Synth-Pop
Synth-pop is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s, it features the synthesizer as a dominant musical instrument.
Birth: 1980 Bloom: 1985
Synth-pop has recognizable stylistic features unlike other contemporary synth tracks.
Often synth-pop is named as electropop, but electropop is synth-pop`s subgenre that became popular in the early 80s and was related to post punk of new wave. In the 1980s the synth-pop music scene was enriched by a number of artists, but mostly they weren`t noticed in the USA when they had a great success in Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Synth-pop is also popular with gothic and industrial music where artists performing dark electronic music and EBM are attributed to synth-pop. Moreover, in the 00s electroclash became popular. The style was based on the `80s synth-pop stylistics in a combination with contemporary sound effects and punk rock lyrics.
Early synthpop pioneers included Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and British bands Ultravox and The Human League; the latter largely used monophonic synthesizers to produce music with a simple and austere sound. After the breakthrough of Tubeway Army and Gary Numan in the British Singles Chart, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Depeche Mode in the United Kingdom, while in Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra`s success opened the way for synthpop bands such as P-Model, Plastics, and Hikashu. The development of inexpensive polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI and the use of dance beats, led to a more commercial and accessible sound for synthpop. This, its adoption by the style-conscious acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV, led to success for large numbers of British synthpop acts, including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, in the United States.
Deriative styles: Chillwave, Electroclash, Indietronica, Spacesynth, Synthwave
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