From its first use by the likes of the Byrds and the Beatles in the 1960s, the synthesizer has captured the public’s imagination.
Electronic instruments first became possible in the early 20th century, and from the 1950s to the 1970s advances in technology saw an increasing number of synthesizer manufacturers enter the field, including Moog, EMS and ARP. These new instruments found plenty of rock, pop and jazz keyboard players eager to experiment and record with them.
Fast forward to the late 1970s, and we have three essential factors that contribute to the birth of synthpop: the increased affordability and portability of synthesizers, the attitude and do-it-yourself aesthetic of the punk movement, and the influence of German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, whose seminal futuristic sounding albums would set the template for how this new type of music could sound.
The synthesizer was the sound of the future – and, in 1978, the future was now. The new musical trends of the day – disco, post-punk, new wave and new romanticism – were all infused with these new electronic sounds. It provided a sonic backdrop for a youth culture reaching for new sounds and new looks in the wake of punk’s demise. The synthesizer and the drum machine became the essential tools in this new wave of music, which dominated the scene between 1978 and 1984, and would come to be known as synthpop.
Here are the essential albums from 23 of synthpop’s greatest exponents.
Best synthpop albums
23. Yello You Gotta Say Yes To Another Excess (1983)
Swiss synthpop stylists Yello make a kind of filmic electro-infused pop that defies any category. After two acclaimed and highly unique albums, You Gotta Say Yes finds them offering fewer novelty songs than previously while upping the ante on the atmospheric euro-disco angle. In ‘Lost Again’ Boris Blank’s ambient soundscapes create the perfect backdrop to Dieter Meier’s trademark half-spoken/half-sung film-noir narrative.
22. Cabaret Voltaire The Crackdown (1983)
Formed in Sheffield in 1973, Cabaret Voltaire were industrial music pioneers. Their early work incorporated elements of experimentation, performance art, punk and most importantly the use of electronics, tape loops and synthesizers. After the release of several experimental singles and albums they opted for a more commercial sound and signed a deal with Some Bizarre in 1983. Widely acclaimed, The Crackdown still contains experimental elements but this time with vocalist/bassist Stephen Mallinder’s distinctive speech-song style of delivery and Richard H. Kirk’s angular electronics given a more structured pop sensibility. The album’s title track broke the UK top 40 when it was issued as a single.
21. Blancmange Happy Families (1982)
Blancmange’s debut album includes several essential cuts, including the top 10 single ‘Living on the Ceiling’. Criminally underappreciated at the time, Happy Families is a synthpop gem ripe for rediscovery.
20. Howard Jones Human’s Lib (1984)
Human’s Lib topped the UK album charts in 1984. It spawned four singles, three of which entered the top 10, including the irresistible ‘What is Love’ and ‘New Song’. Howard Jones’ second album Dream into Action was also hugely successful on both sides of the Atlantic.
19. Sparks No. 1 in Heaven (1979)
In an attempt to resurrect their fortunes after a series of commercial flops, American pop/rock duo Sparks enlisted Italian disco producer Giorgio Moroder to help change up their sound and take them in a more electronic direction. Moroder, the chief architect of Donna Summer’s run of classic disco songs including ‘I Feel Love’, delivered a shimmering constellation of pulsating high-energy synth arrangements geared towards the dancefloor.
Universally panned at the time, No. 1 in Heaven would become influential to bands such as Joy Division and provide Sparks with two much needed hits in the UK with ‘Beat the Clock’ and ‘The Number One Song in Heaven’. The album would also mark the beginning of Moroder’s move away from disco into the pop music sphere where he would produce and co-write some of the biggest hits of the 1980s.
18. Talk Talk The Party’s Over (1982)
Talk Talk had a remarkable trajectory during the 1980s. Over the course of four excellent albums their sound would morph from the synthpop urgency of their 1982 debut The Party’s Over with tracks such as ‘Today’ and ‘Talk Talk’ to the stark post-rock experimentalism of Spirit of Eden in 1988, with several classic singles in between. Their blistering performance filmed at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1986 captures the band in full flight.
