Synth Britannia

0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains some strong language.

0:00:06 > 0:00:10SYNTHESISER PLAYS VARYING NOTES

0:00:11 > 0:00:13Welcome to a time

0:00:13 > 0:00:18when there were no guitars and no drums, just synthesisers.

0:00:21 > 0:00:23It was the 1970s.

0:00:23 > 0:00:26The place was Britain, and our heroes were a maverick bunch

0:00:26 > 0:00:30of young pioneers, obsessed by Kraftwerk and science fiction.

0:00:33 > 0:00:37All across the country, these synthetic dreamers would imagine

0:00:37 > 0:00:40the very sound of the future - yesterday.

0:00:42 > 0:00:47And by the '80s, their dreams would become a reality, as Britain went synth-pop.

0:00:55 > 0:00:59Welcome to a time when machines ruled the world.

0:01:00 > 0:01:03# I stand still stepping on the shady streets

0:01:03 > 0:01:05# And I watch that man to a stranger

0:01:05 > 0:01:08# You think you only know me when you turn on the light

0:01:08 > 0:01:12# Now the room is lit with danger

0:01:12 > 0:01:16# Complicating, circulating new life

0:01:16 > 0:01:18# New life

0:01:18 > 0:01:21# Operating, generating

0:01:21 > 0:01:24# New life, new life. #

0:01:30 > 0:01:33FANFARE

0:01:37 > 0:01:41By the 1970s, we were living in the future.

0:01:41 > 0:01:45Our cities were going space age.

0:01:45 > 0:01:50MUSIC: "William Tell Overture" by G Rossini

0:01:50 > 0:01:56Victorian slums had been torn down and replaced by ultra-modern concrete high-rises.

0:02:09 > 0:02:12Entertainment also looked to the future.

0:02:12 > 0:02:16Our cinema and television screens were full of tantalising glimpses

0:02:16 > 0:02:19of a future that seemed just around the corner.

0:02:32 > 0:02:37Released in 1971, Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange was a futuristic

0:02:37 > 0:02:41and violent vision of concrete Britain that captured the zeitgeist.

0:02:45 > 0:02:51The film's soundtrack was composed by American synth pioneer Walter, now Wendy, Carlos.

0:02:51 > 0:02:55It would have a profound effect on a generation of would-be musicians.

0:03:01 > 0:03:04That was probably a lot of people's maybe first time

0:03:04 > 0:03:06they'd heard electronic music,

0:03:06 > 0:03:08on the score to that film. It made me forever associate

0:03:08 > 0:03:13classical music with people getting their heads kicked in,

0:03:13 > 0:03:15which is kind of a bit strange.

0:03:16 > 0:03:22The soundtrack to Clockwork Orange - fantastic synth sounds in that.

0:03:22 > 0:03:26Big Moog synthesiser that Wendy Carlos used.

0:03:26 > 0:03:29And they were all orchestrated.

0:03:30 > 0:03:34Well, Wendy, who then said she was Walter, I never quite worked out

0:03:34 > 0:03:39what was going on there, was an absolute inspiration, you know.

0:03:39 > 0:03:43The first time we had ever heard that sort of absorbent synth

0:03:43 > 0:03:46bass sound...just raved about it.

0:03:47 > 0:03:50Some of the people who would be future post-punk people,

0:03:50 > 0:03:52would listen to the three or four

0:03:52 > 0:03:56original compositions that Carlos did on that soundtrack

0:03:56 > 0:03:59that were much more sinister and foreboding.

0:03:59 > 0:04:02There was a kind of linkage made there between those sounds and

0:04:02 > 0:04:09the idea of a cold future, a bleak future, and that probably sunk quite deeply into the psyche

0:04:09 > 0:04:11of a lot of young musicians at that time.

0:04:11 > 0:04:15For a generation of electronic dreamers,

0:04:15 > 0:04:19Carlos' soundtrack would offer a glimpse of an alienated synthetic future.

0:04:19 > 0:04:21But the true divine spark

0:04:21 > 0:04:27would arrive on our television screens in 1975.

0:04:27 > 0:04:30Tomorrow's World gave Britain its first glimpse of Kraftwerk,

0:04:30 > 0:04:35a German band who played only electronic instruments.

0:04:37 > 0:04:41ELECTRONIC DRUM BEAT

0:04:42 > 0:04:45They would invade our shores later the same year.

0:04:51 > 0:04:54We played one of our first gigs in 1975

0:04:54 > 0:04:57of our English tour in Liverpool.

0:04:58 > 0:05:03The Wings Over Britain tour was playing the same night in the town.

0:05:03 > 0:05:07That was also the reason why our hall was only half crowded.

0:05:07 > 0:05:09# Wir fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn

0:05:09 > 0:05:12# Fahr'n fahr'n fahr'n auf der Autobahn. #

0:05:12 > 0:05:16All of our posters were stuck right next to the posters of the Wings,

0:05:16 > 0:05:19so it made us proud of course, you know.

0:05:19 > 0:05:20# Die Fahrbahn ist ein graues Band

0:05:20 > 0:05:23# Weisse Streifen, gruener Rand. #

0:05:23 > 0:05:28Amazingly they came to Liverpool in October of '75,

0:05:28 > 0:05:30and I sat in seat Q36

0:05:30 > 0:05:35and witnessed the first day of rest of my life.

0:05:35 > 0:05:39'75 was all the era of long hair and flared trousers and guitar solos.

0:05:39 > 0:05:42And these guys all came out in suits and ties.

0:05:42 > 0:05:47Two of them looked like they were playing electronic tea trays with wired-up knitting needles.

0:05:47 > 0:05:51And I was just...blown away. It really - it was incredible.

0:05:54 > 0:05:57We had no long hair, we didn't wear blue jeans.

0:05:57 > 0:06:00We had suits on, grey suits. Short hair, you know.

0:06:00 > 0:06:02And we looked like the...

0:06:02 > 0:06:06children of Wernher von Braun or Werner von Siemens.

0:06:06 > 0:06:11We saw ourselves as engineer musicians, like that,

0:06:11 > 0:06:15instead of dancing, a voice on stage to arouse the girls, you know.

0:06:19 > 0:06:24The interesting thing afterwards, there was a knock at our backstage door.

0:06:24 > 0:06:28It was a band. They were called Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark.

0:06:28 > 0:06:33And the leader, Andy McCluskey, was really astonished and happy

0:06:33 > 0:06:35that he was meeting us in person.

0:06:35 > 0:06:40And he said, "You know, guys, you have shown us the future!

0:06:40 > 0:06:45"This is it! We throw away our guitars tomorrow and buy all synthesisers."

0:06:45 > 0:06:53In terms of inspiring people to not just have a synthesiser in their rock band,

0:06:53 > 0:06:55but to be completely electronic,

0:06:55 > 0:06:58I think you can never underestimate the impact of Kraftwerk.

0:06:58 > 0:07:02Trans-Europe Express had the same impact on the synth-pop

0:07:02 > 0:07:06as anarchy in the UK had on people who wanted to be punk rockers.

0:07:06 > 0:07:10'Next year, Kraftwerk hope to eliminate the keyboards altogether

0:07:10 > 0:07:14'and build jackets with electronic lapels which can be played by touch.'

0:07:20 > 0:07:25In British music in the mid '70s, the synth was a remote beast.

0:07:25 > 0:07:27Although they would become much cheaper later

0:07:27 > 0:07:31in the decade, a synthesiser then could cost as much as a small house.

0:07:31 > 0:07:37They were associated with rich and technically gifted progressive musicians.

0:07:44 > 0:07:48Until punk came along, you had to be Keith Emerson.

0:07:48 > 0:07:54If you wanted to be in a band, you had to have learned your instrument for at least eight or nine years

0:07:54 > 0:07:56before you would dare come out and play it.

0:07:56 > 0:08:03And it was simply the inspiration of The Damned and The Clash...

0:08:03 > 0:08:06that said, get up and do it, you know.

0:08:06 > 0:08:11Do your best. If it's crap, maybe the simplicity will get you through.

0:08:17 > 0:08:21Whilst the music didn't concern itself with synthesisers, the attitude of the punk movement

0:08:21 > 0:08:27would inspire those with an interest in electronic music to do it themselves.

0:08:27 > 0:08:28# Oh

0:08:29 > 0:08:32# White riot - I wanna riot

0:08:32 > 0:08:34# White riot - a riot of my own

0:08:34 > 0:08:35# White riot - I wanna riot

0:08:35 > 0:08:37# White riot - a riot... #

0:08:37 > 0:08:40All the infrastructure around punk we absolutely loved.

0:08:40 > 0:08:44It's just that the actual music we saw as being quite old-fashioned.

0:08:44 > 0:08:47And I think they had been a bit of a one-trick pony.

0:08:47 > 0:08:51So what we did was, we took the attitudes of punk and give it

0:08:51 > 0:08:56a different context, ie, let's make music that nobody's heard before.

0:08:58 > 0:09:05Across the country, small pockets of experimentation surfaced, inspired primarily by punk and Kraftwerk.

0:09:06 > 0:09:10We were in my studio at home in south-east London.

0:09:10 > 0:09:14One day I opened my e-mail inbox, there were 10 e-mails

0:09:14 > 0:09:17from a very disparate bunch of people saying,

0:09:17 > 0:09:20you've got to go to eBay now and buy this.

0:09:20 > 0:09:22What was Kraftwerk's original vocoder,

0:09:22 > 0:09:27which was being sold on eBay. And it was the one that was used on Autobahn.

0:09:30 > 0:09:34I thought, well, this is the equivalent for a guitarist of getting

0:09:34 > 0:09:37Jimi Hendrix's guitar that was used on Purple Haze or something.

0:09:37 > 0:09:40MUSIC STARTS

0:09:44 > 0:09:46# TVOD... #

0:09:46 > 0:09:51I first got a synthesiser in...1977.

0:09:53 > 0:09:58And I bought a second-hand Korg 700S from Macari's Music Shop

0:09:58 > 0:10:00in Charing Cross Road.

0:10:00 > 0:10:06The thing that pissed me off about punk was you had to learn three chords to be in a punk band.

0:10:06 > 0:10:10If you had a synthesiser, all you had to do was press one key with a finger.

0:10:10 > 0:10:13# I don't need a TV screen

0:10:14 > 0:10:15# I just stick the aerial

0:10:16 > 0:10:18# Into my skin. #

0:10:18 > 0:10:22Advances in technology in the late '70s heralded the invention

0:10:22 > 0:10:26of the affordable synth, costing no more than an electric guitar.

0:10:26 > 0:10:32Daniel Miller used his to form The Normal, an experimental act that supported punk groups.

0:10:37 > 0:10:40Miller drew on the work of English author JG Ballard

0:10:40 > 0:10:44whose Crash was another futuristic vision of Britain.

0:10:44 > 0:10:45# Warm

0:10:45 > 0:10:47# Leatherette

0:10:47 > 0:10:49# Warm

0:10:49 > 0:10:51# Leatherette... #

0:10:51 > 0:10:55I'd just broken up with a girlfriend who I was very much in love with.

0:10:55 > 0:10:58And a friend of mine said, read this book. And I read it,

0:10:58 > 0:11:02and it really had a huge...

0:11:02 > 0:11:05I'm using all these puns, like impact.

0:11:05 > 0:11:08But it did have a huge impact.

0:11:08 > 0:11:11# See the breaking glass in the underpass... #

0:11:11 > 0:11:15It wasn't like science fiction in the sense it was outer space and stuff like that.

0:11:15 > 0:11:20It felt like it was five minutes into the future, and I loved that aspect of it,

0:11:20 > 0:11:24the fact it was so outrageous, but so possible at the same time.

0:11:24 > 0:11:26# Leatherette... #

0:11:26 > 0:11:31Warm Leatherette by The Normal. The Normal was the alias of Daniel Miller.

0:11:31 > 0:11:32# Hear the crashing steel... #

0:11:32 > 0:11:36The lyrics are just a precis of some of the concepts in Crash,

0:11:36 > 0:11:41Ballard's novel, which was about people who have car accidents and find that

0:11:41 > 0:11:48thereafter their sexuality has been diverted and they are obsessed with being turned on by car crashes.

