Trivia / Thomas Dolby

• Cast the Expert: The guy yelling "Science!" during "She Blinded Me With Science" and its video is Magnus Pyke, a real scientist and television presenter who was a household name in the UK in the '70s and '80s.
• He Also Did:
  • Dolby was responsible for composing the music heard on the late 90s/early 00s WebTV boxes, typically heard when connecting via dial-up or browsing.
  • He wrote "New Toy," a hit for Lene Lovich, and played in her touring band before starting his solo career.
  • Dolby was a songwriter for most of the lyrical songs from FernGully: The Last Rainforest, with "Batty Rap" and "Toxic Love" being two notable songs that match his style.
  • Dolby was known for a being a synthesizer expert, and was often called to play the instrument on albums by other artists. Among the hit singles that Dolby played on are Foreigner's "Urgent" and "Waiting for a Girl Like You", Def Leppard's "Photograph", Whodini's "Magic's Wand" (which Dolby also co-wrote and produced), and Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven is a Place on Earth"
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: At the time of the 2009 remasters, Dolby released two tracks that were left off for time reasons, these being a "Flying North" Demo with an extra verse, and a live "White City" with intro speech about the Flat Earth Society (which tied in with the album of the same name). Dolby's forum was later taken down due to a large amount of spam and him migrating to Facebook. Fortunately, they were both uploaded to Youtube: FlyingNorth and WhiteCity.
  • Though Dolby did a good job of mopping up the rarities on his first two album remasters, he left off Jungle Line and its dub because of the cost of royalties (Joni Mitchell wrote the song), and left off the original mix of Urban Tribal because he considered it unfinished. He left an alternate mix of Puppet Theatre (that appeared on the Silk Pyjamas single) off the Flat Earth remaster because there was already the original B-Side mix on there. There are also a good number of rarities that appear on singles from his following album "Aliens Ate My Buick" and "Astronauts And Heretics", however, there is a chance remasters might be released.
  • Dolby did a 1981 session for Kid Jensen that notably features a full band version of "Therapy/Growth" (which didn't feature any drums on its studio recording), as well renditions of "Radio Silence (Guitar Version)", "Urges" and "Commercial Breakup". It's unlikely this session will ever be officially released but fortunately someone who had a tape of the session was kind enough to put it onto Youtube.
  • The song "The Mirror Song" only appears on the Toys soundtrack from 1992, making it the only song of Dolby's that does not appear on one of his own releases in some form. This is notable because it never even became a B-Side, even though it was released in the "Astronauts And Heretics" period where Dolby reissued a good number of rarities as B-Sides to singles. It's likely that if there is ever an "Astronauts And Heretics" remaster it will appear on it.
• No Export for You: For some reason, his The Gate To The Minds Eye soundtrack was never actually pressed in the UK, so it is a rare item there. It was available on import occasionally when Virgin Megastore was in operation.
• One-Hit Wonder: On both sides of the Atlantic for different songs. In the US, his hit was "She Blinded Me With Science." In the UK, it was "Hyperactive!"
• What Could Have Been: "Hyperactive!" was written for Michael Jackson, but Jackson didn't respond when Dolby sent him the demo.

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