Synopsis
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
2009 Directed by Benjamin Whalley
Documentary following a generation of post-punk musicians who took the synthesiser from the experimental fringes to the centre of the pop stage.
Really first rate BBC4 music documentary from a time when they really seemed to lavish real attention on the subject matter. Not knocking their recent music documentaries as such, but they don't have half as much depth as these from a few years ago - last year's Rock and Roll Britannia for example, which purported to focus on 50s British rock and roll didn't even feature Joe Meek! - Synth Britannia seems to namecheck not only just about every single synth band of merit from the late 70s/early 80s, with naturally a quite rightly special emphasis on the Sheffield scene, but also devotes a lot of its time on their influences, including dystopian sci-fi from JG Ballard and Nigel Kneale and the way the city landscape helped shaped their music.
Incredibly insightful. You won't find a better film about the history of the synth-pop movement in the UK better than Synth Britannia. And it's a TV documentary.
We all associate those sounds with the '80s, and rightfully so. But there is this huge chunk of great music that I think is lost on all of us.
For a number of years, I've gotten into this music and it's opened up my tastes.
I enjoyed how this music was born out of film, using the Wendy Carlos score for A Clockwork Orange as the breaking of ground.
Music documentaries seem to be coming thick and fast for me in the first few months of this year. Whether it be Netflix or the excellent BBC Four, there are numerous very good ones appearing every weekend, and although this one is from several years ago, it doesn't lack that sense of being current with it's vibrancy. It also has that nostalgia factor for those of a certain age who grew up in the late seventies and eighties, but like most musical genres, the DNA that made them so exciting has trickled down the decades into the music of today. This documentary is on the birth of electronic music and the rise in popularity of computers, sampling, and new technology…
Solid documentary on British synth-pop from its start with post-punk and avant-garde weirdos in the 70s to its pop dominance towards the middle of the next decade. I found the first half much more interesting than the second half - as with many artistic movements, how it all got started is more interesting that what happened once it got where it was headed. Decidedly not a documentary on the wider history of the synth in British music, so don't expect any Delia Derbyshire or Brian Eno or Aphex Twin or what have you - the through line here is Human League/OMD/Throbbing Gristle > Gary Numan/John Foxx > Depeche Mode/New Order (with the only real digressions being appreciations of Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder). If this sounds interesting to you, it likely will be.
“and then what happens at the end of the 80s and even worse in the mid 90s, everybody decides that guitars are back in and synthesizers are somehow old fashioned, and then you get oasis! horror!”
They didn’t mention Dahlia Derbyshire???
Also I love how surrounded by queers the bands mentioned were and they’re like “idk what’s up with them but I’m glad they got it.”
I had seen this before years ago, but I've been on a synthpop bender lately so thought it was worth a revisit. Lots of great footage and interviews with members of bands like The Human League, Throbbing Gristle, Orchestral Maneouvres in the Dark, and Cabaret Voltaire. Also lots of discussion of influences like Kraftwerk, J.G. Ballard, and Giorgio Moroder. If you have the slightest interest in this music, this is required viewing.