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

Product Information

The decision to then bring in Brian Eno to co-produce Ultravox!’s debut album only served to compound those media assumptions, even though the choice of producer had come from the band and not from the label. Foxx had actually approached Eno at Island Records’ creative hub of offices, studios and rehearsal rooms in West London during the negotiations with the label that led to Ultravox!’s signing and, on behalf of his band, had asked Eno to produce their album on the very straightforward grounds that ‘We liked the things he did, because they were unorthodox, and we were very enamoured of things that were unorthodox at the time,’ to which Foxx added, ‘Eno seemed the only salvation – plus the fact that no one else could make head or tail of what we were doing.’ The match was subsequently approved by Island who were keen to have their new signings work with a ‘name’ producer in addition to the then-unknown Steve Lillywhite, who had previously befriended the band and who – using downtime at Phonogram Studios in Marble Arch where he was working as a tape operator – had produced the demos that had contributed to Ultravox! securing their Island deal. In a very real sense, Martyn Ware and his musical peers were among the first post-punks to reinterpret and reshape punk’s stance and DIY attitude for their own purposes. The Human League was just one of an emerging wave of artists rejecting punk’s one-dimensional guitar legacy in favour of replacing traditional instruments with electronic ones in pursuit of creating something entirely new, as Ware would later summarise: ‘What we did is we took the attitude of punk and gave it a different context, i.e. let’s make music that nobody’s heard before.’ Says Richard, “I didn’t really interview people for the book because wherever possible I wanted to use original materials. That means that most of the quotes from artists which appear in the book come from the late seventies and early eighties, while the events I write about were actually happening.

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. It became something quite successful and partly that was because the whole 80s rediscovery hadn’t happened. Like you said, the 80s came with a bad rep at that point in time and imploded quite messily with lots of non-credible aspects emerging and dominating it. It had eaten itself almost. But the timing just happened to be right and all of a sudden, there were PR companies coming to me saying “Thank goodness you’re there!” because they had nowhere to go with these artists they were representing. So they were asking if I would like to interview then and I was like “Yeah! Great!” *laughs* Punk would, of course, continue in one form or another for some years to come – in fact there are those who would go so far as to say that it never really died at all – but by 1978 much of the original spirit of revolution was already spent, and a myriad of commercial punk bands had swept in to fill the vacuum the movement had unexpectedly left behind. Midge Ure, speaking as one who had fallen for punk’s early promise, but by 1978 was eager to move on to new things, would later note, ‘Punk had become high-street fashion, so the ones who had instigated the look, who were in at its very conception, didn’t want to be punks any more. Their little sisters were doing that now.’ My idea for the book was to tell the stories of all the bands and releases of that synthpop generation who took music in a whole new direction. Because of what I do in my working life, I am very fortunate in that I have access to a lot of people who were the original protagonists in this story. So I thought I could get in touch with them and job done. I also have a shelf full of music autobiographies and I’m sure you have too! *laughs*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. A comprehensive and highly readable overview of a once-future … Listening To The Music The Machines Make is well-written: Evans has a warm, savvy approach, long on detail, with good humour.”– MOJO