0:11:48 > 0:11:53So you had the lyric like, "The hand brake penetrates your thigh - quick, let's make love before you die."

0:11:53 > 0:11:56# Warm

0:11:56 > 0:11:58# Leatherette... #

0:11:58 > 0:12:00The music was supposed to be visual.

0:12:00 > 0:12:06You know, like driving along a highway with big buildings either side and going into a tunnel.

0:12:06 > 0:12:08There's quite a lot of humour in it really.

0:12:08 > 0:12:11It wasn't meant be apocalyptic or dystopian.

0:12:14 > 0:12:19Miller was one of Britain's first synth poets. And he wasn't alone.

0:12:20 > 0:12:27In the north of England, a bunch of computer programmers dreamt of a similar feature.

0:12:27 > 0:12:29We loved JG Ballard.

0:12:29 > 0:12:33In fact, Roxy had a song, To HB, about Humphrey Bogart.

0:12:33 > 0:12:39And we had a song, 4JG, which was about JG Ballard.

0:12:39 > 0:12:42The Future were a bunch of sci-fi nerds from Sheffield.

0:12:42 > 0:12:47They formed in '77 and played only synthesisers.

0:12:53 > 0:12:58When I bought my Korg 700S in...1976,

0:12:58 > 0:13:02it was the first time there was a monophonic synthesiser

0:13:02 > 0:13:06which you could do stuff with, which was kind of domestic level, entry level, in terms of price.

0:13:06 > 0:13:08It was £350, I think.

0:13:08 > 0:13:11And I remember distinctly thinking at the time -

0:13:11 > 0:13:14I with a computer operator - there was a decision day

0:13:14 > 0:13:18where it was either buy a second-hand car and learn to drive,

0:13:18 > 0:13:22or go and buy this monophonic synthesiser.

0:13:22 > 0:13:26And that proved to be quite a fateful day, because I still can't drive.

0:13:26 > 0:13:29But I've still got that synthesiser.

0:13:29 > 0:13:35This is a Mini-Korg 700S, and was the first affordable synth.

0:13:35 > 0:13:39Fantastic machine. Completely eccentric.

0:13:39 > 0:13:42# Listen to voice of Buddha... #

0:13:42 > 0:13:44They give you a book of patches with it.

0:13:44 > 0:13:49Because it was Japanese, there would be things like Synthy Cat or Funny Frog.

0:13:49 > 0:13:54And you can't follow why it's doing what it does, but it sounds great.

0:13:56 > 0:13:59Usually with a synthesiser, you can get it to do something for you.

0:13:59 > 0:14:02You don't have to be manually good at all.

0:14:02 > 0:14:04That was why we turned to them in the first place,

0:14:04 > 0:14:06cos no-one could learn how do the guitars either.

0:14:06 > 0:14:09We'd all tried. My brother's a great guitarist and he tried to teach me.

0:14:09 > 0:14:12It just hurts your hand. So we use these things.

0:14:12 > 0:14:17You can press a switch on, and they'll do things for about ten minutes. It's quite interesting.

0:14:17 > 0:14:21If you've got a tape recorder, you can put it down, put something next to it and it will sound all right.

0:14:21 > 0:14:26# ..Doesn't mean that she's your better... #

0:14:26 > 0:14:31The day that I joined the band, Martyn came round my house and he had two records under his arm.

0:14:31 > 0:14:36One was Trans-Europe Express, and one was I Feel Love. And he said, "Look, WE can do this."

0:14:36 > 0:14:38I think that was his actual phrase.

0:14:38 > 0:14:41MUSIC: "I Feel Love" by Donna Summer

0:14:41 > 0:14:48We loved all that stuff. The concept albums that Giorgio Moroder did with Donna Summer.

0:14:48 > 0:14:51- (MACHINE-DISTORTED VOICE) - # One, two, three, four, five. #

0:14:51 > 0:14:53We used to play those continuously.

0:14:53 > 0:14:58This wasn't some kind of post-gay ironic thing.

0:14:58 > 0:15:00It's because they sounded great and interesting.

0:15:00 > 0:15:04You were never really sure what the next set of sounds coming up was going to be.

0:15:04 > 0:15:09I Feel Love just didn't sound like any record that had been before.

0:15:09 > 0:15:13It came on the radio, and you couldn't quite believe what you were hearing.

0:15:13 > 0:15:16It was hypnotic, but it was driving.

0:15:16 > 0:15:19# It's so good... #

0:15:20 > 0:15:24Moroder's mood music was the disco single of '77.

0:15:24 > 0:15:29Its success would set the template for the future of the future.

0:15:29 > 0:15:32# I'm in love I'm in love, I'm in love... #

0:15:32 > 0:15:35We were in fact much more influenced by Moroder than we were by Kraftwerk.

0:15:35 > 0:15:40Everyone...ever since anyone that knows we used synths, "Oh, you sound like Kraftwerk, don't you?"

0:15:40 > 0:15:44We use the same instruments, so some of the sounds are a bit the same.

0:15:44 > 0:15:47But we never really wanted to be Kraftwerk, we wanted to be a pop band.

0:15:53 > 0:15:54We wanted to...

0:15:54 > 0:15:57embody a sense of futurism

0:15:57 > 0:15:59without being so literal.

0:15:59 > 0:16:04It just so happened a friend of ours, he had bought for him this

0:16:04 > 0:16:06science-fiction board game called Star Force.

0:16:06 > 0:16:09And it was prodigiously tedious.

0:16:09 > 0:16:12It was real geek stuff.

0:16:12 > 0:16:14It was impenetrable. You couldn't play it.

0:16:14 > 0:16:19There was The Rise Of The Human League, or something.

0:16:19 > 0:16:21And I thought, The Human League, that is such a cool name.

0:16:21 > 0:16:23# No future, they say... #

0:16:23 > 0:16:27The Human League set out to make electronic pop for the modern city.

0:16:29 > 0:16:32# The city is human

0:16:32 > 0:16:35# Blind youth take hope You're no Joe Soap

0:16:35 > 0:16:39# Your time is due Big fun come soon

0:16:39 > 0:16:42# We've had it easy We should be glad

0:16:42 > 0:16:45# High-rise living's not so bad... #

0:16:45 > 0:16:48The Human League have a totally different spin on synthesisers

0:16:48 > 0:16:51where it was much more like this bright technocratic

0:16:51 > 0:16:54optimism thing. In fact, in one of their early songs,

0:16:54 > 0:16:57Blind Youth, they make fun of people who go on about dehumanisation.

0:16:57 > 0:17:00# Dehumanisation

0:17:00 > 0:17:02# Is such a big word

0:17:03 > 0:17:05# It's been around

0:17:05 > 0:17:06# Since

0:17:06 > 0:17:09# Richard the Third

0:17:09 > 0:17:11# Dehumanisation

0:17:12 > 0:17:14# Is easy to say

0:17:15 > 0:17:18# But if you're not a hermit

0:17:18 > 0:17:21# You know the city's OK. #

0:17:21 > 0:17:24I'd say most of the brightness came from Martyn.

0:17:24 > 0:17:27Martyn's very optimistic, and if anyone's moaning about

0:17:27 > 0:17:31anything, Martyn will go and write a song in the opposite direction.

0:17:31 > 0:17:34I think I felt a bit gloomy about the concrete jungle and everything,

0:17:34 > 0:17:36which is ridiculous, cos I'm a townie.

0:17:36 > 0:17:39I gravitate towards concrete...

0:17:40 > 0:17:45If you put me in the country, I would find the nearest town and I'll be sitting in a bar quite quickly.

0:17:45 > 0:17:49# Blind youth take hope You're no Joe Soap

0:17:49 > 0:17:52# Your time is due Big fun come soon... #

0:17:52 > 0:17:56Unfortunately, British pop music wasn't quite ready

0:17:56 > 0:18:00for a synth-led group of futurists...just yet.

0:18:00 > 0:18:07But in 1978, The Human League weren't the only group experimenting with electronics in Sheffield.

0:18:09 > 0:18:13This is the old Psalter Lane art college,

0:18:13 > 0:18:18which used to be part of Sheffield Polytechnic in the 1970s.

0:18:18 > 0:18:22I believe The Human League also played this very place

0:18:22 > 0:18:24for their first-ever live show in Sheffield.

0:18:24 > 0:18:31Cabaret Voltaire did perform in this very room.

0:18:33 > 0:18:36Yeah, we just thought there was nothing for us.

0:18:36 > 0:18:39It was all kind of bloated supergroups

0:18:39 > 0:18:41and progressive bands

0:18:41 > 0:18:44who weren't even from the same kind of social backgrounds.

0:18:44 > 0:18:48They were probably public school educated,

0:18:48 > 0:18:53whereas most of the scene in Sheffield was pretty solid working class.

0:18:56 > 0:19:02You'd find little bits of interest interesting music within perhaps

0:19:02 > 0:19:06some of the prog rock stuff where there'd be a weird little synth break.

0:19:10 > 0:19:14But then once you kind of started to discover all the German bands,

0:19:14 > 0:19:19you realised that there were entire albums that were made of electronics.

0:19:20 > 0:19:24Whilst The Human League dreamt of pop, Cabaret Voltaire

0:19:24 > 0:19:31were anything but, using electronics to explore Sheffield, a city torn between the past and the future.

0:19:33 > 0:19:38I remember watching loads of science fiction things

0:19:38 > 0:19:42in the '60s, like Doctor Who and things like Quatermass.

0:19:42 > 0:19:47And all these kinds of strange things seemed to happen

0:19:47 > 0:19:50in old gasworks or industrial environments.

0:19:52 > 0:19:55There was an other-worldliness about it.

0:19:55 > 0:20:00You might see an alien or a giant blob creeping across the floor,

0:20:00 > 0:20:04glowing bright green from radioactivity.

0:20:06 > 0:20:09# Nag nag nag

0:20:09 > 0:20:12# Nag nag nag. #

0:20:12 > 0:20:16A very arty group. Obviously their name echoes Dada.

0:20:16 > 0:20:21They were really into William Burroughs and ideas like control and surveillance.

0:20:21 > 0:20:23They actually used quite a lot of guitar,

0:20:23 > 0:20:26but it was so heavily processed, it didn't sound like rock 'n' roll guitar.

0:20:26 > 0:20:28It sounded more like a synthesiser.

0:20:28 > 0:20:31They also put synthesising-type effects

0:20:31 > 0:20:33on the voice, which is probably one of the most disturbing things they did.

0:20:33 > 0:20:39You have a guy singing, but it sounds more like a dalek than a human being.

0:20:42 > 0:20:47At night-time, you'd hear distant booming noises with which would

0:20:47 > 0:20:52probably be something like a drop forge or steam hammer or something.

0:20:57 > 0:21:04You certainly knew that you were on the edge of heavy industry.

0:21:04 > 0:21:06Everything in their music is alienated.

0:21:06 > 0:21:14The music that comes from people who are divorced from natural life, any natural rhythms.

0:21:14 > 0:21:17The music for a hostile environment.

0:21:17 > 0:21:22If I've ever been asked to explain that movement, I always call it the "alienated synthesists".

0:21:22 > 0:21:30Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division who were up a little bit less obviously synthy...

0:21:32 > 0:21:34Everyone...everyone was sort of like that.

0:21:34 > 0:21:37We were all going around in long coats from second-hand shops

0:21:37 > 0:21:40and saying how terrible things were, with a synth.

0:21:42 > 0:21:46Across the Pennines, another pocket of alienated synthesists dreamt

0:21:46 > 0:21:51of an electronic future in the spiritual home of British pop music.

0:21:51 > 0:21:54MUSIC DROWNS SPEECH

0:21:58 > 0:22:04We are in Mathew Street in Liverpool, and I am actually standing outside of the door to what used

0:22:04 > 0:22:10to be Eric's Club, which is where we played our first gig, where we invented OMD to play at this place.

0:22:10 > 0:22:13And it was the club where we all used to come.

