Electric Friends of Electric Friends

June 18, 2022 9:30 AM

Electronic pop/dance flourished internationally: Be a Boy, Gina X Performance; Thrash, Cowboys International; Day Breaks, Night Heals, Thomas Leer & Robert Rental; Aurora B., Krisma; Chip 'N' Roll, Silicon Teens; I Need Somebody To Love Tonight, Sylvester; Faites le proton (Inst.), Casino Music; Kameari Pop, P-Model; Margherita (Inst. Hot Edit), Massara; The Visitors (Inst.), Gino Soccio; Alien (12" Disco), Nostromo; Underwater, Harry Thumann. Minimalism too: 1, Galen Herod; Ice Floe, Young Scientist; Have a Good Ride, Pyrolator; Sei Note in Logica, Roberto Cacciapaglia. Trash Theory's Before Are 'Friends' Electric gives a genealogy for high-profile British synth-pop of the year: Electricity (Version II), OMD; Are 'Friends' Electric? Tubeway Army; Cars, Gary Numan. And, technically, it was the year of The New Sound of Music (1979).
posted by Wobbuffet (8 comments total)

I love that this is a post about incredible 1979 music and only slightly touches on the depth of dance floor CLASSICS that were released that year. As a DJ and digger, '79 is the year for so so many tracks. This random list from the internet does a pretty good job at showing the madness: Heart of Glass, Don't Stop Til You Get Enough, Good Times, We Are Family, Rise, Ain't No Stoppin Us Now, Rappers Delight, Found a Cure, I Wanna Be Your Lover, Street Life, Reasons to be Cheerful …………… that's all in the first couple scrolls of that link. On TOP of all the non-dance floor tracks that year.

1979 was it

Great post, thanks!
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:41 AM on June 18, 2022 [4 favorites]

To add some links in, two forever tracks for me from 1979:

Thelma Houston – Saturday Night, Sunday Morning
Fern Kinney – Groove Me
posted by wemayfreeze at 10:44 AM on June 18, 2022 [2 favorites]

What a post Wobbuffet! The other night I listened to the Tubeway Army's Tubeway Army album - so clear and well-formed compared with so much that followed from others, and Gary Numan is still going strong.

1979 is basically a blur for me and music surfaces some good stuff, so thanks.

I've never heard of Pyrolator - and they're still going too. A great new sound.
posted by unearthed at 11:49 PM on June 18, 2022 [1 favorite]

Meanwhile, in the Antipodes...

Models - On
Whirlywirld - Moto
Primitive Calculators - I Can't Stop It (CW: domestic violence themes)
Essendon Airport - The Science of Sound

Not all strictly 1979, but from around that time. Mainly to be found on the excellent Closed Circuits compilation from a few years ago, which is a brilliant buy if you're into really obscure electronic music.

Disclaimer: I am a member of the reformed 21st century version of Primitive Calculators. We sound like that, but also not like that, and boring people want us to sound like it's 1979 so we don't.
posted by prismatic7 at 12:04 AM on June 19, 2022 [3 favorites]

Damn I'm gonna have to make a playlist
posted by cendawanita at 2:29 AM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Empire State Human
posted by Grangousier at 3:00 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

And, come to think of it, there was Marianne Faithfull's The Ballad of Lucy Jordan
posted by Grangousier at 3:10 PM on June 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

It's also a shame that the pioneers Ultravox (with optional !) missed out - they had a release in 1978, and John Foxx's Underpants! wasn't released until January 1980.
posted by Grangousier at 3:13 PM on June 20, 2022 [2 favorites]