Synth-Pop and Its Repercussions
Geoff Stahl editor Dr Nabeel Zuberi editor Professor Holly Kruse editor
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Publishing:12th Nov '26
£90.00
This title is due to be published on 12th November, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
Explores synth-pop across a range of texts, contexts, cultural practices and spaces.
This collection explores synth-pop’s sounds and its hooks, new technologies and production techniques, its media and imagery, its ideologies and discourses about art and culture, society and politics.
Synth-pop is a loose rubric that includes DIY electronic music, post-punk and sounds shot through with the tropes of futurism and dystopia during the Cold War and early neoliberalism that Mark Fisher has called "the eerie.” Synth-pop also refers to melodic hits and chart toppers such as those by a-ha, Bronski Beat, The Buggles, Eurythmics, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, Visage and Yazoo. This book covers synth-pop broadly defined, considering everything between its most rough-hewn and naive forms to its glossier, sophisticated incarnations.
This collection follows synth-pop’s international circuits, not only in the UK and the US, but in Poland, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, India, and through migrations and diasporas; and it opens up local, national and transnational developments and influences with critical and interdisciplinary approaches from musicology, media studies and cultural studies, among others. The volume brings together contributions that critically examine synth-pop in relation to the histories of music genres, gender, sexuality, race, class, the human, technology and politics.
Synth-Pop! Spelling that out already sounds like the fleeting sound of a hi-hat followed by a bass-drum. This book doesn’t indulge in fetishizing another UK national(ized) musical myth of the 1980s. It literally does the opposite: it critically analyzes the political and sonic scope of this phenomenon and maps its imaginaries and spaces globally. Worth reading with a music streaming service open to check out known and unknown bangers while you go. * Giacomo Botta, Researcher in Cultural Urban Studies, University of Turku, Finland *
This outstanding collection provides the first international overview and analysis of the groundbreaking early 1980s synth pop movement. Covering everything from Cold War politics and urban alienation to the allure of the dance floor in synth pop, this book is an illuminating account of an influential genre whose echoes still reverberate in the sounds of contemporary pop. * Theo Cateforis, Associate Professor of Music History and Cultures, Syracuse University, USA *
This is a welcome exploration of musical reinvention, when rock gave way to pop and guitars (so noisy and crude) gave way to synths and sequencers. Taken together, the collection takes the reader on an international journey of discovery. * Matthew Worley, Professor of Modern History, University of Reading, UK *
Synth-pop and Its Repercussions considers not only the diversity of genres and sites where synthesized sound has been embraced but the new soundings that emanated from these, giving rise to new ways of imagining. From the avant garde to advertising, from radio sound libraries to fusion with folk and indigenous music, it brings together an interdisciplinary cohort of scholars who consider the diverse impacts of the synthesizer revolution. Whether at times considered futuristic or at others, retro,Synth-pop and Its Repercussions is a compendium of the embrace of synthesized sound and the wide divergences of meaning attributed to synthesis by audiences and producers globally. * Roshanak Kheshti, Chair of the Center for the Study of Sexual Culture and Professor of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies, UC Berkeley, USA *
ISBN: 9798765122914
Dimensions: 230mm x 150mm x 22mm
Weight: 600g
320 pages