Three Tune Tuesday - three ages of electronic music

Hi Invisibles of the night!

In this episode of Three Tune Tuesday -- a format originally brought to us by @ablaze -- I wanna talk in a very simple way about the evolution of electronic music.

The development of instruments that use electrical energy to generate sound waves dates back to the late 19th/early 20th century with the invention of the first rudimentary instruments including the theremin.

The first synthesizers

Pete Townshend, guitarist and composer from The Who - source

Starting in the 1950s, some American companies began to develop prototypes designed specifically for making music. Perhaps the most famous company in this field was Moog.

Consider that in this period the digital world was practically non-existent, so these instruments worked in a totally analogue way, exploiting the oscillations of the electric current through the study of specific electrical circuits which generated different types of sounds based on how they were connected and how the passage current was changed during their use.

The first musicians to experiment with this type of sound were often those belonging to the progressive rock genre, among which we can certainly mention Genesis and Emerson, Lake & Palmer. But I think the most popular example of the use of synthesizers is by The Who in their album "Who's Next", especially in the song Baba O'Riley

At that time, the early 70s, other projects were working in the background on composing songs completely based on the sound of synthesizers. And when that sound was finally well defined, we have the publication of the first true cornerstone of electronic music: Autobahn by Kraftwerk.

Now, I would need another whole post just to talk about this amazing band (and someone here already did it), so I'll gloss over their work for now to move on to the next era of electronic music...

The 80s and dance music

source

With the advent of drum machines and samplers, electronic music found widespread diffusion in dance genres and in the nascent hip hop movement. Just think that even in some disco funk songs you can find bass lines played with synths instead of bass guitar.

In this period the first experiments with samples and loops were born, conducted mainly by DJs who created the musical bases to allow the first street rappers to express their anger.

The combination between drum machines and new types of synthesizers -- with the Roland company taking over the market, see the Roland TR-808 and the Juno series -- also enters pop music and is the basis of the composition of bands that break through the charts, certainly Depeche Mode among them all.

If I say Depeche Mode, pop music and synth in the same sentence probably the first song you may think is "Just can't get enough". But I think it has more sense looking for songs from their 3rd album and after, as they abandoned that sweet plastic pop chart sound and found their true identity, sliding into a darker and almost industrial side. Also, in songs like "People are people", you can clearly hear the combination of synth parts with samples of real life sounds and noise.

What usually happens when experimenting is that we push ourselves towards more aggressive and alternative sounds, which often no longer match the pop taste but they contribute to create new genres for some niche...

The 90s: techno, house and much more

What could be considered niche genres at the beginning of the 90s are now among the most popular.
Techno and house were born in the 80s but had their boom in the 90s thanks to artists like Daft Punk, Moby, Massive Attack, Chemical Brothers and Prodigy.

From what we know now, I could put each of these artists in their specific genre and each of them represents a pioneer in their field. But we must consider how electronic music could be seen at the beginning of the 90s: a nascent, highly experimental scene, enclosed in a large container of people playing with samples and synths to find the most particular sound possible.

The possibilities were endless, despite the still limited equipment, and so each of these artists was able to push their musical composition in their own personal direction, expanding the knowledge of what was possible to achieve from these machines.

There's no way I can talk about the electronic music scene of the 90s just in these few lines, because there was so much diversity that every genre would need a post itself.
But what surprises me is how projects like The Prodigy actually became so popular, proof of the fact that, among the mass of people, even the most aggressive and extreme genres find a large audience. Maybe even people who are used to listening to mainstream radio sometimes appreciate some more edgy music... to let off some steam 😈

Thanks for your attention and for reading till the end! 😁
Do you listen to some of these bands? Are you a fan of the electronic genre? If yes, what's your favorite part, musically speaking? Let me know in the comments, keep up the conversation!

As you may know I make electronic music, specifically in the coldwave/industrial rock genre. If you are curious you can find out more by visiting my website harbiter.com or following me on Instagram HERE