0:22:13 > 0:22:17The Bunnymen and the Teardrops played within a month of us playing here as well.

0:22:17 > 0:22:20This was the place I saw Devo play their first English concert.

0:22:20 > 0:22:23And all of the influential bands that we could get to come to town

0:22:23 > 0:22:26played here, apart from Kraftwerk who played the big theatre down the road.

0:22:26 > 0:22:31And then literally ten yards away is the Cavern Club.

0:22:31 > 0:22:34We've got Eric's and the Cavern right across the road from each other.

0:22:36 > 0:22:40When Paul and I started being interested in electronic music,

0:22:40 > 0:22:42we were very young.

0:22:42 > 0:22:44We had no money.

0:22:44 > 0:22:50And it was totally unrealistic to think about getting the big kind of keyboards you saw

0:22:50 > 0:22:54on TV or on stage with some of the keyboard players in the '70s.

0:22:58 > 0:23:03My mother had a Kays mail order catalogue, and they had some synthesisers.

0:23:03 > 0:23:07Our first Korg Micro-Preset was bought from my mother's catalogue

0:23:07 > 0:23:11for 36 weeks at £7.76 a week, I seem to recall.

0:23:11 > 0:23:16This was the first synth, and we'd made the first two albums with this.

0:23:16 > 0:23:19It's like, it's quite a basic synth.

0:23:19 > 0:23:23INTRO TO "ENOLA GAY"

0:23:29 > 0:23:31- HE LAUGHS - Can you believe that's the record?!

0:23:31 > 0:23:33# Enola Gay

0:23:33 > 0:23:36# You should have stayed at home yesterday

0:23:36 > 0:23:39# Oh-oh, words can't describe

0:23:39 > 0:23:41# The feeling and the way... #

0:23:41 > 0:23:45The major record labels largely ignored synth music,

0:23:45 > 0:23:48forcing bands like OMD to look to newly reformed indies instead.

0:23:48 > 0:23:56In 1978, OMD would sign to Factory. A movement of sorts was beginning to coalesce.

0:23:58 > 0:24:02I think the first wave of bands

0:24:02 > 0:24:05that sort of came out of the closet in a late '70s...

0:24:07 > 0:24:10..we were all working independently of each other.

0:24:10 > 0:24:11There was no unified movement.

0:24:11 > 0:24:14It didn't all start in one club or one town.

0:24:14 > 0:24:17There was no gang of people who all had a manifesto

0:24:17 > 0:24:20that we were going to do the new British electronic music.

0:24:20 > 0:24:23It was small pockets of people in different parts of the country

0:24:23 > 0:24:27who were independently obviously listening to the same things.

0:24:32 > 0:24:36I did make an electronic drum machine, because I'd seen Kraftwerk with their sticks.

0:24:36 > 0:24:39So I thought, I can make one of those. And so I did.

0:24:39 > 0:24:45Some of the early synth drums was this very Heath Robinson-looking box

0:24:45 > 0:24:49with all these plates on there with these sticks with wires

0:24:49 > 0:24:52that we did the drums to Electricity.

0:25:00 > 0:25:03# Our one source of energy

0:25:03 > 0:25:06# The ultimate discovery

0:25:06 > 0:25:08# Electric blue for me

0:25:08 > 0:25:12# Never more to be free... #

0:25:12 > 0:25:17We were horrified when Tony Wilson said, "What you do is the future of pop."

0:25:17 > 0:25:23Pop? We were experimental German influenced. We are not pop at all!

0:25:23 > 0:25:26How do you call us pop? We were absolutely mortified.

0:25:26 > 0:25:28We couldn't see it at all.

0:25:31 > 0:25:34Totally by accident, Paul and I

0:25:34 > 0:25:39and I guess others at the time had distilled the electronic

0:25:39 > 0:25:46experimentation and the glam pop of Britain from just a few years and earlier, into what was going to

0:25:46 > 0:25:52become, which didn't seem at the time, but what was going to become the future of pop music.

0:25:52 > 0:25:57By the start of 1979, the future of pop music seemed a long way off,

0:25:57 > 0:26:02as the combined efforts of The Normal, OMD and The Human League had failed to trouble the charts.

0:26:02 > 0:26:07But dabbling in synthesisers was becoming increasingly de rigueur.

0:26:07 > 0:26:10Even for dyed in the wool punks.

0:26:10 > 0:26:14At the other end of the East Lancs Road, another Factory band,

0:26:14 > 0:26:20who would become one of the greatest electronic acts, were taking their first synthetic steps.

0:26:24 > 0:26:29The first synthesiser we had in Joy Division was a little thing called a Transcendent 2000.

0:26:29 > 0:26:33I actually built it from a load of components.

0:26:33 > 0:26:37At the time I had insomnia, I couldn't sleep very well.

0:26:37 > 0:26:41So I used to get this magazine called Electronics Today,

0:26:41 > 0:26:46something like that, and in it was this synthesiser.

0:26:46 > 0:26:49And if you were to buy one in those days it was incredibly expensive.

0:26:49 > 0:26:54And we didn't have any money. So I thought, this is really cheap, it's only 200 quid,

0:26:54 > 0:26:57how difficult can it be to build it?

0:26:58 > 0:27:03And it was like... Soldering components by hand.

0:27:03 > 0:27:07It took about two months of doing that.

0:27:07 > 0:27:10And then it didn't work incredibly well.

0:27:10 > 0:27:14RUDIMENTARY SYNTHESISER NOTES PLAY

0:27:15 > 0:27:21I remember we went to write a track in the studio called Cargo, in Rochdale.

0:27:21 > 0:27:27And when we went it, we found a little Woolworths organ

0:27:27 > 0:27:32that you switched the battery power, switched it on and it blew a fan.

0:27:32 > 0:27:36You could play chord buttons on it. So I was messing about with these chord buttons.

0:27:36 > 0:27:40And then Martin Hannah I think had brought in a Solina string synth.

0:27:40 > 0:27:43What? You can play more than one note at a time on it!

0:27:43 > 0:27:47So I got the organ and the synthesiser

0:27:47 > 0:27:53and hit these chord buttons, and wrote Atmosphere, a Joy Division track.

0:27:53 > 0:27:55I seemed to write it there in the studio.

0:27:57 > 0:28:03# Walk in silence... #

0:28:03 > 0:28:06I think we wrote the music

0:28:06 > 0:28:09and then Ian wrote the words that night.

0:28:09 > 0:28:13Then we recorded the vocals the next day. Which is amazing when I think about it.

0:28:13 > 0:28:16# See the danger

0:28:17 > 0:28:19# Always danger

0:28:20 > 0:28:25# Endless talking

0:28:25 > 0:28:28# Life rebuilding

0:28:28 > 0:28:30# Don't walk away... #

0:28:34 > 0:28:38Whilst it seemed the north had the lead in post-punk synth pioneers,

0:28:38 > 0:28:40things were also stirring down south.

0:28:42 > 0:28:46John Foxx was the former lead singer of Ultravox.

0:28:46 > 0:28:51He worked in Shoreditch in London's then unfashionable East End.

0:28:51 > 0:28:56SYNTHESISER CHORDS PLAY

0:28:56 > 0:28:59SYNTHESISER MELODY PLAYS

0:29:01 > 0:29:05These modular synths were the first generation really

0:29:05 > 0:29:06of working synthesisers.

0:29:07 > 0:29:14And then the companies decided to make a cheap version of it because no-one could afford these,

0:29:14 > 0:29:16or very few people could afford them.

0:29:16 > 0:29:21And they condensed all that down into this.

0:29:22 > 0:29:26London seemed almost empty in the '70s.

0:29:26 > 0:29:30I used to walk around the streets, newspapers blowing around and great concrete walls.

0:29:30 > 0:29:33And everything seemed grittier

0:29:33 > 0:29:36and lost somehow, like we'd lost direction.

0:29:36 > 0:29:39I'd wonder what that was about.

0:29:43 > 0:29:45I wasn't angry about it any more,

0:29:45 > 0:29:48as we were supposed to be as punks.

0:29:48 > 0:29:53I just wanted to make music for it, the kind of music that I could hear.

0:29:55 > 0:29:57# Standing in the dark

0:29:59 > 0:30:01# Watching you glow

0:30:03 > 0:30:06# Lifting a receiver

0:30:08 > 0:30:10# Nobody I know

0:30:14 > 0:30:16# Underpass... #

0:30:17 > 0:30:23Underpass, with the sodium lights and you might be mugged.

0:30:23 > 0:30:27Very '70s dystopian.

0:30:28 > 0:30:29The spectral city.

0:30:29 > 0:30:32# Now it's all gone

0:30:32 > 0:30:36# World War something... #

0:30:37 > 0:30:42This was the industrial bit of London that had served the docks and done some manufacturing

0:30:42 > 0:30:44and both of which have gone.

0:30:44 > 0:30:46It was like living in a Quatermass movie

0:30:46 > 0:30:51because I realised and discovered that underneath all of this area

0:30:51 > 0:30:57are the plague pits where the bodies were thrown.

0:30:57 > 0:30:59That inevitably leaks into your music.

0:30:59 > 0:31:01That is why a lot of my music is so dark, I think.

0:31:01 > 0:31:05I come from Lancashire and where did I end up?

0:31:05 > 0:31:07In a place even more sinister.

0:31:13 > 0:31:15# Underpass... #

0:31:19 > 0:31:22Fox's music wasn't the only synthetic portrait

0:31:22 > 0:31:24of the '70s metropolis.

0:31:24 > 0:31:29An experimental group of artists, known as Throbbing Gristle,

0:31:29 > 0:31:33had been forging their own electronic industrial sounds

0:31:33 > 0:31:36in their Death Factory down the road in Hackney.

0:31:36 > 0:31:38- Grim.- It was grim.

0:31:38 > 0:31:46It was very run-down. The factory was an old trouser factory and it was near London Fields.

0:31:46 > 0:31:49In the basement, we were level with the plague pits.

0:31:49 > 0:31:55That's why it got called the Death Factory.

0:31:55 > 0:31:59There was still a lot of antagonism left over from,

0:31:59 > 0:32:02I know it sounds unbelievable, but post-war.

0:32:02 > 0:32:09There were still people there like the park keeper who used to be one of Moseley's brown shirts.

0:32:14 > 0:32:16It sounds a cliche now but at the time

0:32:16 > 0:32:23we were trying to reflect the sounds around us in some weird way.

0:32:25 > 0:32:27Our studio was in, like, an industrial area.

0:32:27 > 0:32:31There were different noises going on all the time.

0:32:31 > 0:32:34We were trying to reflect all these sounds

0:32:34 > 0:32:41and the way they all come together in this weird mishmash of electronic experimental textures.

0:32:52 > 0:32:54# Hot... #

0:32:58 > 0:33:02We felt a kinship with a lot of bands, especially Sheffield bands.

0:33:02 > 0:33:10Yes, Cabaret Voltaire, those people. But the kinship was the fact that we were all independent.

0:33:10 > 0:33:14Chris Carter in Throbbing Gristle was a nut for

0:33:14 > 0:33:16Tangerine Dream and that kind of music

0:33:16 > 0:33:21so there were hypnotic dreaming electronic Throbbing Gristle tracks

0:33:21 > 0:33:25that were pretty in a funny sort of misshapen way.

0:33:25 > 0:33:33I had the synths and because they were homemade synths, they weren't bought off the shelf,

0:33:33 > 0:33:39they went Rolands and Korgs, they sounded quite unique anyway. They didn't sound like regular synths.

0:33:43 > 0:33:45And then I built this effects unit.

0:33:45 > 0:33:49I saw this design in Practical Electronics. You could combine all the effects together

0:33:49 > 0:33:54and put a guitar through it or a voice or anything.

0:33:54 > 0:34:02I started building these units for Throbbing Gristle and called them Gristlisers.

0:34:02 > 0:34:04We were never punk. We are not punk.

0:34:04 > 0:34:07We were an industrial experimental music band.

0:34:15 > 0:34:23Come 1979, British electronic music was still being ignored by mainstream labels.

