Who remembers simpler times, when “electro” was a brand of hip-hip infused electronic-funk (if I’ve lost you, think Kraftwerk meets Frankie Smith meets Melle Mel). All that together produced a brilliant and cutting edge sound unique sound that helped define the late 1980s.
Of course today’s “electro” is a different animal. The nature of language is to be lazy and things get truncated—so most of what ends up on this blog tagged as “electro” is more accurately “electro house”, hard “synthpop”, so-called “electroclash” (a term that’s always had a messy ambiguity and stigma), and the place where rock and rap meet good old fashion techno (and sometimes even straight up techno with a PR makeover—because the word “techno” is out and “electro” is marketable).
So, what’s in a name? Getting back to the purest form, this post is “electro” as many of us came to it—how I came to it as a kid and how I understood it for nearly two decades. A deep nod to Afrika Bambaataa, Hashim, Cybotron, Newcleus, Twilight 22 & Freestyle (a.k.a. Pretty Tony) for helping throwdown the pavement for our generation of electronic music. Musical roads get paved and repaved—a little wider and a little thicker each decade:
MP3: Afrika Bambaataa & Soulsonic Force - Planet Rock (1982)
MP3: Hashim - Al Naafiysh (The Soul) (1983)
MP3: Cybotron - Clear (1983)
MP3: Newcleus - Jam On It (1984)
MP3: Twilight 22 - Siberian Nights (1984)
MP3: Freestyle - Don’t Stop The Rock (1985)
For further study on some west coast flavored electro (a bit different), you can extract some Egyptian Lover and Chris “The Glove” Taylor & Ice T from the archives (here & there).
If you want to build your old school electro library, look into the ‘Street Sounds: Electric Funk‘ compilations on Amazon (or if you’re feeling rich and advernterous, try the ‘Streetsounds: Electro’ compilations on Gemm. There’s like two dozen of ‘em to keep you boogalooin’ all damn day, everyday).
If you didn’t know, now you know, sucka.
