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20/10/09 : Quote of the day

The number of people who thought that the equipment wrote the song for you - "Well, anybody could do it with the same equipment you've got" - Fuck! Off!
- Andy McCluskey (OMD)

That possibly slightly odd quote was from the rather good recent BBC documentary Synth Britannia, about "synthpop" in the early eighties. I was seriously into electronic music at the time, until the rave/house/dance music stuff came along and spoilt everything (at which point I started listening to rock). It always used to annoy me that if I was talking about any type of synthesizer or drum machine or whatever someone would always say, "isn't that one of those things that does it all for you?".

Ignorance is sometimes understandable, but ignorant people who seem to have an opinion on the thing they know nothing about really piss me off. Another example I frequently came across (some years later) was on the mention of the band Iron Maiden somebody would always say "aren't they all devil worshippers?"

No, they're not. (Do genuine devil worshippers actually exist?)

Anyway, back to the synthpop - here's a great early example for your listening pleasure.

[UPDATE: Here is the Synth Britania documentary on YouTube].