Synth-Pop and Its Repercussions

by Geoff Stahl (Editor), Nabeel Zuberi (Editor), Holly Kruse (Editor)

Overview

This collection explores synth-pop's sounds and its hooks, new technologies and production techniques, its media and imagery, its ideologies and discourses about art and culture, society and politics.

Synth-pop is a loose rubric that includes DIY electronic music, post-punk and sounds shot through with the tropes of futurism and dystopia during the Cold War and early neoliberalism that Mark Fisher has called "the eerie.” Synth-pop also refers to melodic hits and chart toppers such as those by a-ha, Bronski Beat, The Buggles, Eurythmics, New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Tears for Fears, Ultravox, Visage and Yazoo. This book covers synth-pop broadly defined, considering everything between its most rough-hewn and naive forms to its glossier, sophisticated incarnations.

This collection follows synth-pop's international circuits, not only in the UK and the US, but in Poland, Spain, Czech Republic, Italy, Japan, Germany, Australia, India, and through migrations and diasporas; and it opens up local, national and transnational developments and influences with critical and interdisciplinary approaches from musicology, media studies and cultural studies, among others. The volume brings together contributions that critically examine synth-pop in relation to the histories of music genres, gender, sexuality, race, class, the human, technology and politics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798765122914
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/02/2026
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Geoff Stahl is Senior Lecturer in Media & Communication at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. His publications include: Poor, But Sexy: Reflections on Berlin Scenes (2014), Made in Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand (2018), Nocturnes: Popular Music and the Night (2019), Mixing Pop & Politics: Political Dimensions of Popular Music in the 21st Century (2022), and The Bloomsbury Handbook of Popular Music, Space and Place (Bloomsbury, 2022).

Nabeel Zuberi is Associate Professor in Media and Screen Studies at Waipapa Taumata Rau /University of Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand. Nabeel's publications include Sounds English: Transnational Popular Music (2001), Media Studies in Aotearoa/New Zealand 1 & 2 (2004, 2010), and Black Popular Music in Britain since 1945 (2014).

Holly Kruse is Professor of Communications at Rogers State University, USA. She is author of Site and Sound: Understanding Independent Music Scenes (2003) and Off-Track and Online: The Networked Spaces of Horse Racing (2016).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Just Can't Get Enough: Synth-Pop and its Repercussions
Geoff Stahl, Nabeel Zuberi, and Holly Kruse

Part 1: Prototypes and Precursors
1. Towards Tomorrow: Electronic Library Music in the 1960s and 1970s
Elodie A. Roy, Glasgow School of Art, UK
2. Hot Butter Covered “Popcorn”: The Durability of a Plastic Pop Phenomenon
Geoff Stahl, Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand

Part 2: Synthesising Sounds
3. Are Hooks Electric? The Synth as a Hook in Synth-Pop Hits (1978-1983)
Jadey O'Regan, University of Sydney and Tim Byron, University of Wollongong, Australia
4. 'We Came to Dance': Synth-Pop and the 12-inch Single
Adrian Renzo, Macquarie University, Australia
5. Constructing New Authenticities in Synth-Pop by Music Technology: Drum Machines and Grooves on the Grid
Robert Michler, Bern University, Switzerland
6. Synthestalgia: Ideology and Aesthetics of Synthesizers in Software and Hardware Recreations
Pat O'Grady, Australian National University

Part 3: Politics
7. Are 'Friends' Electric: Class, Control and Technological Determinism
Hussein Boon, University of Westminster, UK
8. Atomic: Synth-Pop and the Aesthetics of Nuclear Armageddon
Stephen Hill, The Borgate School, UK
9. Spanish Synth-Pop, Radical Ideology, and Electronic Punk: The Techno-Anarchism of Aviador Dro.
Antonio Pineda and Jorge David Fernández Gómez, University of Seville, Spain
10. Black Celebration in Red Prague: Depeche Mode in Concert, March 1988
Ondrej Daniel, Charles University, Prague

Part 4: Artists
11. “Mensch, Natur, Technik”: Technocriticism and Ecocriticism in Kraftwerk
Giorgos Zoukas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece and Georgia Eirini Tserkezi, Independent Researcher, Greece
12. The Media Landscape of Synth-Pop in Japan: Yellow Magic Orchestra and Postmodern Culture in Japan
Yoshitaka Mori, Tokyo University of the Arts, Japan
13. Problèmes d'Amour: Alexander Robotnick's Italian Post-Disco
Anomaly
Guglielmo Bottin, University of Milan, Italy
14. Patrick Gibson, Systematics, Ya Ya Choral and M Squared: Australian Adventures on the Fringes of Synth-Pop, 1979-83
John Encarnação, Western Sydney University, Australia
15. Ominous Sounds in the Silence: ABBA's Voyage into Synth-Pop
Amanda Mills, University of Otago, New Zealand
16. Mapping the Pop Terrain: Visuality, Aesthetics, and the 'Time-Space' of Duran Duran
Alison Blair, University of Otago, New Zealand
17. “A Sonic Abortion”: The Synth-Pop Debuts of Ministry
Manuel Neyssensas, University of Nice, France

Part 5: Spaces, Imaginaries and Circulations
18. Two Gendered Spaces of Early Synth-Pop: A Brief Autoethnography
Holly Kruse, Rogers State University, USA
19. Imaginative Geographies Made Concrete: Utopian Pasts, Alienated Presents, Synthetic Futures
Kevin Milburn, London South Bank University, UK
20. Polish Popular Music and Synth-Pop of the 1980s
Marek Jezinski, Nicolas Copernicus University, Poland
21. Beyond Disco: South Asian Synth-Pop from Birmingham and Beyond
Nabeel Zuberi, University of Auckland, New Zealand
22. Generation Blitz: Mapping the Contemporary Global Synth-Pop Ecosystem
Martin James, Solent University, UK