0:34:23 > 0:34:29So, Dan Miller, founded Britain's first electronic indie, Mute,

0:34:29 > 0:34:33to release recordings by kindred spirit, Fad Gadget,

0:34:33 > 0:34:35as well as his own work.

0:34:39 > 0:34:41I wasn't interested in rock music.

0:34:41 > 0:34:45I really was only interested in electronic music.

0:34:45 > 0:34:49I thought that was the future of where exciting music

0:34:49 > 0:34:54was going to come from and I wanted to part of promoting that.

0:34:54 > 0:34:58One of Mute's first releases would be strangely prescient.

0:34:58 > 0:35:02I came across an old Chuck Berry songbook I had at home and I thought,

0:35:02 > 0:35:06"I wonder what that sounds like done on synthesisers?"

0:35:06 > 0:35:08# Long-distance information

0:35:08 > 0:35:12# Give me Memphis, Tennessee

0:35:12 > 0:35:13# Help me find the party

0:35:13 > 0:35:16# Tryin' to get in touch with me... #

0:35:16 > 0:35:23Everybody said, "You've got to release it, it's amazing." I thought, "OK, what shall I do?"

0:35:23 > 0:35:26It doesn't fit in under the normal kind of name.

0:35:26 > 0:35:28And then I thought,

0:35:28 > 0:35:33what about if there was a group that were all teenagers

0:35:33 > 0:35:36and their first choice of instrument was a synthesiser

0:35:36 > 0:35:40rather than a guitar, because that hadn't happened yet.

0:35:40 > 0:35:43John Peel... I had given it to him.

0:35:43 > 0:35:46I was listening to the radio with a couple of friends.

0:35:46 > 0:35:49He said, "We've got three versions of Memphis Tennessee.

0:35:49 > 0:35:51"One is the original, the other two covers."

0:35:51 > 0:35:54"One is really terrible and the other is really great.

0:35:54 > 0:35:59I thought, "Oh, God." Fortunately, he liked mine. He played it twice.

0:36:00 > 0:36:01Take it away.

0:36:01 > 0:36:04That was one of the biggest moments of my entire career in music.

0:36:07 > 0:36:10That's the end of tonight's programme in which you heard

0:36:10 > 0:36:15the Desperate Bicycles, The Slits, The Mekons, Alternative TV, The UK Subs and Sham 69.

0:36:15 > 0:36:18More of the same unpleasant racket on tomorrow night's programme.

0:36:18 > 0:36:22Until then, from me, John Peel, goodnight and good riddance.

0:36:24 > 0:36:27Getting your record on the Peel show was one thing.

0:36:27 > 0:36:30But nobody was ready for what happened next.

0:36:30 > 0:36:35What sort of make-up do you put on? You appear very white.

0:36:35 > 0:36:41It's all natural. It's Max Factor pan stick and it's 28 which is natural, not white make-up.

0:36:41 > 0:36:46And then I just powder that with skin tone powder and then just eyeliner.

0:36:46 > 0:36:48# It's cold outside

0:36:51 > 0:36:53# And the paint's peeling off of my walls

0:36:56 > 0:36:57# There's a man outside... #

0:36:57 > 0:37:01On 24th May 1979, the future finally arrived.

0:37:01 > 0:37:04# In a long coat, grey hat smoking a cigarette... #

0:37:04 > 0:37:08He was a punk. He loved sci-fi.

0:37:08 > 0:37:10He even read JG Ballard but most impressively,

0:37:10 > 0:37:14Gary Numan was on Top Of The Pops.

0:37:15 > 0:37:18I wish magic was real, you know.

0:37:18 > 0:37:21I wish fairies were real and all of that kind of stuff.

0:37:21 > 0:37:23I love all that sort of thing.

0:37:23 > 0:37:26Probably never grow up, I suppose, from that point of view.

0:37:27 > 0:37:29# Now the light fades out... #

0:37:29 > 0:37:31The first time he was on Top Of The Pops,

0:37:31 > 0:37:34Either she phoned me, or I phoned her, "Are you watching?

0:37:34 > 0:37:37"Have you seen this man, he's fantastic."

0:37:37 > 0:37:39# There's a knock on the door... #

0:37:39 > 0:37:43The look and the sound was so different.

0:37:43 > 0:37:45# And just for a second I thought I remembered you... #

0:37:45 > 0:37:47Just sort of alien, wasn't it?

0:37:49 > 0:37:51I was in a lot of trouble at school.

0:37:51 > 0:37:54I was sent to a child psychiatrist and things like that

0:37:54 > 0:37:57which turned out to be, apparently, Asperger's.

0:38:00 > 0:38:04I felt more comfortable on my own. The classic loner, I suppose.

0:38:04 > 0:38:07Didn't go out drinking, didn't go out clubbing too much.

0:38:07 > 0:38:09# So now I'm alone

0:38:09 > 0:38:11# I can think for myself... #

0:38:13 > 0:38:16I went to a studio to make a punk album,

0:38:16 > 0:38:19which would have been my first album. And when I got there,

0:38:19 > 0:38:22in a corner of the studio, there was a Minimoog.

0:38:22 > 0:38:24Luckily, it had been left,

0:38:24 > 0:38:28and this sound - which was a huge, big bassy thing - and the room shook.

0:38:28 > 0:38:34I just realised you can press one key and all of this other stuff happens.

0:38:34 > 0:38:37There was a massive amount of power in them

0:38:37 > 0:38:39and depth that I'd just never heard.

0:38:39 > 0:38:42I'd never heard of anything like it before. One note.

0:38:44 > 0:38:48People like ourselves and Cabaret Voltaire and The Human League,

0:38:48 > 0:38:52had all got used to the fact that we existed and there was somebody else sharing our space

0:38:52 > 0:38:54and then along comes,

0:38:54 > 0:38:58who, I guess at the time we thought was Johnny-come-lately.

0:38:58 > 0:39:00"Who the hell is this guy from London

0:39:00 > 0:39:07"who's on telly and having a massive hit record? Never heard of him."

0:39:07 > 0:39:11Numan was Britain's first synth pin-up.

0:39:11 > 0:39:14- Hello, Sarah. - Hello, Gary.- Hello, Sarah.

0:39:14 > 0:39:16My friend Cheryl read in a newspaper

0:39:16 > 0:39:19that your mum does your hair. Is this true?

0:39:19 > 0:39:23Yes, that's right. She's been doing it since I was about four.

0:39:23 > 0:39:27- All right, thank you.- Bye-bye. - Did she put the streak in the side as well?- Yeah.

0:39:27 > 0:39:29I really liked Gary's music.

0:39:29 > 0:39:33I think he made the best records at that time.

0:39:33 > 0:39:40I think, he, if anyone, he really condensed it into a form that was perfect at that point.

0:39:42 > 0:39:48Numan would immediately show that his number-one success was no fluke.

0:39:48 > 0:39:54Cars was part eulogy to JG Ballard and part testimony to living in '70s London.

0:39:59 > 0:40:05I was in my car and a couple of men in a van swerved round me, pulled up in front,

0:40:05 > 0:40:10got out and were clearly going to give me a bit of a hammering.

0:40:10 > 0:40:15Trying to get me out, kicking the car, screaming and shouting.

0:40:18 > 0:40:19# Here in my car

0:40:19 > 0:40:21# I feel safest of all

0:40:21 > 0:40:23# I can lock all my doors

0:40:23 > 0:40:25# It's the only way to live

0:40:25 > 0:40:27# In cars... #

0:40:28 > 0:40:31I was pretty scared. I locked all my doors

0:40:31 > 0:40:36and ended up driving up onto the pavement and shot along the pavement

0:40:36 > 0:40:39because I couldn't go anywhere.

0:40:39 > 0:40:43People obviously leaping out of the way. I was in a bit of a panic.

0:40:47 > 0:40:52Cars is just about feeling safe in amongst people in a car

0:40:52 > 0:40:55because no-one can get to you.

0:40:55 > 0:40:56You're in your own little bubble.

0:40:56 > 0:40:57# Here in my car

0:40:57 > 0:40:59# Where the image breaks down

0:40:59 > 0:41:01# Will you visit me, please?

0:41:01 > 0:41:04# If I open my door, in cars... #

0:41:05 > 0:41:10I was gutted when Cars came out. I thought it was really good.

0:41:10 > 0:41:12# ..I was starting to think about leaving tonight... #

0:41:12 > 0:41:14All this time we were convinced,

0:41:14 > 0:41:18it was just a matter of time before we had a number one record.

0:41:18 > 0:41:21Part arrogance and part stupidity,

0:41:21 > 0:41:25and then somebody comes out of the blue and does it.

0:41:25 > 0:41:28With sales totalling in excess of ten million,

0:41:28 > 0:41:31Gary Numan was a new kind of pop star,

0:41:31 > 0:41:35but being at the front of the synth way had inevitable drawbacks.

0:41:38 > 0:41:43The Musicians Union tried to ban me for, I think, the first year when I was around

0:41:43 > 0:41:46because they said I was putting proper musicians out of work,

0:41:46 > 0:41:49although I had to be a member to get on Top Of The Pops.

0:41:49 > 0:41:53Caused me loads of grief, actually. The music press were pretty harsh.

0:41:53 > 0:42:00It wasn't rock 'n' roll. It wasn't honest, it wasn't working class, it wasn't worthy, it wasn't earthy,

0:42:00 > 0:42:07it wasn't real, it wasn't sweaty, it wasn't manly. It was pretentious, pseudo intellectual.

0:42:07 > 0:42:13I am absolutely convinced that Numan's career was shortened by

0:42:13 > 0:42:17a nasty, nasty, vitriolic journalism.

0:42:17 > 0:42:21But, again, what had there been before me?

0:42:21 > 0:42:24It had been punk. The whole anti-hero thing.

0:42:24 > 0:42:29Not only was I doing electronic music which they wasn't pleased with anyway,

0:42:29 > 0:42:32but I'm standing up saying, I want to be a pop star, I love it.

0:42:32 > 0:42:37All this anti-hero stuff before that, I wasn't anything to do with that.

0:42:37 > 0:42:41I want to be famous. I want to be standing on stages

0:42:41 > 0:42:45and I don't speak for the people because I don't even know them.

0:42:46 > 0:42:52The decade would end with Numan as the unlikely synth-pop hero come good.

0:42:52 > 0:42:56What lay around the corner would see the synth transformed

0:42:56 > 0:43:00from post-punk experimental tool into THE pop instrument of choice.

0:43:20 > 0:43:24As the '80s dawned, the future finally arrived

0:43:24 > 0:43:27and it wasn't going to be alienated.

0:43:28 > 0:43:32A shift to the right heralded a new era in Britain,

0:43:32 > 0:43:35an era in which prosperity and material wealth

0:43:35 > 0:43:38would be vaunted above all else.

0:43:38 > 0:43:42There would be no room for experimental dreamers in the Me Decade.

0:43:42 > 0:43:45You were a success or you didn't exist.

0:43:45 > 0:43:48# One man on a lonely platform

0:43:48 > 0:43:52# One case sitting by his side... #

0:43:52 > 0:43:55The big hit of 1980 was Visage

0:43:55 > 0:44:00whose Fade To Grey followed fast on the heels of Numan's success.

0:44:03 > 0:44:06It seemed the future had passed The Human League by.

0:44:06 > 0:44:09# Ah, ah-h-h-h

0:44:09 > 0:44:11# We fade to grey.

0:44:11 > 0:44:12# Fade to grey... #

0:44:12 > 0:44:16I think there were three number-one hits.

0:44:16 > 0:44:19Certainly Dave Stewart and Barbara Gaskin, Gary Numan

0:44:19 > 0:44:24and I think the Flying Lizards might have been number one with Money

0:44:24 > 0:44:29and I stood there, I think we'd done a couple of LPs and I thought, "We've blown it."

0:44:29 > 0:44:31We now look like the also-rans

0:44:31 > 0:44:35and everyone has taken the idea and done a lot better than us.

