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Little Boots, Ladyhawke, La Roux, la la la…

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Having grown up on a diet of Pet Shop Boys, OMD, New Order, the Human League, Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode, I couldn’t be happier about the current ubiquity of synthpop. We’ve been here before, obviously - pop music now seems to consist of musical styles from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s taking turns to be fashionable again - but what’s exciting this time is that the people involved are as interested in the craft of songwriting as they are in wibbly synth noises (making this the perfect time for a Pet Shop Boys comeback - look, here’s their new single...)

To me, this suggests synthpop has finally grown up as a genre. When the Human League pointedly put their tape machine centre stage where a drummer would usually be, or the Pets made a virtue of doing as little as possible in their live show (or not playing live at all), both were defiantly battling against rockist prejudice. They were taking pride in creating a distinct aesthetic for electronic pop, one that dismissed rock’s ‘rules’. Now, though, those battles have been won, and synthpop has nothing to prove anymore.

It’s taken a while. An obvious problem has been that these acts set such a striking aesthetic example that synthpop became obsessed with aesthetics, often at the expense of the music. For years now, Ladytron have somehow got away with being mostly dull and derivative musically because, ooh, they look really stylish, like a cross between the Human League and Kraftwerk. Then there was Fischerspooner and the overhyped Romo scene, which acted as if all it took to recreate the glory days of synthpop was massive amounts of eyeliner.

The current wave of synthpoppers, by contrast, are just quietly getting on with writing brilliant songs - none, conspicuously, owe their image to a template set by any synthpop stars of the past (indeed, most of them are women, which is a great leap forward for a genre previously dominated by male computer geeks).

The obvious ace in the pack just now is Lily Allen, whose new album could have been written by the Pet Shop Boys or the Human League at their 1980s peak, but whose funny, sexually frank lyrics root it in the here and now. I love it, even if there’s nothing on it quite as brilliant as Ladyhawke‘s Paris is Burning, which set the bar pretty high for this sort of thing when it came out last year. If this song is new to you, I envy you, because you are about to experience the unique, giddy adrenaline rush of a fantastic song and a fantastic video, coming at you for the first time at the same time. And there are few things to rival that, in my experience. You may find that the melody in the verse reminds you of a certain Gary Numan song…



Let’s not forget the boys though, like Dan Black - who used to be in a brilliant but obtuse band called The Servant, but is now on the verge of finally becoming a proper pop star. I’d put the clever animated video for his new single Alone up here, but YouTube won’t let me (it’s here, and the song’s out tomorrow; take a look). Instead here’s Dan sort of, but not really, covering a song by the Notorious BIG. By rights, this should be the worst idea since Duran Duran doing Public Enemy’s 911 is a Joke, but by turning it into a homage and throwing in a sample from the theme tune for 1980s sci-fi movie Starman, he actually pulls it off…



And look, even before Dan Black has become properly famous, there’s a NEW Dan Black. He’s called Frankmusik, he’s another skinny white boy, and he’s written a really good pop song called 3 Little Words. How 1980s is the video? Turn the sound down and it could be Buck’s Fizz. (Come to think of it, it could almost be Buck’s Fizz with the sound up too).



The Ting Tings‘ 1980s flavour bubblegum can take some of the blame/credit for all this, I’m sure, as can Girls Aloud and The Killers (who have more in common than either would probably admit). Whatever the reason, labels seem to be signing up new synthpop acts by the week, judging by the new bands pages in the NME - whose championing of acts like La Roux, Alex Roots and others makes a refreshing change from the slightly sniffy way it used to cover bands like Dubstar. That said, its coverage is beginning to adopt a faintly apologetic tone, as if the magazine is getting impatient for the backlash but can’t quite bring itself to start it yet. It’s only a matter of time though. Plodding lad rock may well be back in fashion by September.

So, synthpop lovers, enjoy your moment in the sunshine while it lasts. The rest of this blog will consist of a homage to synthpop princess Little Boots, whose home videos on YouTube got lots of people talking last year, and who will surely be a huge star by the end of this one. Here she is trying out her Tenori-On gizmo - currently doing for her what a looper pedal once did for KT Tunstall - for the first time…

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Here’s her playing with the Tenori-on again, this time doing a homemade cover of Ready For The Floor by Hot Chip…



And finally, here’s Little Boots taking her Tenori-on out into the big bad pop world, with a storming appearance on Later With Jools Holland.



Phil Oakey is apparently contributing to her debut album, currently being recorded in LA. He knows a good thing when he sees it.

Andrew

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