History Main / SynthPop

* Music/ElectricLightOrchestra: Especially in the 80's:
** 1981 - ''Music/{{Time}}''
** 1986 - ''Music/BalanceOfPower''

+ {{Disco}}, PostPunk, ItaloDisco, KrautRock, ProgressiveRock, ProtoPunk, PunkRock, RAndB

* Music/FrankZappa: During the 1980s he started using the Synclavier computer for composing and released a few albums with such music. Zappa liked the Synclavier, because it allowed him to give exact performances of his work humans couldn't possibly master.
** 1984 - ''Music/ThePerfectStranger'' (four of the seven tracks are performed on Synclavier, the rest is orchestral music played by human beings)
** 1984 - ''Music/FrancescoZappa''
** 1985 - ''Music/FrankZappaMeetsTheMothersOfPrevention''
** 1985 - ''Music/DoesHumorBelongInMusic''
** 1986 - ''Music/JazzFromHell''
** 1994 - ''Music/CivilizationPhazeIII''

+ {{Disco}}, PostPunk, ItaloDisco, KrautRock, ProgressiveRock, ProtoPunk, PunkRock

* Music/MaisiePeters

* Music/TheKillers

This genre was very influential during TheEighties, although it's OlderThanTheyThink; the very first synth album[[note]]as far as anyone knows[[/note]], ''The In Sound From Way Out!'' by Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley, was an example of Synth-Pop '''in 1966''', nearly 20 years before the genre became popular[[note]]in part because the 1966 Moog catalogue didn't include any keyboard module, so the two Perrey/Kingsley albums had to be painstakingly recorded one note at a time[[/note]]. Other acts who used synthesizers prominently during the early 1970s, including Music/StevieWonder, Music/TheWho, Music/RoxyMusic (which featured electronic music pioneer Music/BrianEno playing synths on their first two albums) and Music/PinkFloyd, also influenced future synth-pop acts. Even Music/TheBeatles influenced Synth-Pop with their early synthesizer experiments on [[Music/AbbeyRoad "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and "Here Comes the Sun"]]. Two hits from the early 1960s, Del Shannon's "Runaway" and The Tornados' "Telstar", both prominently featured a prototypical analogue synth called the clavioline, and are also pointed to as {{Ur Example}}s of the genre. Another example cited from the late '60s is the psychedelic duo Silver Apples, whose frontman Simeon Coxe played a homemade synthesizer dubbed the Simeon. However, the genre as most people today know it emerged around 1977 in the United Kingdom and Japan, pioneered by groups such as Music/TheHumanLeague and Music/YellowMagicOrchestra, as well as by German electronic band Music/{{Kraftwerk}}, whose ''Music/TransEuropeExpress'' took the band's formerly progressive sound in a poppier, more commercially accessible direction.

The distinction between synth-pop (at least during TheEighties) and [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]] is not easy to establish. One potential distinction is that Synth-Pop must be ''predominantly'' electronic, and ''significantly'' electronic pop music can be classified as [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]]. Others argue that synth-pop must be noticeably more commercial in sound and ethos than new wave, citing artsy NewRomantic groups like Music/{{Japan}} and the Midge Ure-fronted Music/{{Ultravox}} as being examples of acts who were electronic New Wave but not synth-pop. However, some people do tend to use "New Wave" and "Synth-Pop" more or less interchangeably, and use either term to refer to any eighties pop song with a significant electronic component.

Although strongly associated with TheEighties, since the early-to-mid-2000's, following the quick and painful death of Grunge in the mid-90s, it has had a revival in the form of modern acts such as Music/{{Ladytron}}, Music/TheKnife and Future Islands that use a deliberately {{Retraux}} sound to emulate the style of classic synth-pop as a GenreThrowback to this era. A term used for similar-sounding modern artists is ''electropop''; the difference between the two is subtle but electropop is entirely electronic music (synths, drum machines etc.) with a poppy bent while synth-pop is pop which happens to use electronics, and may have guitar and acoustic drums (which electropop as a rule doesn't). A term used during TheNineties was ''electroclash'' for a subgenre that combined synth-pop with Main/{{Techno}}. "Tumblr pop" is another colloquialism used to refer to a specific 2010s variant of it that mixes in heavy dream pop, trap, witch house, and (sometimes) {{vaporwave}} elements, with the name coming from its association with Tumblr; Music/CharliXCX, Music/{{CHVRCHES}}, Music/{{Lorde}}, Music/{{Halsey}}, Music/BillieEilish, Music/{{Grimes}}, and Music/PurityRing all helped establish and popularize the style.

* Music/{{Devo}} (When they weren't just straight NewWaveMusic)

* Music/MolchatDoma are an extremely dark example, crossing over with DarkWave, PostPunk, and NewWaveMusic.

* Music/TearsForFears (especially in their first album, which was equal parts this and DarkWave; later material is also and more predominantly NewWave and [[ProgressiveRock Progressive/Art Pop]])

And arguably a good portion of TheEighties pop acts in general (who are either this or [[NewWaveMusic New Wave]]).

* Music/DarkCity

Synth-pop took a huge hit in popularity in 1991, thanks to the smash success of Music/{{Nirvana}}'s [[Music/{{Nevermind}} "Smells Like Teen Spirit"]] leading a new movement among mainstream music listeners that [[RockIsAuthenticPopIsShallow emphasized rawer, more "authentic"]] AlternativeRock music (particularly {{grunge}}) in favor of the perceived artificiality of electronically-driven 80's pop, owing itself in part to the fallout from dance pop group Music/MilliVanilli's lip syncing scandal nearly a year prior. As a result of this change in public opinion, synth-pop's appeal was relegated to a cult following, with the only still-popular groups being those who either underwent a GenreShift to a more grunge-influenced sound (such as Depeche Mode) or were already considered sufficiently alternative before Nirvana made it big (such as New Order[[note]]Depeche Mode were also a big name in the alternative scene in the late 80's all the way up until 1990, but analysts generally agree that the band would've had a harder time staying afloat in the post-Nirvana age had it not been for the grunge-inspired ''Music/SongsOfFaithAndDevotion''[[/note]]).

* Music/{{Visage}}