Line #113 Music/JoyElectric


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/joyelectric_8436.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:''I'll make your dreams come true / with my monosynth.'']]
3
4	->''"At its best, Joy E has always been about very straightforward melodic pop songs with an artistic element. I’ve struggled in one sense because although I love pop songs, I also love early electronic music, which to me is about using very raw, minimal textures that don’t necessarily go well with those more euphoric style pop songs I tend to sometimes write for Joy E."''
5	-->-- '''Ronnie Martin''', in [[http://joyelectric.com/other.html a 2011 interview]] with Devon Kretzin
6
7	Joy Electric is a [[ChristianRock Christian]] SynthPop project from California, formed by Ronnie Martin in 1994. Although Ronnie has collaborated with various musicians in the past, it has, for the majority of its existence, remained his [[IAmTheBand solo project]].
8
9	JE's origins lay in the late-80s collaboration between Ronnie, his brother Jason, and their friend Randi Lamb: a band they named Morella's Forest.[[note]]No relation to the 90s band from Dayton, Ohio, also named Morella's Forest.[[/note]] They recorded one album of goth-influenced new wave, which got indefinitely shelved when Narrowpath Records, the label set to release it, went out of business.[[note]]Though that album did eventually get released in 2021.[[/note]] Randi then departed, and the duo of Ronnie and Jason pivoted to incorporate more techno and rave sounds into their music, eventually signing to the fledgling Blonde Vinyl Records under the new name Dance House Children. Jason left to [[StartMyOwn start his own]] [[Music/Starflyer59 rock band]], and Ronnie shifted from rave music to pop, changing the name of the project to signal the transition (and moving to Tooth & Nail Records after Blonde Vinyl died).
10
11	Joy Electric continued changing, minimizing their sound in pursuit of Ronnie's ideals of analog musical purity. ''We Are the Music Makers'' saw Ronnie eschew the samplers and drum machines of his prior albums, making music purely with synthesizers. On ''Robot Rock'' he ditched his digital synthesizers and performed exclusively on analogue synths. Then ''The White Songbook'' and subsequent albums saw Ronnie stripping the sound down even further, recording entire albums on a single synthesizer (initially a Roland System 100, later a Moog Voyager). The instruments may have been minimal, but the music wasn't: ''The White Songbook'' in particular featured JE's densest instrumental arrangements, and ''The Otherly Opus'' went crazy with vocal arrangements.
12
13	In 2010, Ronnie moved to Ohio, got a day job as a worship arts pastor, and then became the pastor of another church. At the time, he had big plans for his music: to retool Joy Electric as a poppier band (and start using chords again), while simultaneously delving further into the sounds of early electronic music under the new moniker Said Fantasy. Unfortunately for music fans, Ronnie's responsibilities as a pastor have prevented him from devoting as much time to new music. The first album of the new sound, 2012's ''Dwarf Mountain Alphabet'', might also be the last Joy Electric album, ever. And Said Fantasy's first album was scheduled for "early 2014", but didn't actually see the light of day until 2017. In 2021, Ronnie [[https://twitter.com/ronniejmartin/status/1359624700138250241 teased on Twitter that he's recording new music]], for a "debut solo album" apparently unrelated to Joy Electric or Said Fantasy.
14
15	[[folder:Discography]]
16
17	[[AC:Morella's Forest]]
18	* ''Tales'' (recorded 1988, released 2021)
19
20	[[AC:Dance House Children]]
21	* ''Songs & Stories'' (1991)
22	* ''Jesus'' (1992)
23	* ''Rainbow Rider: Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1'' (1993)
24
25	[[AC:Joy Electric]]
26	* ''Melody'' (1994)
27	** ''Five Stars For Failure'' EP (1995)
28	* ''We Are The Music Makers'' (1996)
29	** ''Old Wives Tales'' EP (1996)
30	* ''Robot Rock'' (1997)
31	** ''The Land Of Misfits'' EP (1998)
32	* ''[=CHRISTIAN=]songs'' (1999)
33	* ''Unelectric'' (2000)
34	* ''The White Songbook'' (2001)
35	** ''Starcadia'' EP (2002)
36	* ''The Tick Tock Treasury'' (2003)
37	** ''The Tick Tock Companion'' EP (2003)
38	* ''[[ChristmasSongs The Magic Of Christmas]]'' (2003)
39	* ''Hello, Mannequin'' (2004)
40	** ''Friend Of Mannequin'' EP (2004)
41	** ''Workmanship'' EP (2005)
42	* ''The Ministry Of Archers'' (2005)
43	** ''Montgolfier And The Romantic Balloons'' EP (2005)
44	* ''The Otherly Opus'' (2007)
45	** ''Their Variables'' EP (2007)
46	* ''My Grandfather, The Cubist'' (2008)
47	** ''Early Cubism'' EP (2009)
48	** ''Curiosities And Such'' EP (2009)
49	* ''Favorites At Play'' (2009)
50	* ''Dwarf Mountain Alphabet'' (2012)
51
52	[[AC:Said Fantasy]]
53	* ''Horse of Faded Grandeur'' single (2010)
54	* ''Chariot of God: Electronic Compositions I–VII'' (2017)
55	* ''Carols Gloria'' EP (2017)
56	* ''Chorus Noel'' EP (2018)
57
58	[[AC:Side Projects]]
59	* Shepherd: ''Committing to Tape'' (2003) Acoustic rock.
