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

This excellent examination of the birth and rise of electronic pop music in Britain by author Richard Evans combines a fresh approach to the success and longevity of the genre with a thorough analysis of its cultural impact and why it resonated with the post-punk generation back in the late 70s and early 80s.

Evans offers an in-depth and comprehensive study of how an underground phenomenon influenced the minds of a generation of musicians and fans who somehow managed to invent and discover that missing link between punk, disco, pop, and glam rock. Richly detailed and evocative, the book highlights the importance and influence of such varied acts as Gary Numan, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, New Order, Soft Cell, Duran Duran, Cabaret Voltaire, and Erasure among the many artists featured in the great-looking hardback. Their stories and reflections are placed within a much wider historical framework and collectively form a most beguiling narrative that leaves room for thought. In many ways, it also explores the interaction between ordinary individuals in the sense that many of these musicians were not necessarily musical prodigies or virtuosos; they were teenagers harboring dreams of making accessible and catchy music that would appeal to like-minded individuals. They often made use of sparse instrumentation and approached the craft of writing a song from a somewhat minimalist perspective, and therein lies the beauty and power of many of those compositions. Several of those singles and records that we continually and consistently come across in various settings today were captured for posterity in small apartments and bedroom studios, and as Evans illustrates, the DIY aesthetics of punk were undoubtedly employed by the New Romantics and the post-punk scene to great effect. 

From hilarious anecdotes to enigmatic portrayals of certain key players within the scene, the book is the kind of thing that can spark a healthy debate among friends and fellow fans of electronic, synthesizer-driven albums, and it is all the better for it. It reveals and sheds light on countless facts and uncovers interesting trivia while also coming across as balanced and nuanced with respect to the creative as well as commercial highs and lows. Listening to the Music the Machines Make is more than just a primer or a fine introduction to the subject of electronic pop music; it is a passionate account of how those musical outputs changed the world and a quintessential commentary on why they still matter to us. A must-read for all fans of electronic music in general.