The 1980s Sound Explosion: How Synths Took Over Pop and Rock

Who doesn’t love the synthesizer? Once considered the newest, hippest piece of tech to enter the world of music, this electronic musical instrument has evolved and changed quite a bit through the years. It’s still a staple instrument in synth-pop, rock music, noise rock, and about a million other genres. However, the manipulation of waveforms via the synthesizer was once a brand-new, strange thing. And synths really kicked off their popularity in the 1980s.

The Early Years of the Synth

The synthesizer was invented in the 1950s, but it didn’t quite blow up until the 1980s. Synths became a lot more affordable in the 1980s, and plenty of musicians had more time to experiment with the strange new instrument during the New Romantic movement.

The synth became a standard instrument in the new wave movement. It certainly makes sense why. The types of sounds one could generate with a synth differed greatly from traditional mainstream pop and rock instruments like the guitar and bass. New wave was the natural response to rock music and further pushed the cultural impact of punk in a new direction.

Punk Music

Suicide was one notable band to adopt the synth during the post-punk movement and during the early years of synth-pop. There was something very irrevocably punk about the way they would use their second-hand, often malfunctioning synths and cheap-as-they-come drum machines in their music.

Jazz Music

Supergroup jazz outfit Weather Report started using the synthesizer as early as the 1970s until their breakup in 1986. For a genre as old as jazz, it was refreshing to hear a band use synthesizers to create very distinctive sounds that effortlessly blended together the classic harmonics of jazz with electronic noise.

Pop Music, Post-Punk, New Wave, and Beyond

By the time the 1980s hit, the synthesizer had almost become a mainstream instrument. Depeche Mode famously released “Just Can’t Get Enough” in 1981, a music box synth-soaked pop hit that has aged pretty well. Tons of other bands, from New Order to Duran Duran to A-Ha released countless songs that utilized the synthesizer as well.

Despite its very distinct sound, the synth has never been pigeonholed into one specific genre. Post-punk, new wave, pop music, dance tunes, and more have all incorporated the synth into their bespoke sound. And with the digitization of electronic music, the synthesizer is still going strong today; even in its software form.

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