60	* The Brothers Martin: ''The Brothers Martin'' (2007) A mix of modern rock, new wave, and synth-pop. Ronnie's first collaboration with [[Music/Starflyer59 Jason Martin]] since the Dance House Children days.
61	* The Foxglove Hunt: ''Stop Heartbeat'' (2008) New wave. A collaboration with Rob Witham from Fine China.
62	* Ronald of Orange: ''Brush Away the Cobwebs'' (2009) Acoustic-synth-pop.
63	* The Foxglove Hunt: ''Built My Fortress'' EP (2009)
64	* PQMQ. Workshop: ''Birds of North America'' (2016) Ambient retro electronic, with field recordings of birdsongs. Collaboration with Jacob Graham, David Barnhart, Jon Sonnenberg, William Simkin and Joseph Andreotti.
65	[[/folder]]
66
67	----
68	!!Tropes associated with Joy Electric:
69
70	* AllLowercaseLetters: ''The White Songbook'''s liner notes.
71	* AnimatedMusicVideo: "Song For All Time" and "Quiet Quieter Than Spiders".
72	* BandOfRelatives: Ronnie's wife played some on the album ''Favorites at Play''. Morella's Forest, Dance House Children, and The Brothers Martin featured Ronnie's brother Jason. Said Fantasy featured his daughter Beth on the "Horse of Faded Grandeur" single.
73	* BerserkButton: Comparing JE's vintage synthesized sound to old school video game music pisses off Ronnie ''and'' his fans.
74	* BoleroEffect: The instrumental buildups in the title tracks to "The White Songbook" & "Starcadia".
75	* BookEnds:
76	** ''The Tick Tock Treasury'' opens with the title track, and ends with "Tick Tock Goes the Melody", which is an instrumental reprise of the song.
77	** The Morella's Forest album ''Tales'' begins with a song about Charity, and ends with a song about [[{{Pun}} cherry trees]].
78	* ChristianRock: While Joy Electric's lyrics are mostly abstract with few obvious references to Christianity, he's always been upfront about his faith in interviews, and he wrote the album ''[=CHRISTIANsongs=]'' specifically so people would stop asking, "So, is Joy Electric a Christian band?" Ronnie himself is also worship arts pastor.
79	* ChristmasSongs: ''The Magic of Christmas'' is a bunch of Christmas song covers. Ditto the Said Fantasy [=EPs=] ''Carols Gloria'' and ''Chorus Noel''. Ronnie also did a cover of "Mrs. Santa Claus" for the Tooth & Nail compilation ''Happy Christmas Vol. 3'', which hasn't appeared anywhere else.
80	* ConceptAlbum: ''The White Songbook'', ''The Tick Tock Treasury'', ''Hello, Mannequin'', ''The Ministry of Archers'', and ''The Otherly Opus'' were supposed to be parts of what Ronnie called The Legacy Series. The themes of some of these made sense on their own: ''Tick Tock'' [[AllThereInTheManual had a story in the liner notes]] about a fantasy kingdom under attack. ''Mannequin'' was about the dark side of both fame and friendship. The second half of ''Opus'' was about the Literature/BookOfGenesis, between the Fall and the Flood. But ''Songbook'' and ''Archers'' were impenetrable, and no one besides Ronnie knows how the five albums are supposed to be connected.
81	** The ''Starcadia'' EP is themed around {{Ride/Disneyland}}. Three of the songs reference specific attractions: the Matterhorn, Starcade, and the Carousel of Progress. "Circa 1978" is possibly a reference to Mickey Mouse's 50th birthday celebration.
82	** The first half of ''Montgolfier And The Romantic Balloons'' is about various points in the history of ballooning.
83	* CoverAlbum: ''Favorites At Play''.
84	* TheCoverChangesTheGender: Averted with "Decode" on "Favorites at Play".
85	* CreatorsOddball: The album ''Unelectric'' featured Ronnie performing prior songs with acoustic instruments. ''The Tick Tock Companion'' EP sees Ronnie abandon pop for Music/TangerineDream-style abstract jamming.
