One of the things I love about solipsistic NATION is that I can spend an entire show focusing on a specific genre. Electronic music rapidly mutates into ever new genres so that keeps the show fresh. I can also get reacquainted with established genres like dub or grime, which is always fun. But electronic music encompasses a lot of sub-genres and it is easy to overlook some of them. Take today’s show, which features synthpop. It would have never occurred to me to do such a show until Kevin Thrasher emailed a request for an all synthpop edition of solipsistic NATION.
I was a teen during the 80s so synthpop was part of the soundtrack of my life during those years. While I enjoyed the pop stylings of bands like Flock of Seagulls and Depeche Mode the stuff I really enjoyed was a lot darker and definitely more twisted. Wire, for example, twisted the genre beyond recognition with their album, The Ideal Copy. Alice Cooper kept within the boundaries of synthpop but infected it with his madness with Flush the Fashion.
With year two of solipsistic NATION I’ve decided to have more guest DJs on the show. Who better to co-host this week’s synthpop edition of solipsistic NATION than Mikel O.D. of the Most People Are DJs podcast? Mikel plays a great selection of music on his show but he’s got a special love for synthpop. The fact that he did all the hard work while I got to goof off was a bonus!
- Blaine L. Reininger “Teenage Theatre”
- Gary Numan “Cars”
- Gary Numan “Airlane”
- Thomas Dolby “One Of Our Submarines”
- i, Synthesist “Red Clouds”
- Space March “Time Will Make A Fool Out Of Me”
- Alan Replica “Soul Corruption”
- Minisystem “Madingley”
- The Calculators “Dead Is Dead”
- Any Day In June “Clear”
- Charlie Slick “I Know You Love My Synthesizers”
- Idiots! “Spring Is Here”
- Minisystem “What About Me?”
- FrankMusik “3 Little Words”
- Otto Vector “Take It All Off”
- theSTART “Wartime! (It’s Time 2 Go Now)”