As I'm sure you've all noticed, there's been quite a resurgence of what my untrained ear would call '80s style dance/electronica this year. Hercules and Love Affar, Cut Copy, and M83 have all realeased albums whose sonic signatures remind me (and make me nostalgic for) my youth.

I was born in 1980, so I'm old enough to remember these types of sounds being used in popular music, but too young to have been much of a scholar of the day's tunes.

Now, it's not that I don't enjoy these musical throwbacks to the '80s (In fact, I love each of the albums I mentioned), but I was hoping someone could give me some recommendations for some albums to which those artists listed above owe a great deal.

Here are a couple, but I'm sure I'm not scraping the bottom with these:

Kraftwerk - Everything from Autobahn on is electro-pop. This is for the better or for the worse depending on how big of a Kraut rock purist you are.
Giorgio Moroder - From Here to Eternity, E=MC2, and Knights in White Satin are all worth listening to. Straight up disco fun.

Donna Summer - She's more hit or miss to me. Kinda bland when she misses. Giorgio also produced a bunch of her stuff, so it's pretty similar.

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&searchlink=THE|BUGGLES&sql=11:aifoxqw5ldde~T2]The Buggles - The Age of Plastic is a pretty solid record (with "Video Killed the Radio Star" being the obvious hit single). I'm not such a fan of their second one - Adventures in Modern Recording.

Gary Numan - Another so-called one hit wonder who is worth further investigation. I heard about him on the BBC3 tv show The Mighty Boosh.

Pete Shelley - Fresh from the Buzzcocks, Shelley released a solid synth-pop record called Homosapien. This one's generally pretty easy to find for cheap at yr local record store, and worth every penny.

Zapp & Roger Zapp & Roger - AKA Roger Troutman. This guy is THE inspiration for Dr. Dre's The Chronic. He also did things with the vocoder that are downright obscene, and some 8-10 years before Daft Punk.

Strut records put out a nice Italo disco compilation called Disco Italia that covers some of the more obscure Italian bands coming relatively late to the disco party during the 80s.

Hope this helps! I'm sure there are plenty that I missed. I would like some new stuff to hunt down as well!

Thanks a lot for the recommendations! Most of what you listed looks very promising. I'll be sure to check them out and report back.

quote:

Originally posted by V:
Giorgio Moroder - E=MC2

I'd start here. Some more Italo Disco:

Also check out Black Devil's Disco Club and the new Black Devil Disco Club album Eight Oh Eight.

Boxsets and compilations are pretty much your best bet. Morgan Geist's compilation Unclassics is noteworthy. There's a 6 disc box set called I Love Disco which is an italo disco box set; some of it is really cheesy but it has some classic tracks. Also, I-Robots: Italo Disco Underground Classics is pretty good.

quote:

Originally posted by JGlass:
Morgan Geist's compilation Unclassics is noteworthy.

Gave this a spin today. Good stuff!

I think I saw his name floating around here re: an album released this year...

Don't know much about it but here's an RA blurb on it.

quote:

Originally posted by JGlass:
I think I saw his name floating around here re: an album released this year...

That was me. It's good.

It may be on a train somewhere...

... On page 20...

I'm liking it. It has Jeremy Greenspan of Junior Boys doing vocals on it.

That was another thing that caught my eye... I'm not sure why I still haven't picked it up. Between Twinkie's vouch and Greenspan collab'ing with Geist it has to be worth hearing...

Not so much popular, more or less known!

Modern Rocketry- I'm not your stepping stone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byKuBpGBL2o

Gina X Performance- Nice Mover
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7rpomaKywE

Telex- Moscow Discow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFWdobNIcPQ

Martin Dupont- He Saw The Light
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ew_fcRbU_pw

Miro Miroe- Nights of Arabia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4jUVdbglBo

This message has been edited. Last edited by: naive,

What about The Art of Noise? Avante-garde 80's synth-pop.

Figures On The Beach- Breathless
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGBcEk9_kZ8
Felony- Fanatic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeFQGh3U40c
Technos- Foreign Land
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oncNeONW1Ms

You people are forgetting one of the biggest 80's dance bands:

New Order

Album recommendations:

Low-Life
Technique
Power, Corruption & Lies

Five of their albums (their main 5 from the 80's) have been remastered and will be released this month.