Before the DX7 Broke It All
If you are at all interested in making music based on analog synthesis, be it real or plug-in—and at this point it really doesn't matter (side note: you just have to have something that you really enjoy the feel of), you need to be paying attention to music, specifically between 1978 and the introduction of the DX7, which turned everything on its head (1983).
A lot of people have vilified this synthesizer for doing that, but things were probably getting pretty thin and it was time for something else to come in. It's amazing how that happens. As soon as the technology gets stale and the C and D teamers come in, something comes and whops it on its head.
For anyone that totally trashes these instruments, I point to Songs from the Big Chair. This was largely a digital album, and it also changed the world. But as I like to say, that's another entry entirely.
Between '78 and the DX7, it was when synthesizers rose up and became affordable enough for everybody, you could still paper-route your way into one.
My own personal experience was with a JX-3P that a friend owned. I had no idea what it did. It just had a few preset buttons, but it sounded amazing. We'd hang out at his house and I'd go home and think about it.
One thing that people don't talk about is that the radio was a huge gatekeeper, and they totally monetized it. Sure, a bunch of people are sentimental about how much better it was—and it was—but you just couldn't hear certain things unless you were listening to college radio. And a lot of us had no idea what the hell college radio was. The term didn't even make sense to me back in the day.
Our saving grace was MTV.
I don't think the more typical American charts paid attention to what was going on, because although a record like Upstairs at Eric's never charted, I didn't know one single person who didn't have the cassette. They also had Moving Pictures, as I did, but no one didn't have that, or the first Depeche Mode record, or really the greatest hits, Catching Up with Depeche Mode, period. Everybody had that as well.
Pre-digital synthesis was also affected by the fact that a lot of these synthesizers only played one note at a time, or were monophonic. Groups like Depeche Mode and Yazoo had to depend on melodies and fundamental notes to get their points across.
Records like Dare, which shook me to my very core at that age, restricted themselves to not using more typical instruments and only synthesis. Now they ran a couple of guitars and stuff through synthesizers, but generally they kept to that rule, period.
I'd point to a record that came out after Dare by a band called The League Unlimited Orchestra, which was largely the producers of the Dare album by The Human League. When you talk about fundamental synth tone, this is a real kind of bedrock touchstone. It's a continual mix and enjoyable all the way through.
I would do it cassette style like the old days. And by this I mean sometimes you'd be driving around with one cassette in your car for a couple weeks or a month at a time.
My parents used to drop me off in the summers at different places, and one of the places was Seabrook, Texas. And once, before I could legally drive, I had just bought Def Lep Hysteria and taped it for the trip. I probably arrived with three tapes, but it's the only one I listened to.
When I got there, I was thrown the keys of a Karmann Ghia convertible and had my way around the area with it. I can't remember if it had a tape deck. I either had that or my Walkman, and I wore that tape out. I didn't listen to anything else.
I made a great playlist a while back focusing on 1982, and it's not just synth. Imagine all this music all coming out in the same year. It's impossible to even think about.
But the main point is, all we had was the music.
These days, you can listen to people talking endlessly about the music, and I think that's what a lot of music makers do. They listen to talk, but they rarely sit and spend time with the music—or at least I don't hear of them doing that.
I'm guilty of this as well, and I'm trying to be super conscious of: am I listening to people talking, or am I listening to music?
I don't know what happens with that talking musically when it goes back into your subconscious, but I sure as hell know what happens to the music. It gets back in there, it gets logged, and then it comes out in some crazy-ass way that you never expected when you're doing your own music making.
That's the gift, and I'm constantly surprised by it. It's one of those things where just when I think I'd know more, I know less.
And with music, I'm happy to know less and less every day.