0:44:35 > 0:44:38# The best things in life are free

0:44:38 > 0:44:42# But you can give them to the birds and bees

0:44:42 > 0:44:46- # I want money - Ooh, ooh-ooh

0:44:46 > 0:44:50- # That's what I want - Ooh, ooh-ooh

0:44:50 > 0:44:53- # That's what I want - Ooh, ooh-ooh

0:44:53 > 0:44:54# That's what I want... #

0:44:54 > 0:44:58I turned up one day to be told I was being thrown out of the group.

0:45:00 > 0:45:05And it was a bit like School Of Rock with Jack Black going,

0:45:05 > 0:45:07"You can't throw me out of my own group."

0:45:07 > 0:45:10We'd released Reproduction and Travelogue

0:45:10 > 0:45:12and done all this touring.

0:45:12 > 0:45:17There was a nagging undercurrent of dissatisfaction from the record company

0:45:17 > 0:45:21that they weren't selling as many records as they hoped.

0:45:21 > 0:45:25I think I'd made a big effort on a photo session

0:45:25 > 0:45:27and Martin hadn't even turned up.

0:45:27 > 0:45:33Suddenly, I was hearing these stories that Martin was never ever going to appear on a stage with me again

0:45:33 > 0:45:35which I think he only said

0:45:35 > 0:45:41because that was what Bryan Ferry had said about Eno in legend.

0:45:41 > 0:45:44Whilst The Human League were crumbling,

0:45:44 > 0:45:47something was brewing in the most unlikely of places.

0:45:50 > 0:45:53Basildon was a new town. Built for the post-war East End overspill,

0:45:53 > 0:45:57it wasn't one of pop music's more romantic places.

0:45:58 > 0:46:04But a bunch of kids were going to ditch their guitars and reinvent synth music as pop.

0:46:04 > 0:46:08When we were growing up, Basildon was a violent town.

0:46:08 > 0:46:12We had the highest crime rate for five years on the trot.

0:46:12 > 0:46:15I can remember going back to Basildon

0:46:15 > 0:46:22and going down to the pub with some friends and I had, you know, black nail varnish.

0:46:22 > 0:46:25Going to the bar and ordering a drink. I had forgotten about it

0:46:25 > 0:46:28wasn't even thinking about it and some guy said to me,

0:46:28 > 0:46:31"What the fuck have you got on your fingernails?"

0:46:33 > 0:46:37Depeche Mode formed in 1980.

0:46:37 > 0:46:41They had a spot at their local disco.

0:46:43 > 0:46:46Croc's was a really ordinary disco. There was a crocodile, yeah.

0:46:46 > 0:46:50It was quite a sorry-looking animal, but it was alive.

0:46:53 > 0:46:58They had this night once a week where they'd play things like The Human League and Soft Cell

0:46:58 > 0:47:00and also bands would appear there.

0:47:02 > 0:47:05# I stand still stepping on the shady streets

0:47:05 > 0:47:08# And I watch that man to a stranger

0:47:09 > 0:47:11# You think you only know me when you turn on the light

0:47:11 > 0:47:14# Now the room is lit with danger

0:47:14 > 0:47:17# Complicating, circulating

0:47:17 > 0:47:20# New life, new life

0:47:20 > 0:47:23# Operating, generating

0:47:23 > 0:47:27# New life, new life... #

0:47:27 > 0:47:29When I first started playing synthesisers,

0:47:29 > 0:47:31it would have been The Human League,

0:47:31 > 0:47:35Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, their very first album.

0:47:35 > 0:47:39I was a big fan of Daniel Miller's work as the Silicon Teens

0:47:39 > 0:47:44and as The Normal and also Fad Gadget who was on Mute Records.

0:47:46 > 0:47:51Vince was sort of the boss of the band. He was unbelievably driven.

0:47:51 > 0:47:55# Complicating, circulating New life... #

0:47:55 > 0:48:00He earned £30 a week in the yoghurt factory and save £29.70, a week,

0:48:00 > 0:48:04to save up to buy a synth.

0:48:04 > 0:48:07He forced the pace.

0:48:07 > 0:48:12This actually was the original Depeche Mode drum machine that we used for Life.

0:48:12 > 0:48:16Dave's job before his song was to set the tempo.

0:48:16 > 0:48:21Number seven would be fast, number two would be slow etc etc.

0:48:21 > 0:48:29I owned Autobahn, that was really what got us to go out and buy our first synthesisers,

0:48:29 > 0:48:34the whole...things that were happening around the time

0:48:34 > 0:48:36with Kraftwerk and even early Human League stuff.

0:48:36 > 0:48:39# ..New life, new life... #

0:48:39 > 0:48:42I was really happy that the first time I heard them

0:48:42 > 0:48:43was when they played live.

0:48:43 > 0:48:48They started and I thought, this sounds interesting.

0:48:48 > 0:48:53There were four little mono synths teetering on beer crates.

0:48:53 > 0:48:54# I'm still stepping on shady streets

0:48:54 > 0:48:57# And I watch that man to a stranger... #

0:48:57 > 0:49:02They had a fan base with them and their fans weren't watching the band. They wear just dancing.

0:49:02 > 0:49:03# ..The moon is lit with danger

0:49:03 > 0:49:05# Complicated... #

0:49:05 > 0:49:11Miller first saw Depeche Mode supporting Fad Gadget in east London and signed them to Mute.

0:49:12 > 0:49:14None of us knew what we were doing.

0:49:14 > 0:49:18By the time I met Depeche, we had just released our first album.

0:49:18 > 0:49:22Compared to them, I was an experienced industry person but I knew nothing.

0:49:22 > 0:49:25You know, they needed a bit of help in the studio,

0:49:25 > 0:49:28so I introduced them to some ways of working.

0:49:28 > 0:49:30Using sequencers, they'd never used a sequencer before.

0:49:30 > 0:49:32Everything was played by hand.

0:49:32 > 0:49:39This is the legendary Arp 2600. I bought it second-hand in 1979.

0:49:39 > 0:49:46It was being sold, one of three being sold by Elton John's road crew after a world tour.

0:49:46 > 0:49:52These were used on all the Depeche Mode albums I was involved with

0:49:52 > 0:49:54especially on the first album,

0:49:54 > 0:49:58where it was really one of only two synths that we used.

0:49:58 > 0:50:01You can hear it going out of tune on that note there.

0:50:01 > 0:50:03It's not really in tune at all.

0:50:03 > 0:50:06MUSIC: "Just Can't Get Enough" by Depeche Mode

0:50:08 > 0:50:11Depeche Mode would prove to be the real silicon teens.

0:50:11 > 0:50:14The combination of sex appeal and synthesisers

0:50:14 > 0:50:18would make them one of the biggest pop acts of 1981.

0:50:18 > 0:50:22# When I'm with you baby I go out of my head

0:50:22 > 0:50:26# And I just can't get enough And I just can't get enough

0:50:26 > 0:50:29# All the things you do to me and everything you said

0:50:29 > 0:50:33# I just can't get enough I just can't get enough

0:50:33 > 0:50:36# We slip and slide as we fall in love

0:50:36 > 0:50:41# And I just can't seem to get enough of... #

0:50:45 > 0:50:48When Depeche Mode, when we were gigging

0:50:48 > 0:50:50we'd all carry our synthesisers

0:50:50 > 0:50:51and I, for some reason,

0:50:51 > 0:50:55had to buy the heaviest synthesiser out of all of them, you know.

0:50:55 > 0:50:58We didn't have cars or anything, we'd be on the train,

0:50:58 > 0:51:01and this really is quite heavy.

0:51:01 > 0:51:04So I'd have this thing under my arm, Fletcher would have a Moog,

0:51:04 > 0:51:07Martin had a Yamaha, I think, on the train.

0:51:07 > 0:51:10# I just can't get enough I just can't get enough... #

0:51:10 > 0:51:15When we did our first Top Of The Pops we were on the train with these, our synthesisers.

0:51:15 > 0:51:18- You got the train to Top Of The Pops?- Yeah.

0:51:18 > 0:51:23From Basildon to Fenchurch Street and then on the underground.

0:51:27 > 0:51:30But like Human before, it wouldn't all be plain sailing for Depeche.

0:51:32 > 0:51:35I think, you know, you've got to remember that

0:51:35 > 0:51:39during our pop period we had lots of fans and a lot of people liked us,

0:51:39 > 0:51:41but there were a lot of people hated us.

0:51:43 > 0:51:47Certainly the '80s was a real old battle royale

0:51:47 > 0:51:53between us and journalism in general, music journalism.

0:51:53 > 0:51:57It was just really, you know, pop.

0:51:57 > 0:51:59You know, I think...

0:51:59 > 0:52:04I can understand why people hated what we did, you know, looking back on it now.

0:52:04 > 0:52:06It wasn't just the sound. It was...

0:52:06 > 0:52:10Every TV that we were asked to do, we did, and it didn't matter how stupid it was.

0:52:10 > 0:52:15You know, there's something very un-British about electronic music

0:52:15 > 0:52:18to start with. They want bands to be like they were in the '60s -

0:52:18 > 0:52:22four guys, guitar, bass and drums,

0:52:22 > 0:52:25pretty lead singer, skinny jeans,

0:52:25 > 0:52:28you know, conventional kind of thing.

0:52:28 > 0:52:30That's really what sells newspapers, I guess.

0:52:30 > 0:52:34# Playing on my radio and saying that you had to go... #

0:52:34 > 0:52:37They'd written Depeche Mode off anyway as a teeny-bop band,

0:52:37 > 0:52:41a one-hit wonder, especially once Vince left, they thought "Well, that's over."

0:52:41 > 0:52:44# New day, turn away Wipe away the tear... #

0:52:44 > 0:52:48In November '81, Clarke unexpectedly quit.

0:52:48 > 0:52:52I was, and still am, a bit of a control freak.

0:52:52 > 0:52:56So, with the advent of computers and sequencers,

0:52:56 > 0:52:59I realised that I could make all of the music myself.

0:52:59 > 0:53:04You know, I didn't need necessarily other people to play the parts.

0:53:04 > 0:53:09I got a real satisfaction out of programming all of the parts myself.

0:53:13 > 0:53:20Without their chief songwriter, it seemed the game was up for Depeche Mode before they really got going.

0:53:22 > 0:53:25MUSIC: "Don't You Want Me?" by The Human League

0:53:25 > 0:53:27In the same year, a reversal of fortune

0:53:27 > 0:53:31had seen a new-look Human League finally get in on the pop action,

0:53:31 > 0:53:33partly thanks to a line-up change

0:53:33 > 0:53:37that took them out of the pages of the NME and put them on the front page of Smash Hits.

0:53:37 > 0:53:43# You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar

0:53:43 > 0:53:46# When I met you

0:53:46 > 0:53:50# I picked you out, I shook you up and turned you around

0:53:50 > 0:53:53# Turned you into someone new... #

0:53:53 > 0:53:58We got Joanne and Susan simply because we were booked to do a European tour

0:53:58 > 0:54:03and Martyn and myself became unable to be in the same group and we just thought,

0:54:03 > 0:54:09"Well, get some nice high vocals, yeah, let's try a girl.

0:54:09 > 0:54:12"Let's be a bit different and try a girl."

0:54:12 > 0:54:18From that the step was that if we were gonna take a girl on the road

0:54:18 > 0:54:20with a load of terrible randy idiots like us

0:54:20 > 0:54:23there ought to be two of them to look after each other.

0:54:23 > 0:54:25Joanne and Susan turned up...

0:54:25 > 0:54:31I was being sarcastic there, by the way, we were sitting there reading books, really.

0:54:31 > 0:54:35# You better change it back or we will both be sorry

0:54:35 > 0:54:39# Don't you want me, baby?

0:54:39 > 0:54:43# Don't you want me, oh?

0:54:43 > 0:54:46# Don't you want me, baby...? #

0:54:46 > 0:54:51Oakley spotted the girls dancing in a futurist night club in Sheffield.

0:54:51 > 0:54:53Our parents thought, "There's some ulterior motive,

0:54:53 > 0:54:55"something's going on."