86	* DeadAllAlong: In the music video for [[spoiler:"Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver"]]. There's a girl who looks very sad about something, and a guy hanging around her who she keeps ignoring, no matter how close he gets. In the final verse, they walk through each other, making it clear that he's a ghost, and she's mourning him.
87	* DistinctDoubleAlbum:
88	** ''The Art and Craft of Popular Music:'' Disc One is a collection of previously unreleased songs and remixes. Disc Two is a standard GreatestHitsAlbum.
89	** ''Montgolfier and the Romantic Balloons'' EP is divided in half, with the first half a concept mini-album about the history of ballooning, and the second half being remixed tracks and a b-side from ''The Ministry of Archers''.
90	** ''The Otherly Opus'' is a distinct double-EP. The first half, ''The Otherly Opus'', is full of Ronnie's usual inscrutable lyrics. The second half, ''The Memory of Alpha'', is all about the antediluvian period from [[Literature/BookOfGenesis Genesis]].
91	* DontShootTheMessage: [[invoked]] While Ronnie is a devout Christian, some of his lyrics address hypocrites and prigs who claim the faith ("Disloyalist Party", for example).
92	* EpicInstrumentalOpener: "The White Songbook". The intro lasts three minutes, and the song itself lasts only four.
93	* EpicRocking: Several tracks on ''The White Songbook'' are just over 6 minutes long. ''The Tick Tock Companion'' EP has only four tracks, yet is over an hour long; you do the math.
94	** "The Ushering in of the Magical Era" from ''The Otherly Opus'' ends with over 2 minutes of sequencer jamming and Ronnie's overdubbed vocals singing "Magical, magical" over and over again.
95	** "Chariot of God" ends with an extended sequencer jam, and the total song is 8 minutes long.
96	* EvolvingMusic: "Sweet Charity" and "We'll Last So Long" both first appeared as new wave songs on ''Tales'' by Morella's Forest. Then Ronnie rearranged them both in Dance House Children style for the ''Rainbow Rider'' album. Then he re-rearranged them in his Joy Electric style, with "Sweet Sweet Charity" appearing on ''Melody'' and "We'll Last So Long" appearing on ''The Art and Craft of Popular Music''.
97	* GratuitousPanning: The song "Hello, Mannequin" has Ronnie's vocals switching back and forth between channels, to creepy effect.
98	* GreatestHitsAlbum: ''The Art And Craft Of Popular Music''.
99	* IAmTheBand
100	* ItsBeenDone: Ronnie's explanation for the track selection of ''Favorites at Play''. He'd initially thought to do an album covering songs that he had loved growing up, but then he realized there was already a glut of albums covering 80's songs. So he decided to cover songs that had come out in the last five years instead.
101	* LyricalColdOpen: "The Otherly Opus", "The Memory of Alpha", "Red Will Dye These Snows of Silver", and "Whose Voice Will Not Be Heard".
102	* MinimalisticCoverArt
103	* MoodWhiplash: Ensues whenever JE's saccharine and TrueArtIsAngsty tendencies share album space.
104	* NonindicativeTitle:
105	** Joy Electric has far more songs ranging from melancholy to outright {{wangst}}y than they do genuinely joyful songs. Ronnie even claimed on the official forum once that "I don't write happy songs".
106	** Some of his releases are marked as [=EPs=], but are long enough that they could be considered albums. In particular, ''The Tick Tock Companion'' and ''Their Variables'' are both longer than the albums they were released after (''The Tick Tock Treasury'' and ''The Otherly Opus'', respectively).
107	* PackagedAsOtherMedium: ''The White Songbook''. The liner notes were designed like a proper book, complete with a table of contents and a page of copyright and printing information.
108	* [[PerishingAltRockVoice Perishing Synth Pop Voice]]: On the DHC albums and the earliest JE albums, Ronnie sang with a high, breathy voice that wouldn't have been out of place in a {{shoegazing}} band. By ''Robot Rock'', he'd moved away from that style (to a fey style reminiscent of [[Music/PetShopBoys Neil Tennant]]). However, on some even later recordings--particularly the album ''My Grandfather, the Cubist'' and the song "Write Your Last Paragraph"--his singing sounds very raw, like his voice could give out any second.
109	* RearrangeTheSong:
110	** A lot of the [=EPs=] feature remixes of songs from the just-released album.
111	** "Sing Once for Me" (from ''The White Songbook'') gets very, very rearranged as a lighter, poppier tune on ''Dwarf Mountain Alphabet''. Most of the lyrics are altered as well--the chorus is the only part of the song that sounds the same (musically or lyrically) across both versions.
