Synth I Found You

Picture from the Vintage Synthesizer Museum.

It took me while to watch Drive, but I was taken with it.  One, as a fan of film noir, I found this to be an interesting take on the genre.  I especially love dark films set in Los Angeles.  That side of the city is far closer to the surface than the glamorous depictions of it in film.  Two, I was completely fascinated with the music in it, especially Kavinsky’s brilliant “Nightcall”. 

I had no idea what this genre was, so for almost ten years, I didn’t explore it. 

In walks my friend Brennan, who is fourteen and in love with Daft Punk.  We spent hours sitting in my basement listening to music, going back and forth naming artists.  I’d play something he’d never heard, like Depeche Mode and he’d say, “That’s cool.  Kind of reminds me of this song by GUNSHIP.”  And then I’d dial that song up and say, “Yeah, this rocks, I dig it.”

Then I found the 2022 documentary about synthwave, The Rise of the Synths.  This introduced me to The Midnight, NINA, Carpenter Brut and others.  The one thing that stood out to me most in the movie was something that was said by one of the guys in The Midnight.  He mentioned that most everyone in synthwave started out in punk bands and as time went on, they just got tired of band drama and started making music in their bedrooms.  They’re using drum machines to keep time, then next thing you know, the most natural thing in the world is to start adding synths.  You’re using your limitations to create something you never would have created in the traditional two guitar – bass – drums format. 

This resonated with me because I’d discovered this on my own.  I was making music with synths long before I listened to any synth-based music on a regular basis and it was for that exact reason: I was on my own.  However, making music with synths opened my world up to entire genres of music I’d either ignored or overlooked. 

Yes, I am a child of the 80’s.  I grew up with synths on damn near everything.  Perhaps no better example than Mike Campbell’s music that, in the hands of Don Henley, became “Boys of Summer”.  Synths were everywhere. 

Until the 90’s. 

When, more or less by himself, Trent Reznor kept the instruments relevant in popular music.  Yes, EDM came into its own in the 90’s and only got stronger as time passed, but to the masses, Prodigy, Moby, the Chemical Brothers and Fatboy Slim were one-hit-wonders, not the legends of electronic music that they actually are.

Then Drive changed everything. 

Pop music started sounding more like pop music from the 80’s.  Katy Perry was using beats that sounded like she lifted them from the Pet Shop Boys.  While pop music as a whole is still rather formulaic, there is a strong thread of great writing throughout the genre if you know where to look and you can get past the often-terrible lyric writing. 

I challenge you to take a listen to this short playlist I put together.  This is not an exhaustive playlist by any means, just twelve of my favorite songs from over the last year or so (discovered in the last year or so).  There’s a little variety here, genre wise, but there’s a lot of solid songwriting, great vocals and incredible melodies and beats.