As an eighties kid, synth pop has been pumping in my blood ever since that first day I turned on my MTV. There’s some debate as to who’s considered a synth pop band and who isn’t. For this September Music Twitter challenge – #SynthPopSeptember – I’m focusing more on what’s considered synth pop, not who. The songs I’m featuring on Mental Jukebox this month aren’t solely composed of synthesizers. There may be drums, bass, and dare I say, electric guitars. But each of these songs were picked because the synthesizer is core to its being.
I got a lot of mileage out of my Dream Into Action cassette. The album set off a wave of synth pop hits that were a bit more contemplative than the average musical fare and still managed to reach the mainstream, including “No One Is To Blame”, “Life In One Day” and “Things Can Only Get Better”. It was Howard Jones in peak form, which coincided perfectly with the height of the 80’s synth pop era. The lesser known single, “Like To Get To Know You Well”, didn’t fare well in the States, but it was my favorite track of the bunch. On the surface, the song title sounds like it’s setting us up for a romance-fueled confession. But it’s so much more than that.
The single version of the song was released during the 1984 Olympic Games. On the sleeve of this release, HoJo wrote that the song was dedicated to the original spirit of the Olympics. The song is actually about unity. About stripping away barriers and becoming one. Nearly 40 years later, this 80’s gem has even more meaning in the current climate where people don’t have much interest in really getting to know each other. Making stereotypical assumptions of one another or keeping a safe distance from one another seem to be the order of the day. Well, this little new wave song begs to differ.
“Leave the things that separate. Build on a trust that we must stand on.”