Listening to the Music the Machines Make - Inventing Electronic Pop 1978 to 1983: Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983

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But the process of going through all the edits, the photos, getting the artwork and style right, it’s been quite intense. Then the writing bit came in stringing these things all together and turning them into this story from all those different perspectives layered on top of each other.

It’s the way that Evans weaves and knits these familiar names into such a rich and enormous tapestry that makes the book stand out. I grew up in Essex and was starting my journey as a music fan at the same time that they were starting out. I’d invested so much of my myself and spent so much of my money in my teens in their music, that it wasn’t such a big jump to continuing that support of them 10-15-20 years later.With a foreword by Vince Clarke and a focus on source material such as the music press and the charts, this is a detailed and thorough exploration of how a number of bands, mainly British, developed their sounds from 1978 - 1983. There’s also the ongoing nostalgia circuit which allows these artists to continue to perform and those performances also provide a financial base from which acts can record and release new material. Listening to the Music the Machines Make is commendable as an essential reference work and a thoughtful and affectionate in-depth examination of a vital musical genre.

Onwards the book progresses year by year from 1978 through to 1983, into TRANSITION where those fledgling bands formed out of the punk era, metamorphosed into their peacock-feathered, Top of the Pops-appearing, face-of-mainstream-music full beings. I think I was already at least aware of all the bands and artists I cover in the book, but I didn’t know all their music. Similarly, some literary works would also be hugely significant in the cold, steely edge given to electronic music produced in the late 70s/early 80s. But Simon Reynolds said in ‘Synth Britannia’ that it was Howard Jones that made him feel that electronic pop was now no longer special and part into the mainstream… was there a moment when this music changed for you? I went through all these things, page after page after page and every time I saw something that I attained to this story like a news item, review or interview, I took a photo of it on my phone.

Listening to the Music the Machines Make is the enthralling, explosive story of electronic pop between 1978 and 1983—a true golden age of British music.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.The book begins with influential artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder.