1970s early synth music appreciation thread

JupiterKid · 09-04-2018 06:41AM #1

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.:)

francois · 09-04-2018 11:34AM

francois · 09-04-2018 11:35AM

francois · 09-04-2018 11:36AM

francois · 09-04-2018 11:39AM

francois · 09-04-2018 11:40AM

JupiterKid · 10-04-2018 08:34AM

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

Doge · 11-04-2018 01:02PM

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

Stab*City · 12-04-2018 11:48AM

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

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

Tenshot · 12-04-2018 12:14PM

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

Doge · 12-04-2018 12:16PM

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

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 12:19PM

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.

CrankyHaus · 12-04-2018 12:22PM

Yeah great thread!

Gangstarr and Futurama influence.

Doge · 12-04-2018 12:30PM

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?

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 12:41PM

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

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 12:45PM

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

Even Coldplay couldn't ruin this for me

Doge · 12-04-2018 12:53PM

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

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 12:55PM

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.

Doge · 12-04-2018 01:06PM

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.

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 01:08PM

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

Grayditch · 12-04-2018 01:18PM

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

JupiterKid · 04-05-2018 10:12AM

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

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

JupiterKid · 04-05-2018 10:26AM

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

bodhrandude · 08-05-2018 10:06PM

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

18-05-2018 03:02PM

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

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

lardzeppelin · 24-05-2018 09:22PM

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...

Arthur Daley · 24-05-2018 11:13PM

Steve Davis DJ set introduced me to this little nugget.

bodhrandude · 27-05-2018 08:38PM

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.

jiltloop · 28-05-2018 09:48AM

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.

09-06-2018 05:48AM

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

JupiterKid · 13-06-2018 01:35AM

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

1970s early synth music appreciation thread

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