Synth Britannia - Clips Selection

For those of you who dont have access to the BBC, I put together a playlist of some clips taken from the UK Synth Britannia documentary. The program chronicles the rise of Synth Pop in the UK, where it snowballed  after Kraftwerk started the ball rolling.

Totally brilliant program with a load of interviews with some of the finest pioneers of the medium.

Loved it when John Foxx gave huge props to Gary Numan while it's widely known that Gary was a huge Foxx fan..... noice

02-Nov-09 09:12 AM

cheers

03-Nov-09 03:20 AM

Whoever came up with this show deserves a knighthood. That and the Alchemists Of Sound documentary about the Radiophonic Workshop are pure synth porn genius.

Everyone interviewed looks so bloody old though! I still think of them all as youngsters in trenchcoats and heavy make-up. Hard to think that it is getting on for 30 years ago.

Blink of an (electronic) eye..

03-Nov-09 11:25 AM

Thanks for that clip. And yes, Synth Britannia was the most exciting music documentary to be broadcast this year - I was having a nose around your site, the ??harp looks great too but unfortunately I was unable to play the video. Good Luck guys Sally Lifely :P

06-Nov-09 03:59 PM

I don't normally watch TV much but when I caught wind of this documentary it was a must-do from the start.

Despite the fact that most of it happened 30 or so years ago the show oddly conveyed both optimism and pessimism. So much of the programme focusses on the synths themselves, which is great as it shows that none of the groups and personas that were around at that time would have been possible without them. Yet the musicians talk of those days as though music had reached its prime and that it will never be that exciting again.

The documentary could have shown what the various artists are up to nowadays to round it off, just to bring that warm glow back to the present instead of leaving us with the feeling that innovation and terrific sounds are lost in the past for good.

Nostalgia is a happy/sad paradox.

07-Nov-09 06:34 AM

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