0:54:55 > 0:54:59But then Philip came round and met both sets of parents

0:54:59 > 0:55:03and they thought he was a decent enough guy

0:55:03 > 0:55:07and then we went to school with our parents and they talked to the head teacher,

0:55:07 > 0:55:11who thought that it would be good for our education

0:55:11 > 0:55:14to have six weeks going round Europe

0:55:14 > 0:55:18because we could go to art galleries and things like that.

0:55:18 > 0:55:21# Put your hand in a party wave

0:55:21 > 0:55:23# Pass around

0:55:24 > 0:55:28# Make a shroud pulling combs through a backwash frame... #

0:55:30 > 0:55:33We never went to said art galleries!

0:55:33 > 0:55:35We did go to a lot of clubs.

0:55:35 > 0:55:39Yeah. We went to Cologne Cathedral,

0:55:39 > 0:55:42that was about the most cultural thing we ever did.

0:55:42 > 0:55:45# Get around town, get around town

0:55:45 > 0:55:48# Where the people look good Where the music is loud

0:55:48 > 0:55:51# Get around town No need to stand proud

0:55:51 > 0:55:55# Add your voice to the sound of the crowd... #

0:55:55 > 0:56:00It also meant that we could appeal to women as well as men.

0:56:00 > 0:56:03The early Human League was a very male-based group

0:56:03 > 0:56:06and really only lads in long coats liked us.

0:56:06 > 0:56:09And some transvestites.

0:56:11 > 0:56:13OK, pop music, let's go.

0:56:13 > 0:56:15Anyone here like The Human League?

0:56:18 > 0:56:20# The shades from a pencil peer... #

0:56:20 > 0:56:25Released in 1981, Dare crystallised the new synth-pop sound.

0:56:25 > 0:56:27# A fold in an eyelid... #

0:56:27 > 0:56:31We did something that could only be done at that stage.

0:56:31 > 0:56:36While we were doing it, they were bringing the machines in that enabled us to do it.

0:56:36 > 0:56:40For instance, the very first Lynn drum I think that arrived in England

0:56:40 > 0:56:46came into our studio and we took the drums off Sound Of The Crowd and put the Lynn drum on.

0:56:46 > 0:56:49Without that, probably, it wouldn't have worked.

0:56:49 > 0:56:55I remember when Martyn got the Lynn drum

0:56:55 > 0:57:00and it was like a child at Christmas getting the first fire engine or something.

0:57:00 > 0:57:06He was jumping up and down and all the boys were, "Oh, it's a drum!"

0:57:06 > 0:57:11Before that, apparently, the drums had been one of the hardest things to do

0:57:11 > 0:57:17and now there was this box that was this big and you could program it.

0:57:17 > 0:57:21They were all very excited and we were a bit like, "OK, boys."

0:57:23 > 0:57:25Now the flood gates were open.

0:57:25 > 0:57:30The rush to market swept every aspect of British life in the early '80s.

0:57:30 > 0:57:34Everything was now up for grabs, including pop music.

0:57:34 > 0:57:40In an attempt to eclipse his ex-bandmates, former Human League member Martyn Ware

0:57:40 > 0:57:43would cash in on the times with a concept album.

0:57:43 > 0:57:48We were doing the day shifts, they were doing the night shifts in the same studio.

0:57:48 > 0:57:52They were making Dare, we were making Penthouse And Pavement.

0:57:52 > 0:57:55I've never been so motivated in my life, believe me.

0:57:55 > 0:57:59I said, "We're gonna make it stylish, fantastic.

0:57:59 > 0:58:02"Finally, the shackles are off, we can start using other instruments

0:58:02 > 0:58:06"cos the original manifesto is broken,

0:58:06 > 0:58:10"but we're still gonna make it predominantly electronic."

0:58:10 > 0:58:14And so the idea was that suddenly we're not a group,

0:58:14 > 0:58:17we are ripping open the facade and going,

0:58:17 > 0:58:21"No, this is great music, but it's a business."

0:58:21 > 0:58:24It really is a business. It doesn't matter.

0:58:24 > 0:58:26Bob Dylan can sing all he wants.

0:58:26 > 0:58:30He's busy brown-nosing the A&R men behind the scenes.

0:58:30 > 0:58:33# Now here comes my job

0:58:33 > 0:58:38# Credit bleeding with the mob

0:58:38 > 0:58:41# Dreams become ideals... #

0:58:41 > 0:58:45But, ironically, and we were totally anti-Thatcher

0:58:45 > 0:58:48and always had been, you know, Fascist Groove Thang etc.

0:58:48 > 0:58:53It got taken on board by the aspirational yuppie culture

0:58:53 > 0:58:57in the early '80s as their kind of theme tunes a lot of the time.

0:58:57 > 0:58:58Like Let's All Make A Bomb.

0:58:58 > 0:59:02They completely missed the point of the song, totally, and it was like,

0:59:02 > 0:59:06"Yeah, mate, remember listening to that, yeah. it's fantastic, mate.

0:59:06 > 0:59:09"Love the ponytails."

0:59:09 > 0:59:13MUSIC: "Penthouse And Pavement" by Heaven 17

0:59:13 > 0:59:15Not everyone wanted in on booming Britain.

0:59:15 > 0:59:20Cabaret Voltaire were neither into ponytails nor popularity.

0:59:20 > 0:59:23Their vision of Britain was concerned with the inner city riots

0:59:23 > 0:59:28that erupted across the country in summer '81.

0:59:28 > 0:59:32People say that The Specials' Ghost Town

0:59:32 > 0:59:38was the soundtrack to the unrest of that year, but a lot of people

0:59:38 > 0:59:42alternatively think that Red Mecca was the sound of that.

0:59:42 > 0:59:44I think I've said in the past,

0:59:44 > 0:59:48somehow that insurrection on the streets kind of found its way into the music.

0:59:53 > 0:59:57You kind of took some heart in the fact

0:59:57 > 1:00:01that some people were kicking back against the system,

1:00:01 > 1:00:06albeit in quite a crude manner, and were prepared to take on the police.

1:00:14 > 1:00:18You know, we weren't paranoid, this stuff was slowly happening, you know,

1:00:18 > 1:00:20the rise of surveillance culture,

1:00:20 > 1:00:25the rise of the right wing in America and the fundamentalist Christians.

1:00:25 > 1:00:30Eh, oh la, in the name of Jesus.

1:00:30 > 1:00:32Then you've got like the revolution in Iran

1:00:32 > 1:00:35with the Shah being deposed

1:00:35 > 1:00:41and the general feeling that things are moving to the right.

1:00:47 > 1:00:54Meanwhile, something strangely synthetic was happening in the sleazy underbelly of London's Soho.

1:01:01 > 1:01:03MUSIC: "Tainted Love" by Soft Cell

1:01:03 > 1:01:07I was going to lots of Northern Soul clubs so I was listening to

1:01:07 > 1:01:12kind of Kraftwerk and Northern Soul,

1:01:12 > 1:01:15which is where things developed from, really, in my head.

1:01:15 > 1:01:18HE PLAYS "Tainted Love"

1:01:21 > 1:01:23There... I missed it.

1:01:23 > 1:01:28If we had the money we'd come to Soho and just hang around Soho,

1:01:28 > 1:01:31just getting ideas, which is where the name came from.

1:01:31 > 1:01:35# Sometimes I feel I've got to

1:01:35 > 1:01:37# Run away... #

1:01:37 > 1:01:43And Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret was a bar back in 1980 or whatever.

1:01:43 > 1:01:48That's where that photograph's from. We were just kind of fascinated,

1:01:48 > 1:01:51being these two northern hicks from the sticks

1:01:51 > 1:01:53and suddenly, "Wow, this is amazing."

1:01:53 > 1:01:58It was kind of glamorous and dangerous.

1:01:58 > 1:02:01Lots of neon lights and stuff, which we were fascinated by.

1:02:02 > 1:02:05# Now I run from you

1:02:05 > 1:02:08# This tainted love you've given

1:02:08 > 1:02:12# I give you all a boy could give you

1:02:12 > 1:02:16# Take my tears and that's not nearly all

1:02:16 > 1:02:20# Tainted love Oh, oh, oh, tainted love... #

1:02:20 > 1:02:23The first people doing the electro thing

1:02:23 > 1:02:27really caned the alienation, "I am hollow inside" thing,

1:02:27 > 1:02:29like Gary Numan, and you get this second wave

1:02:29 > 1:02:35where you've got the cold, glistening synth sound but the singer's actually very emotional.

1:02:35 > 1:02:39Marc Almond's a good example of that, torridly emotional.

1:02:39 > 1:02:44# ..Someone to hold you tight And you'll think love is to pray... #

1:02:44 > 1:02:47It's like there's a super-passionate singer

1:02:47 > 1:02:50and then the one other person, usually a guy with a synthesiser,

1:02:50 > 1:02:53and I think they're using the synth more as like

1:02:53 > 1:02:56a miniature or condensed orchestra,

1:02:56 > 1:03:00like they can get all the sounds they need out of this one box.

1:03:00 > 1:03:02So really it's more like electronic soul music.

1:03:02 > 1:03:06# Take my tears and that's not nearly all... #

1:03:06 > 1:03:08Where Soft Cell led, others would follow.

1:03:08 > 1:03:12Having left Depeche Mode, Vince Clarke would form his own duo

1:03:12 > 1:03:15with a rhythm-and-blues singer, also from Basildon.

1:03:17 > 1:03:19Vince I met for the first time

1:03:19 > 1:03:23when I was 11. We both went to the same Saturday morning music school.

1:03:23 > 1:03:25It was a council-run thing where

1:03:25 > 1:03:28I believe he was playing violin and I was playing oboe.

1:03:28 > 1:03:33Even though we'd never spoken in that time I recognised him for the fact that there was three of them,

1:03:33 > 1:03:39three brothers with this white-blond hair looking like a family of ducks going across the road, you know.

1:03:40 > 1:03:43Once I left Depeche I had some songs

1:03:43 > 1:03:48which I wanted to demo for the record company.

1:03:48 > 1:03:50One of them being Only You.

1:03:50 > 1:03:53# Looking from the window above

1:03:53 > 1:03:55# It's like a story of love... #

1:03:55 > 1:03:58Anyway, I got in touch with Alison cos I vaguely knew her.

1:03:58 > 1:04:03We didn't have plans to form a band or anything, we had no history together.

1:04:03 > 1:04:07We just went from the demo to the recording studio

1:04:07 > 1:04:09to making the first record.

1:04:09 > 1:04:13# All I needed was the love you gave

1:04:13 > 1:04:17# All I needed for another day

1:04:17 > 1:04:20# And all I ever knew

1:04:20 > 1:04:22# Only you... #

1:04:22 > 1:04:25I wasn't overly interested in technology,

1:04:25 > 1:04:29I couldn't even afford a record player or cassette player so the idea of buying hardware...

1:04:29 > 1:04:33There's no point in lusting after the things you can't have.

1:04:33 > 1:04:35Like me thinking about a mini-skirt.

1:04:35 > 1:04:38# Listen to the words that you say

1:04:38 > 1:04:41# It's getting harder to stay

1:04:41 > 1:04:45# When I see you... #

1:04:45 > 1:04:49Vince Clarke then forms another one of these classic

1:04:49 > 1:04:50sort of fire and ice groups.

1:04:50 > 1:04:53The ice is the synth and the fire is Alison Moyet,

1:04:53 > 1:04:56so that's almost like a template for '80s pop -

1:04:56 > 1:05:00the synthesiser guy, the synthesiser boffin,

1:05:00 > 1:05:03and then the super-passionate singer,

1:05:03 > 1:05:06usually female or maybe gay male. It's kind of...

1:05:06 > 1:05:09The duo replaces the rock band.

1:05:16 > 1:05:19It's an affront to rockism, isn't it?

1:05:19 > 1:05:21Just the look of those bands.

1:05:21 > 1:05:25# All I needed was the love you gave... #

1:05:25 > 1:05:28When we first started working in Yazoo,

1:05:28 > 1:05:33it was like he was effectively suffering from a very recent divorce.

