19.05.12

A lazy but widespread criticism of the English synth pop scene of the early 80s was that it was soulless or lacking in human warmth. While there certainly were acts who came across as detached or alienated (Cabaret Voltaire, The Normal, John Foxx) if anything, the opposite was generally true. There is an almost baroque level of (exquisitely judged) romantic melodrama to Soft Cell's 'Say Hello Wave Goodbye'; despite Gary Numan's dead-eyed automaton image, Tubeway Army's 'Are "Friends" Electric?' is quite clearly a very fragile and keenly felt song about heartbreak; and the early releases of Blancmange, Depeche Mode and Eurythmics were torrid with the emotion expressed... no matter how affected the delivery was.

Of course some of this was down to that old chestnut about how real music containing real soul and real emotion was played on real instruments such as guitars and drums. But this is also a confusion between form and content. Sometimes when listening to synth pop I automatically think of a Mancunian friend with a pacemaker who has the demeanour that is common among many of us who are born in the North Western rain shadow area. Once when out with a much more demonstrative European girl from sunnier climes, she asked him: "Is this why you have no emotions - because you have a robot heart?

Source: The Quietus