112	* RemixAlbum: ''Their Variables'' had guest artists remixing all the tracks from ''The Otherly Opus'', plus two original songs.
113	* {{Retraux}}: Played with frequently in the use of analog synths, drum machines, and sequencers.
114	* SelfBackingVocalist: Ronnie is pretty much the only singer, so all backing vocals are like this. ''The Otherly Opus'' in particular plays with this.
115	* SesquipedalianLoquaciousness: Ronnie's lyrics, at times.
116	* ShoutOut:
117	** On the back cover of ''Rainbow Rider: Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1'', there's a photo of Ronnie with vinyl records by Ronnie's musical heroes Music/DanielAmos and 4-4-1 clearly visible in the background. The liner notes have a rambling essay that says (among other things) "Music/TheSmiths are the best band that ever lived".
118	** "Dance to Moroder" was a tribute to Music/GiorgioMoroder.
119	** Writing in the ''The Art and Craft of Popular Music'' compilation, Ronnie describes the whole ''Starcadia EP'' as "very trashy, low-fi, late 70s influenced electro tracks recalling bands like Music/{{Sparks}} and Fad Gadget."
120	** "Nikola Tesla" was a tribute to [[UsefulNotes/NikolaTesla the man himself]].
121	** "I am a Pioneer" was a tribute to Raymond Scott, Manhattan Research, "and all of the early electronic music pioneers".
122	** Similarly, "Sheffield Youth" was a tribute to the electronic bands from the Sheffield scene of the late '70s (the liner notes specifically mentioned Music/TheHumanLeague and [[Music/OrchestralManoeuvresInTheDark OMD]]).
123	** "Draw for Me, Creator/MCEscher", of course.
124	* SpokenWordInMusic: "The White Songbook", "Hello, Mannequin", and the bridge of "Quite Quieter Than Spiders".
125	* StoppedNumberingSequels: An amusing case where he stopped numbering the sequels ''immediately''. Ronnie's five-album Legacy Series consisted of ''The White Songbook: Legacy Volume One'', ''The Tick Tock Treasury'', ''Hello, Mannequin'', ''The Ministry of Archers'', and ''The Otherly Opus''. Notice how only the ''first'' one had any connection to the overall series in its title. The rest only mentioned their connection in the inner liner notes, with a brief notice that "This is Legacy Volume [number]."
126	* SugarBowl: Evoked quite a bit on ''Melody'', ''We Are the Music Makers'', and ''Old Wives Tales'' while most projects up until ''Hello, Mannequin'' tended to have a couple sugary-sweet fantasy land songs.
127	* SurrealMusicVideo: "Burgundy Years", "Monosynth", "Children of the Lord".
128	* TextlessAlbumCover: ''The Ministry of Archers''; ''Dwarf Mountain Alphabet''.
129	* TakeThat:
130	** "The Good Will Not Be Cloned or Why Should the Christians Get All the Bad Music". The lyrics are rather abstract, but seem to be a dig at Christian musicians who deliberately try to be TheMoralSubstitute for mainstream bands, as well as the industry that encourages these musicians.
131	** "The Envelopes Brigade" is about gearheads--in Ronnie's own words, "people who buy and sell gear like gangbangers, but ultimately never use it to create anything."
132	** "The White Songbook" had lyrics dissing the Christian music industry, with barely-veiled references to Music/{{Newsboys}}, Music/AudioAdrenaline, Music/DCTalk, Music/AmyGrant, and Forefront Records.[[note]]The actual recorded song lacks these disses, because Ronnie cut about half of the song's lyrics for time. The uncut lyrics were included in the album liner notes, however.[[/note]]
133	* TakeThatCritics: "The Robot Beat (We're Back)".
134	* {{Title 1}}:
135	** ''Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 1''. The liner notes promise that a ''Beautiful Dazzling Music No. 2'' is "coming soon", but that never came to pass.
136	** ''The White Songbook'' has the subtitle ''Legacy Volume One''. This time, Ronnie did follow through, and released four more albums in his Legacy Series.
137	* {{Theremin}}: Former member Jeff Cloud [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZAww5-lRVA has used it live]] but more as a noisemaker than a true "instrument".
138	* UnmournedDeath: In "Five Stars for Failure", Ronnie vents about his own feelings of inferiority, ending with a verse about how nobody will even notice if he dies:
139	-->''If I were to die,\
140	would the world take note?\
141	Would teenagers cry?\
142	Would anybody know?\
143	Would I be in the headlines?\
144	Simply, no.''
145	* UnpluggedVersion: Half-heartedly done on ''Unelectric'', which covers his prior Synth Pop songs on piano and acoustic guitar, but the arrangements are still backed by synth strings and drum machines.

Context Music / JoyElectric