Greg Fenton reviews Various Artists – Musik Music Musique: The Rise Of Synth Pop 1979 – Cherry Red Records
The question is: why wouldn’t you love this collection of The Rise Of Synth Pop 1979? Such a brilliant year in music from all corners, including the bit after Punk’s initial, exciting flair, to Two Tone and inevitably to music created primarily on machines. Which not only upended everything that preceded it but also caused turmoil within the conventional rock establishment – another welcome shake-up of the process. You can also hear the threads of European music, which in turn, influenced what was happening in certain American cities, feeding into the next revolution in Dance Music.
Spanning three cd’s, this delicious selection features such invaluable names that they are too plentiful and influential to break down into single figures here. A couple of personal favourites though might be: Yello I.T.Splash, Tubeway Army – Are Friends Electric (obviously), alongside Gary Numan – Cars, Gina X – Nice Mover, Fad Gadget – Back To Nature, Suicide – Dream Baby Dream, John Foxx – Young Love, Thomas Leer and Robert Rental’s incendiary – Attack Decay. The list embraces everything from the sublime to the humorous (not always intentionally), and you get a real flavour of the year compressed into one: the good, the bad, and the ugly included, although thankfully a lot more of the former.
Compiled by Richard Anderson and John Reed. Excellent and highly informative Sleeve notes by Mat Smith.
Release: January 23
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