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Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesMusic 101: A Three Album Introduction to 1980s Synth-Pop
by Clarence Ewing
With over 100 years of recorded music available to us, it can be hard to know where to begin listening to the art form’s many variations. This series provides ideas for those interested in exploring unfamiliar genres and styles of music.
What Is It: Popular music whose instrumentation is made up mostly or entirely of electronic synthesizers.
The use of electronic instruments to make music can be traced back as far as the mid-1700s. Synthesizers, the electronic analogue of keyed instruments like pianos, have existed in one form or another since the mid-1950s.
Until the late 1970s, these instruments were on the fringes of music styles like Disco and progressive Rock, played by people who had enough money to buy them.
The 1980s saw the widespread use of synths in pop music, especially by bands inspired by the Punk and New Wave sounds emerging from cities. The inherently bright, chirpy sounds from a keyboard could be used to make happy music, but also deliver lyrics that weren’t so perky. Electronica, experimental pop, and “bedroom pop” (where one person could create their own masterworks using electronic tools) would emerge from the synth taking its place as a common tool in music-making.
For listeners interested in 1980s Synth-Pop but unsure where to begin exploring, these three albums would be good places to start…
Some Great Reward by Depeche Mode (1984)
Depeche Mode is the most successful band in history that used synths as their primary instruments. Their fourth album contains the international hit “People Are People,” which directly addressed racism and war, along with more risque topics like S&M (“Master and Servant)” suicide (“Blasphemous Rumours”) and the general ennui that comes with working in a capitalist society (“Lie to Me”). It’s a dark album made up of uplifting melodies that could get minimal exposure on the public airwaves.
moimoi writesThe “Exit West” Playlist
This September, the Chicago Pubic Library selected Moshsin Hamid's novel, Exit West, as its "One Book, One Chicago" selection for 2020, describing is as "..an astonishingly visionary love story that imagines the forces that drive ordinary people from their homes into the uncertain embrace of new lands."
And for another year, the Library invited us here at CHIRP to create]https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3oA1fNLQs5VjtxQlAefgiB?si=bk2fXwoxQ_K30JTONEGSbw">create[/url] a playlist to accompany the reading.
CHIRP Radio volunteer and DJ Moizza Khan reflects on the novel and presents a playlist]https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3oA1fNLQs5VjtxQlAefgiB?si=bk2fXwoxQ_K30JTONEGSbw">playlist[/url] of music that captures the themes and spirit of this work.
“We are all migrants through time.”
In 1968, my dad came to Chicago as an international student from India, working multiple jobs and living with multiple roommates as he studied engineering at the UIC Circle campus. Shortly after his arrival, he got word that his father back in Hyderabad had passed away. He never got to say goodbye and, over time and migration, he would lose nearly all direct family ties to India.
Life in the Midwest has never been particularly welcoming to foreigners, and though my childhood was in many ways typical, I never fit in or felt the same nostalgia for the suburbs as the kids I grew up with.
My goal was to spend at least half of my 20s outside the U.S. and the only thing that kept me from achieving this was my father’s health problems after he became a widower. My greatest fear was that, like him, I would get word of his passing from thousands of miles away and never get to say goodbye.
moimoi writesPop Culture Resolutions: Read More With CHIRP!
written by DJ moimoi
New year, new resolutions to get our sh*t together – whether that’s improving our eating, sleeping, and exercise (all good things) or just clearing out our watchlists while we’re stuck inside over the cold winter months.
One resolution that checks both boxes for self-improvement and entertainment is to read more, and here are some tips to ensure success:
First, figure out when you have time to read: On your commute to work? On the treadmill? Waiting in the allergist’s lobby or in line for a chicken sandwich? All of these and more can be opportunities to get some reading in, if you consider your selections wisely. For example, you don’t want to carry a Tolstoy novel around on your daily commute – that might make better bedside reading or work better on an e-reader. Poetry and graphic novels are great to pick up and put down when you’re multi-tasking. And paperbacks can be thrown around, consumed, and traded in with zero guilt (especially if you shop local and/or used).
Then, figure out what to read: Perhaps you have a tantalizing stack of unread books cluttering up your apartment or a really long spreadsheet of titles you’ve been updating for years. This is what happens when you decide to read something before figuring out when it will be read. Resolve yourself to clearing the clutter and crossing off the list using the method above.
There are also tons of celebrity reading lists, reading challenges, and book clubs to incentivize a new or renewed commitment to reading. As music-lovers, we at CHIRP particularly recommend the following:
Craig Reptile: Your Sunday Sonic Sundowner writesVideo Premiere: “I Wait” by Vesper
Chicago by way of Nashville duo Vesper have just released Years and to coincide with a new single are debuting a video directed by local product and current Los Angeles resident Ellie Pritts.
Years has just been released on vinyl (with eight color variants) on Chicago’s own Shuga label, the record’s digital release is April 18, and the pair have a record release show at The Empty Bottle on Tuesday April 16 with Zigtebra and Big Syn also on the bill.
Zachary and Samantha say they “met through an overlapping circle of friends and adoration of animals” and started collaborating on music soon after meeting. Both grew up in artistic households, with Zachary being the son of a songwriter and theater director and playing in what he describes as “awful punk band” Muckraker during high school and Samantha started performing in musical theater and taking ballet when she was five and eventually took guitar and piano lessons and learned other genres of dance.
When asked if it’s a fair assessment that the songs on Years have a disconnect between the sometimes bouncy music and the serious subject matter of the lyrics, they both agree wholeheartedly. Zachary likes to describe Vesper as “the saddest songs you can dance to...I’m not a sad person per se; but we’ve both recognized hardships as a way of life. Instead of moping around, we use it as fodder.”
Josh Friedberg: Music Historian's Corner writesBook Review: “Higher Ground”
by Josh Friedberg
Higher Ground: Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, Curtis Mayfield, and the Rise and Fall of American Soul by Craig Werner
Craig Werner is one of the most perceptive music historians and critics of the last three decades, and Higher Ground—the follow-up to his highly acclaimed 1998 book, A Change is Gonna Come: Music, Race & the Soul of America—delves deeply into the work of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, and Curtis Mayfield. The book’s analysis appealed to me as a huge fan of music, history, and African American Studies, and with the passing of Aretha, now is an especially useful time to revisit the ideas in this book.