soundtrack to the Last Ninja 2 had 2 tracks heavily inspired by them too, this is the more obvious one:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9Asl7O1RC8



    And the less obvious one:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBeiRu6CquA



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NGfH5QRSyc


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    #18
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    I still Listen to The Last Ninja soundtrack. I think Matt Gray re-recorded loads of his soundtracks for a kickstarter style thing and they did really well.


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    #19
    Doge
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 9,660 ✭✭✭Doge


    Grayditch wrote: »
    I hope it doesn't mess with the thread, but yeah :)

    Dystopiate
    Beyond
    As One


    Very nice stuff man! Sounds very polished and layered beautifully.

    Nothing wrong with sharing 70s/80s style music in a 70s/80s music thread. ;)


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    #20
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    Thanks! I just don't wanna be 'that' guy, haha.


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    #21
    Grayditch
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 14,347 ✭✭✭✭Grayditch


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHZZaC4sfjU


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    #22
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,985 ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Kraftwerk - Neon Lights (1978). Bloody amazing for 40 years ago.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqmGZ_6LaUw


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    #23
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,985 ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    T.O.N.T.O.’s Expanding Head Band - Timewhys (1971) They subsequentlybwent on to produce some of Stevie Wonder’s finest material in the 1970s, with heavy use of their synthesizers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDBLgFV69Vk


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    #24
    bodhrandude
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,332 ✭✭✭✭bodhrandude


    Click Switch Doctor Tim Blake, keyboardist formally of GonG and current member of Hawkwind, Crystal Machine and Blake's New Jerusalem should be in your collections too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Blake

    If you want to get into it, you got to get out of it. (Hawkwind 1982)



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    #25
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Here you go. Mesmerising, haunting, brilliant...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfDskFjPZqM


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    #26
    lardzeppelin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 64 ✭✭lardzeppelin


    Handy thread, the 70s was a proving ground for where synthesis could go in music, and along with the names mentioned, others such as isao Tomita, Eddie Jobson, Larry Fast, Roger Powell, who were innovators both musically and in terms of technology... Tomita and Fast were not far behind Bob Moog with technology in music, Powell was chief demonstrator for ARP instruments as well as being the keys virtuoso for Utopia, and EJ was the man who in UK pretty much made us all want polyphonic portamento (yamaha cs80, the bane of every keyboard roadie)...
    Tangerine Dream, Triumvirat and the Eloy were showing us that Germany was as healthy in its musical experimentation as the best of England and America...
    And before I clock out... PINK FLOYD - on the run...might just be the best thing a vcs3 ever turned out...


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    #27
    Arthur Daley
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,120 ✭✭✭Arthur Daley


    Steve Davis DJ set introduced me to this little nugget.



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    #28
    bodhrandude
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,332 ✭✭✭✭bodhrandude


    Don't forget Brian Eno's involvement with Talking Heads and David Bowie.

    Check out Sense of Doubt and the following two tracks after from Bowie's Heroes, class soundscape synth areas. Also check out Eno's collaboration with David Byrne in 1981's My Life in a Bush of Ghosts.





    If you want to get into it, you got to get out of it. (Hawkwind 1982)



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    #29
    jiltloop
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,293 ✭✭✭jiltloop


    Eno's contribution to Roxy Music's first 2 albums was also very innovative and I'm sure would have been quite exciting music at the time (I unfortunately only discovered it relatively recently as it predates me!)

    Another gem mentioned by Francois above who was even around before the 70s was Silver Apples, Simeon was the musical genius who experimented with a synthesizer which he largely devised himself and made some very groundbreaking music that probably isn't widely recognized as much as it should be today. Truly pioneering music.


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    #30
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 22,384 ✭✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    2 giants of the synth world from the very late 70s, Sakamoto and Numan...2 bona fide classics...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nch0Qj_bEDI


    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaF9KTH0SEg


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    #31
    JupiterKid
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2, Paid Member Posts: 14,985 ✭✭✭✭JupiterKid


    Another 1970s synth classic number - Dream Weaver by Gary Wright (1975)



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