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. The decision to further embrace the potential of technology was crucial in dictating the trajectory of the band’s developing sound and the sonic shape of Ha! Ha! Ha!. The haul of new equipment included the acquisition of the band’s first synthesisers, amongst them an ARP Odyssey for Billy Currie and a Roland TR-77 drum machine which was operated by Warren Cann, who was unfazed by the new technology threatening to unseat him from the drum stool, and was instead actively mesmerised by the device’s perfect rhythm and tempo. Cann would later describe the TR-77 as ‘entirely unprogrammable’, although through a convoluted system of trial, error, patience and bloody-mindedness he eventually managed to tame the technology ‘By popping the buttons in and out like station surfing on an old car radio’. In the Chair is Martin James is Professor of Creative and Cultural Industries at Solent University.Yes! Lots of terrible clothes, bad beards and long hair, it all seemed very soft and safe! Now when the electronic bands started coming through, they came with this aesthetic with the keyboards and it looked fantastic. But they also had this new look, they were smarter, had these interesting haircuts and they looked so different. For me, the thing that was most marked about their performances was the sound itself. It was something that I’d never heard before, those noises were SO new and SO modern! Not really, if it’s a good story then it’s in the book! One of my favourites though is the time that the Musicians’ Union tried to ban synthesisers for fear that they might put “proper” musicians out of work… MEANWHILE, IN DÜSSELDORF, LESS than forty miles to the north of Conny Plank’s studio, Kraftwerk were preparing to emerge from their own studio, Kling Klang, to launch their new album The Man-Machine. Released just over a year after their influential Trans-Europe Express album, Kraftwerk’s new record was produced by the band’s founding members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider and, upon its release in May, easily asserted Kraftwerk’s dominance of the electronic music arena. The book concludes with a section entitled REACTION which goes on to complete the synthpop story, where bands have been clearly documented as being influenced by the likes of Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Gary Numan etc. It also discusses the techno genre of Detroit, USA, which was directly borne out of the electronic music produced by bands in the era covered here and its importance on contemporary popular culture.

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? Any particular synth related anecdotes that you weren’t able to include in the book? Any you’re at liberty to share with We Are Cult readers? When I get into this discussion with anyone, I always say Virgin because although they were more established and successful commercially later in this period, they did actually take chances with acts like THE HUMAN LEAGUE, JAPAN and SIMPLE MINDS… So the two things in tandem, the bands wanting to make more of a mark and wanting the recognition that came with that, plus Virgin’s financial situation which meant they needed bands to step up and start making more commercial records, was actually a very powerful moment in shaping some of the most important records in Virgin’s catalogue I would say. Drawing on years of research and with exclusive input from key figures – including Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure), Martyn Ware (The Human League, Heaven 17), Dave Ball (Soft Cell), John Foxx (Ultravox), Daniel Miller (The Normal, Mute Records) and Rusty Egan (Visage) – Richard Evans tells the stories of the movement’s underground pioneers and its superstars: from Devo, The Normal, Telex and Cabaret Voltaire to Gary Numan, OMD, Duran Duran and Depeche Mode.

REVIEWS, INTERVIEWS & EVENTS

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. 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 … Highly recommended.' Louder Than War 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. Then I started thinking that it would be great to have one book which told all those stories but which drew from original source materials from the late seventies and early eighties instead of from today’s slightly wobbly memories!

This 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 (…) and is a highly researched report of the music that machines make.” No, I don’t have another book project at the moment. I only actually finished writing this book in July. Naively, I thought you just hand your book in and six months later they hand you a copy. But the process of going through all the edits, the photos, getting the artwork and style right, it’s been quite intense. It’s been quite a challenge to balance it with what I’m doing workwise.A thorough, well-executed delight for fans of the electronic music genre and puts together all the pieces of information together... in the correct sequence, with myths dissolved and facts confirmed' We Are Cult During the pandemic, Richard Evans set out to create a definitive record of electronic pop music during its earliest and most defining era, between 1978 and 1983. Instead of interviewing people with rose-tinted and distorted memories of that period, he instead decided to research the very magazines and publications being created as things happened to piece together an accurate record of the movement as it unfolded in real time. SL: On 6 th November there will be a special event in London to launch your book “Listening To The Music The Machines Make” where you will interview Andy Bell and Martyn Ware (The Human League, BEF, Heaven 17) about their lives in electronic music. We already know about your connection with Andy, but what about Martyn? Have you known him for a while too? Recalling the brief time he had been present during Devo’s recording sessions in Germany, Ultravox’s Billy Currie would later recollect, ‘It wasn’t a great atmosphere. It was peculiar. I mean the singer was on the floor playing with cards, he looked like he was in his own unreal world.’ Although Currie did qualify that opinion with the generous observation that ‘We were in the middle of a tour, so we probably looked pretty strange too.’ 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