1:05:33 > 1:05:35# Only you. #

1:05:35 > 1:05:38It's like these were his childhood mates, Depeche Mode.

1:05:38 > 1:05:43This was a huge thing for him, to go from being a local boy,

1:05:43 > 1:05:45like the rest of us, without a great deal of hope,

1:05:45 > 1:05:48without many prospects or any qualifications.

1:05:48 > 1:05:53The last thing I'd heard was he was driving vans for R White's, crashing them and leaving them.

1:05:53 > 1:05:56MUSIC: "Don't Go" by Yazoo

1:05:59 > 1:06:03Yazoo signed to Mute Records in 1982 and, to his surprise,

1:06:03 > 1:06:09Daniel Miller found himself with another wildly successful pop act.

1:06:09 > 1:06:12# Came in from the city Walked into the door

1:06:12 > 1:06:16# I turned around when I heard the sound of footsteps on the floor

1:06:16 > 1:06:19# Love just like addiction Now I'm hooked on you

1:06:19 > 1:06:24# I need some time to get it right Your love's gonna see me through

1:06:26 > 1:06:30# Can't stop now, don't you know I ain't ever gonna let you go

1:06:30 > 1:06:32# Don't go... #

1:06:32 > 1:06:35There was nothing right about it.

1:06:35 > 1:06:39It was quite soulful music with a very cold, electronic beat.

1:06:39 > 1:06:44She didn't fit the typecast female pop-star image at all.

1:06:44 > 1:06:47# Hey, go get the doctor... #

1:06:47 > 1:06:50You know, and it's become a cliche now, but at that time,

1:06:50 > 1:06:54the quiet second bloke on synth wasn't a cliche.

1:06:54 > 1:06:56# Can't stop now, don't you know

1:06:56 > 1:06:58# I ain't ever gonna let you go

1:06:58 > 1:07:00# Don't go... #

1:07:01 > 1:07:06In the 18 months that we existed, myself and Alison never got to know each other.

1:07:06 > 1:07:10We never went out to a pub to have a drink

1:07:10 > 1:07:12or did any of that stuff, any socialising.

1:07:12 > 1:07:16It was just in the studio, working.

1:07:16 > 1:07:21To actually come across somebody who was unfathomable,

1:07:21 > 1:07:26who you could not penetrate, and at the same time had,

1:07:26 > 1:07:31regardless of what he says, a burning ambition, he was an ambitious boy.

1:07:31 > 1:07:36What was amazing about it is he actually achieved his ambitions, which again,

1:07:36 > 1:07:40coming from where I came from, you didn't see that very often.

1:07:42 > 1:07:44And I wanted to penetrate him!

1:07:44 > 1:07:47Not biblically, obviously.

1:07:47 > 1:07:49# I ain't never gonna let you go Don't go... #

1:07:49 > 1:07:53I just wanted to be in the studio so much.

1:07:53 > 1:07:57I would have been in there 24 hours a day.

1:07:57 > 1:08:01It was like being in a sweet shop.

1:08:03 > 1:08:09Synth-pop was becoming increasingly popular and increasingly grand.

1:08:11 > 1:08:15OMD would enjoy three top 10 hits in 1982,

1:08:15 > 1:08:19two of which were about Joan of Arc.

1:08:19 > 1:08:21We were quite intellectual, you know.

1:08:21 > 1:08:25Pompous, stuck up our own arses, I guess you could say.

1:08:29 > 1:08:31We were going on Top Of The Pops

1:08:31 > 1:08:34with Bonnie Langford and Elton John and Cliff Richard amongst others,

1:08:34 > 1:08:37and we were playing a song that was in waltz time,

1:08:37 > 1:08:41that started with 45 seconds of distortion and had no chorus,

1:08:41 > 1:08:45and had a Mellotron playing what sounded like bagpipes.

1:08:46 > 1:08:50- Explain how it works. - Well, actually, it's fairly straightforward.

1:08:50 > 1:08:52It's a musical computer.

1:08:52 > 1:08:56The right hand is lead instruments with a choice of 18 different ones,

1:08:56 > 1:09:01and the left hand is rhythms in this half and backgrounds in this half.

1:09:01 > 1:09:04It's all been fed on to hundreds of tape tracks.

1:09:04 > 1:09:09The Mellotron is a very early sampler before samplers went digital.

1:09:09 > 1:09:12It was a very analogue thing.

1:09:12 > 1:09:15Here's a French accordion with a Viennese waltz.

1:09:17 > 1:09:19It was nightmare to use on stage.

1:09:19 > 1:09:24We were playing in this tiny town in the middle of France and the Mellotron was completely out of tune

1:09:24 > 1:09:29because all the town were drawing the power down so much cooking,

1:09:29 > 1:09:31the motor wouldn't spin fast enough.

1:09:31 > 1:09:35Thank you. Well, David isn't a musician, as you know,

1:09:35 > 1:09:40but I have a professional pianist here who can really show you what the Mellotron can do.

1:09:40 > 1:09:45The number of people who thought that the equipment

1:09:45 > 1:09:47wrote the song for you...

1:09:47 > 1:09:50"Well, anybody could do it with the same equipment you've got."

1:09:50 > 1:09:52Fuck off.

1:09:52 > 1:09:58# If Joan of Arc had a heart

1:09:58 > 1:10:05# Would she give it as a gift? #

1:10:05 > 1:10:08It's all played by hand.

1:10:08 > 1:10:11Believe me, if there was a button on a synth or a drum machine

1:10:11 > 1:10:14that said, "hit single", I would have pressed it

1:10:14 > 1:10:17as often as anybody else would have, but there isn't.

1:10:17 > 1:10:22It was all written by real human beings and it was all played by hand,

1:10:22 > 1:10:25to the point where Paul and I thought we were gonna get arthritis

1:10:25 > 1:10:29in our fingers from playing bass lines like that for hours on end.

1:10:29 > 1:10:31MUSIC: "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)" by Eurythmics

1:10:31 > 1:10:36Between 1981 and 1983, synth-pop reigned supreme.

1:10:36 > 1:10:39Our charts were chock full of duos and groups

1:10:39 > 1:10:41who set aside changing the world

1:10:41 > 1:10:45in favour of making it with a synth on Top Of The Pops.

1:10:45 > 1:10:48# Some of them want to use you

1:10:48 > 1:10:52# Some of them want to get used by you

1:10:52 > 1:10:56# Some of them want to abuse you... #

1:10:56 > 1:10:59You've got to remember that it was the first time ever

1:10:59 > 1:11:01that someone could sit and make a record on their own.

1:11:07 > 1:11:10Eurythmics came along

1:11:10 > 1:11:13and they did Sweet Dreams in their basement.

1:11:13 > 1:11:16They recorded it on an eight-track tape machine.

1:11:16 > 1:11:20Annie sang Sweet Dreams into a little Shure microphone,

1:11:20 > 1:11:23holding it in her hand, and won a Grammy for it.

1:11:23 > 1:11:27MUSIC: "Vienna" by Ultravox

1:11:27 > 1:11:30And in 1982, along came a song

1:11:30 > 1:11:33that turned the alienation of the original synth pioneers

1:11:33 > 1:11:36into a full-blown epic.

1:11:36 > 1:11:41Ultravox would score one of the biggest synth-pop hits ever,

1:11:41 > 1:11:47called Vienna, which has that total fetishism of Mitteleuropa, Vienna.

1:11:47 > 1:11:52It's the Habsburg Empire, the romance of central Europe.

1:11:54 > 1:11:57# Freezing breath on the window pane

1:11:57 > 1:12:00# Lying and waiting... #

1:12:00 > 1:12:05The movies we were watching and the music we were listening to at the time all came out of Europe

1:12:05 > 1:12:08and the history that Europe had, you know, Vienna being

1:12:08 > 1:12:11this beautifully romantic city, this beautiful place.

1:12:11 > 1:12:15You put all that together and you've got this fantastic image, this wonderful...

1:12:15 > 1:12:19I'd never been to Vienna when we wrote the song, I didn't know anything about Vienna.

1:12:19 > 1:12:23# Reaching out in a piercing cry It stays with you until... #

1:12:23 > 1:12:26You try putting that down, that you're gonna write a song

1:12:26 > 1:12:29that is a four-and-a-half-minute long electronic ballad

1:12:29 > 1:12:32that speeds up in the middle with a viola solo thrown in -

1:12:32 > 1:12:35it doesn't equate, it doesn't work.

1:12:35 > 1:12:38But at the time when you're young and naive, naivety is a wonderful thing.

1:12:38 > 1:12:44# This means nothing to me

1:12:44 > 1:12:48# Oh, Vienna. #

1:12:53 > 1:12:57Not to be outdone by their English synth-pop derivatives,

1:12:57 > 1:13:00Kraftwerk would return in 1982

1:13:00 > 1:13:03to score their only number one single success,

1:13:03 > 1:13:08cashing in with a song that they'd originally recorded in 1978.

1:13:08 > 1:13:12MUSIC: "The Model" by Kraftwerk

1:13:13 > 1:13:15With The Model that was, in England,

1:13:15 > 1:13:19to be a hit, that was a complete different story.

1:13:19 > 1:13:22We didn't expect it ourselves.

1:13:23 > 1:13:28# She's a model and she's looking good... #

1:13:28 > 1:13:33The reasons was the following - we had already a single to be played

1:13:33 > 1:13:37on the radio in England and it was Computer World.

1:13:37 > 1:13:42The man of the EMI London house,

1:13:42 > 1:13:46he didn't know what to put on the B-side.

1:13:46 > 1:13:51And he thought and he thought and he thought, maybe two days longer,

1:13:51 > 1:13:56and suddenly, he had the great idea to put The Model from the last album,

1:13:56 > 1:13:59Man Machine, on the B-side.

1:13:59 > 1:14:04And then they sent the single to radios, and 80% of the radios played the B-side.

1:14:09 > 1:14:14# She's going out tonight Loves drinking just champagne... #

1:14:14 > 1:14:19By 1983, Britain had entered an era of conspicuous consumption and greed

1:14:19 > 1:14:24that made the late '70s seem like a foreign country.

1:14:24 > 1:14:26Loadsamoney!

1:14:26 > 1:14:32It would provide inspiration for Depeche Mode's new chief songwriter.

1:14:34 > 1:14:38# The handshake seals a contract

1:14:38 > 1:14:42# From the contract There's no turning back

1:14:42 > 1:14:48# The turning point of a career... #

1:14:48 > 1:14:52The early '80s were just a terrible time in Britain.

1:14:52 > 1:14:55And I was young and impressionable,

1:14:55 > 1:14:58and that was really when I first felt like

1:14:58 > 1:15:01I was writing from the heart, really.

1:15:01 > 1:15:06# The grabbing hands grab all they can

1:15:06 > 1:15:10# All for themselves, after all

1:15:10 > 1:15:14# The grabbing hands grab all they can

1:15:14 > 1:15:18# All for themselves, after all

1:15:18 > 1:15:21# It's a competitive world... #

1:15:21 > 1:15:25Around the time of Construction Time Again,

1:15:25 > 1:15:28samplers had just really come out.

1:15:28 > 1:15:31We would just... It was a whole revelation to us.

1:15:31 > 1:15:36We were just going out and smashing pieces of metal

1:15:36 > 1:15:40with sledgehammers, raiding the kitchen drawer

1:15:40 > 1:15:43for all the utensils to make percussion sounds.

1:15:43 > 1:15:45Just anything we could get our hands on.

1:15:45 > 1:15:49We've got this vague idea at the moment which was used on the demo.

1:15:49 > 1:15:53We've got this pebble, which we got from the mud.

1:15:53 > 1:15:55Yeah, look, white spots.

1:15:55 > 1:15:57They're the stinging nettles.

1:15:57 > 1:16:02Anyway, the idea is to roll the pebble on this piece of metal along here,

1:16:02 > 1:16:05this window frame,

1:16:05 > 1:16:07thus causing...

1:16:07 > 1:16:09thus making this sort of sound.

1:16:09 > 1:16:10RATTLING

1:16:10 > 1:16:17Construction Time Again really started to see us form as the basis

1:16:17 > 1:16:20of what we are today.

1:16:20 > 1:16:21RATTLING

1:16:21 > 1:16:26That was a lot better. Anyway, the idea is to take that sequence

1:16:26 > 1:16:30and to make an interesting rhythm out of it,

1:16:30 > 1:16:34and to sequence it all through the song,

1:16:34 > 1:16:35so people dance.

1:16:39 > 1:16:45Depeche Mode pioneered their new sampler-based sound in London's Shoreditch.

1:16:45 > 1:16:49In those days, Shoreditch, there was not a soul around.

1:16:49 > 1:16:51Now, of course, with Hoxton etc etc,

1:16:51 > 1:16:53it is the trendy place to be,

1:16:53 > 1:16:56but it wasn't when we were at the Garden Studios.

1:16:56 > 1:16:58There was not a soul to be seen.

1:16:58 > 1:17:04# Get out the crane Construction time again

1:17:04 > 1:17:07# What is it this time... #

1:17:07 > 1:17:10I remember, there was one sound in particular

1:17:10 > 1:17:14that was us actually hitting a piece of corrugated iron

1:17:14 > 1:17:16that was the side of a building site,

1:17:16 > 1:17:19and the sample sort of went like...

1:17:19 > 1:17:23"Krr! Oi!", and that was the site foreman.

1:17:23 > 1:17:25- # It's a lot - It's a lot

1:17:25 > 1:17:27- # It's a lot - It's a lot

1:17:27 > 1:17:28- # It's a lot - It's a lot... #

1:17:28 > 1:17:35We seemed, in the '80s, to be doing a one-band crusade for electronic music

1:17:35 > 1:17:40against the music press, that was overwhelmingly rock-based.

1:17:40 > 1:17:47We would often do interviews with journalists and we'd have

1:17:47 > 1:17:50a big argument, because they just didn't consider

1:17:50 > 1:17:52electronic music to be real music.

1:17:53 > 1:17:57# There's a new game we like to play, you see

1:17:57 > 1:18:01# The game with added reality

1:18:01 > 1:18:06# You treat me like a dog Get me down on my knees

1:18:06 > 1:18:09# We call it master and servant... #

1:18:09 > 1:18:16You know, we got accused at certain times of being like a very subversive pop band, and I do think that we did

1:18:16 > 1:18:22get away with some stuff that was probably risque for the radio, just because we used it in a pop context.

1:18:22 > 1:18:28# With you on top and me underneath... #

1:18:28 > 1:18:32In our early career, there was things like Master And Servant and stuff.

1:18:32 > 1:18:36# Let's play master and servant

1:18:36 > 1:18:38# Let's play master and servant... #

1:18:38 > 1:18:42Some of the reviews were unbelievably vicious.

1:18:42 > 1:18:45You just couldn't... Real hatred for the band.

1:18:45 > 1:18:48Real hatred. I don't know why. It wasn't British, really.

1:18:49 > 1:18:52A journalist once said,

1:18:52 > 1:18:57"The music will appeal to alienated youth everywhere, and Germans."

1:18:57 > 1:18:59HE LAUGHS

1:19:03 > 1:19:08Depeche Mode would eventually find a sympathetic home for their music in America.

1:19:12 > 1:19:16For a lot of Americans, England just means gay.

1:19:16 > 1:19:23They think it's like a conflation of Oscar Wilde and various ideas about British boarding school.

1:19:23 > 1:19:28For people who feel different, or misfits in America,

1:19:28 > 1:19:31England does actually seem like this utopia.

1:19:31 > 1:19:35They imagine everyone in England walks around wearing eyeliner and plays synthesisers, you know?

1:19:35 > 1:19:38And so to be a Depeche Mode fan in America

1:19:38 > 1:19:40was actually quite a dissident thing.

1:19:44 > 1:19:51Depeche Mode were the only act who were truly successful in exporting the British electronic sound.

1:19:51 > 1:19:54The band would enjoy massive popularity in America

1:19:54 > 1:19:56throughout the '80s and beyond,

1:19:56 > 1:20:00consistently filling stadiums across the land.

1:20:00 > 1:20:02Back in Britain, in '83,

1:20:02 > 1:20:06the sampler was moving synth-pop in a different direction.

1:20:06 > 1:20:11Suppose I want to send my loved one a rather special musical greeting, well, I can.

1:20:11 > 1:20:16First, let me give the computer an idea of the sound that I actually want to send.

1:20:16 > 1:20:18So, I'll prime it again.

1:20:24 > 1:20:26And now I'll speak into the mic. Hello!

1:20:26 > 1:20:32And we have to wait a couple of seconds now for the sound wave to come up. There it is.

1:20:32 > 1:20:37SAMPLER: # Hello, hello, hello Hello, hello, hello. #

1:20:37 > 1:20:38Hello, dear.

1:20:38 > 1:20:43When we arrived in it, the Emulator had just been invented.

1:20:43 > 1:20:48It was completely riveting, because it had James Brown going, "Please!"

1:20:48 > 1:20:50You played up and down the keyboard.

1:20:50 > 1:20:52Had a string quartet or an orchestra.

1:20:52 > 1:20:55It had a famous Beethoven "Rumph, rumph."

1:20:57 > 1:20:59# West End girl... #

1:20:59 > 1:21:01The first record we made, West End Girl,

1:21:01 > 1:21:04every sound was actually a sample played on the same keyboard

1:21:04 > 1:21:07which looked just like a Bontempi chord organ.

1:21:09 > 1:21:15The idea was to take real life and put it against beautiful or dance or both music.

1:21:15 > 1:21:20Because we were the last of the thing that started with The Human League,

1:21:20 > 1:21:25and we were probably the first of the thing where pop music was raised to dance music.

1:21:25 > 1:21:28# In a West End town a dead end world

1:21:28 > 1:21:31# The East End boys and West End girls

1:21:33 > 1:21:37# Ooh, in a West End town a dead end world

1:21:37 > 1:21:40# East End boys West End girls... #

1:21:42 > 1:21:47The Pet Shop Boys gave us a glimpse of what the future held for British electronic music.

1:21:47 > 1:21:51But the band that would truly spearhead the shift from synth-pop

1:21:51 > 1:21:55to dance music had evolved out of the ashes of Joy Division.

1:21:57 > 1:22:02Whilst in America, New Order would have a synthetic epiphany.

1:22:06 > 1:22:09Kind of at the period where Ian had died

1:22:09 > 1:22:12and we were going recording in New York.

1:22:12 > 1:22:15We were spending a lot of time in New York and I was going

1:22:15 > 1:22:18to night clubs after the studio.

1:22:18 > 1:22:20Every night.

1:22:20 > 1:22:25I remember sitting there on these kind of steps in a club and thinking,

1:22:25 > 1:22:27"Wouldn't it be great if one day,

1:22:27 > 1:22:30"our music was played in a place like this."

1:22:32 > 1:22:36That sort of planted a seed in my head, really,

1:22:36 > 1:22:39that got me interested in more in synthesisers.

1:22:41 > 1:22:44You know, if you play an encore or something, you know,

1:22:44 > 1:22:48it's like, you're just falling into the trap, you know,

1:22:48 > 1:22:51it's a phoney thing doing an encore, everyone expects it.

1:22:52 > 1:22:56"Ooh, let's get these machines to do a track and we'll just go on

1:22:56 > 1:22:59"as if we're doing an encore, press a button and then bugger off."

1:22:59 > 1:23:01That was the idea.

1:23:11 > 1:23:14When Blue Monday came out, a lot of people didn't like it.

1:23:14 > 1:23:16They went, "What, what...

1:23:16 > 1:23:20"it doesn't sound like New Order, what are you doing?

1:23:20 > 1:23:23"It doesn't sound like you're supposed to sound."

1:23:23 > 1:23:27A lot of people were like, "I don't like that." Then, it just took off.

1:23:28 > 1:23:31# How does it feel?

1:23:31 > 1:23:33# To treat me like you do?

1:23:35 > 1:23:39# When you laid your hands upon me

1:23:39 > 1:23:42# And told me who you are... #

1:23:42 > 1:23:44I guess, people went on holidays

1:23:44 > 1:23:48and they hear it in night clubs in Spain and Greece and stuff,

1:23:48 > 1:23:50and when they came back,

1:23:50 > 1:23:53they would buy it'd be a big hit over and over again.

1:23:55 > 1:24:02Blue Monday's inscrutable club cool would make it become the biggest-selling 12-inch of all time,

1:24:02 > 1:24:07originally released in 1983, it heralded the future for British electronica.

1:24:07 > 1:24:12A new age of dance music, unconcerned with pop charts and commercial appeal,

1:24:12 > 1:24:16would gain a massive following that thrives to this day.

1:24:18 > 1:24:25For those electronic pioneers who had brought the synth into British pop music, it was the end of an era.

1:24:25 > 1:24:28It sort of starts, I guess, round about '83.

1:24:28 > 1:24:30It was just overdone. It was saturated.

1:24:30 > 1:24:33There was too much synth-pop around.

1:24:33 > 1:24:35# This is the sound of all of our friends... #

1:24:35 > 1:24:40It's all very well if it's being on a synth, but the actual melodies and the way the songs

1:24:40 > 1:24:44were structured were really pretty traditional and quite trite.

1:24:44 > 1:24:47It wasn't that inventive as electronic music.

1:24:47 > 1:24:51# Somebody's got their eye on me

1:24:51 > 1:24:55# Perhaps I should invite him up for tea... #

1:24:55 > 1:24:59Towards the middle of the '80s, there wasn't so much encouragement

1:24:59 > 1:25:03from the record companies to do more experimental stuff.

1:25:03 > 1:25:08I meant that initial supernova of post-punk, it was dying away.

1:25:08 > 1:25:11And slowly but surely,

1:25:11 > 1:25:15the cancerous growth of market-led A&R-ing

1:25:15 > 1:25:18started invidiously creeping up

1:25:18 > 1:25:23and blandifying and homogenising the musical market, in my view.

1:25:23 > 1:25:25We were a bit lost by then.

1:25:25 > 1:25:28It was all a bit... We felt we'd achieved it.

1:25:28 > 1:25:32We thought we'd proved our point, and it just looked like

1:25:32 > 1:25:34we didn't have anything left to prove.

1:25:37 > 1:25:41The commodification of synth-pop marked the end of a golden era

1:25:41 > 1:25:45in which a generation of post-punk musicians had taken the synth

1:25:45 > 1:25:50from the fringes of experimentation to the centre of the pop stage.

1:25:51 > 1:25:55Out of the '70s and into the '80s.

1:25:58 > 1:26:05At the time, it was just really, really exciting, and it was exciting to be a part of a musical movement

1:26:05 > 1:26:08that had never been done before, that was completely different.

1:26:08 > 1:26:10It wasn't a rehash of anything.

1:26:12 > 1:26:19Those early electronic records, they'd ever been done before, so, it was a fine time.

1:26:19 > 1:26:22# I only knew you for a while... #

1:26:22 > 1:26:27We were trying to do something new. That's specifically why we chose electronics

1:26:27 > 1:26:32and embraced every new piece of equipment we could get our hands on or afford.

1:26:32 > 1:26:35We wanted to sweep away all of the old rock cliches and stereotypes

1:26:35 > 1:26:39and the lead guitar solos and long hair and everything.

1:26:39 > 1:26:43And then what happens towards the end of the '80s and even worse in the mid '90s,

1:26:43 > 1:26:47everybody decides that guitars are back in, synthesisers are somehow old-fashioned,

1:26:47 > 1:26:50and you get Oasis! Horror!

1:26:50 > 1:26:53# We'll always be together

1:26:53 > 1:26:55# However far it seems

1:26:55 > 1:26:58# Love never ends

1:26:58 > 1:27:01# We'll always be together

1:27:01 > 1:27:08# Together in electric dreams

1:27:18 > 1:27:21# Because the friendship that you gave

1:27:21 > 1:27:24# Has taught me to be brave

1:27:24 > 1:27:25# No matter where I go

1:27:25 > 1:27:30# I'll never find a better prize... #