17. Berlin Pleasure Victim (1982)
Formed in Los Angeles in 1978, Berlin were heavily influenced by the German electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk, European new wave, and Italian producer Giorgio Moroder. Their second album Pleasure Victim includes three magnificent singles: ‘Masquerade’, ‘The Metro’ and ‘c’, which was banned by some radio stations for its graphic lyrics, fuelling interest in the album as well as the band’s lead singer Terri Nunn. Berlin would eventually score big with ‘Take My Breath Away’ recorded for the Top Gun soundtrack and produced by Giorgio Moroder.
16. Associates Fourth Drawer Down (1981)
Released in October 1981, Fourth Drawer Down is a compilation of single A and B sides issued by the wonderfully adventurous Edinburgh duo during the course of that year. The album was named after the drawer in the pair's London flat where the herbal relaxation tablets were kept – a reflection of their frantic hedonism at this time. Darker and more experimental than their debut album, this collection features ‘White Car in Germany’ with its pulsating bass and soaring synth melody crowned by Billy Mackenzie’s typically operatic vocal delivery.
15. Heaven 17 The Luxury Gap (1983)
Former members of The Human League, Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh teamed up with vocalist Glenn Gregory to form Heaven 17 in 1980. Their platinum-selling second album includes their biggest hit, ‘Temptation’, which peaked at No. 2 on the UK singles charts in 1983.
14. Yazoo Upstairs at Eric’s (1982)
After two huge singles with Depeche Mode in 1981, keyboard player and principal song writer Vince Clarke quit the band soon after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell. He teamed up with vocalist Alison Moyet to help him demo a new song he had written: ‘Only You’. Daniel Miller, the founder of Mute Records, Depeche Mode’s label, was initially uninterested in the song but eventually asked them to record it and an album. ‘Only You’ and its follow up ‘Don’t Go’ both went top 5 in the UK, and the album would go on to achieve chart success and widespread critical acclaim.
13. Simple Minds New Gold Dream (1982)
Simple Minds’ fifth studio album was their major breakthrough. It spawned a trio of stunning, widescreen singles including the iconic 'Promised You a Miracle', but New Gold Dream was also an album of great strength in depth, with evocative deep cuts such as 'Hunter and the Hunted' and the slow-burn instrumental 'Somebody Up There Likes You'. Keyboard player Mick MacNeil’s distinctive use of synthesizers gave the Scottish band a larger-than-life sound, heard to stunning effect on the album’s title track.
12. Depeche Mode Speak & Spell (1981)
Formed in Basildon, Essex, Depeche Mode gave us not only synthpop songwriting powerhouse Vince Clark (Yazoo, Erasure), but also Martin Gore who would become the band’s principal songwriter following Clarke’s shock departure after the release of their debut album Speak & Spell. The singles ‘Just Can’t Get Enough’ and ‘New Life’ are synthpop at its finest and just a taste of what an incredibly strong debut album this is.
11. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark Architecture & Morality (1981)
OMD’s Architecture & Morality stands as a cornerstone of synthpop for the way it fused experimental ambition with pop clarity. Its blend of churchly choral textures, haunting Mellotron, and sleek electronic rhythms pushed the genre beyond cold futurism into emotional depth and spiritual atmosphere. Singles like 'Souvenir' and 'Joan of Arc (Maid of Orleans)' showed that synthesizers could convey vulnerability as powerfully as guitars. It’s a rare album that’s both avant-garde and irresistibly melodic, defining synthpop’s artistic ceiling.
10. Duran Duran Duran Duran (1981)
The boys from Birmingham have remained one of the most enduring bands of the early 1980s, and their debut explains why. Pulsating synths, driving rhythms, and instantly memorable hooks collide with a sleek, modernist aesthetic that set them apart from their new-wave peers. The album balances dance-floor energy with art-school cool, showcasing a band already confident in its style. As a result, Duran Duran’s debut stands as one of the era’s essential synthpop statements.
9. Eurythmics Touch (1983)
Following the major worldwide success of their second album Sweet Dreams (are made of this) in 1982, the Eurythmics delivered a blockbuster follow-up in November 1983 with Touch. The three massive international hit singles lifted from the album (‘Who’s That Girl’, ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’, and ‘Right By Your Side’) helped to establish David A. Stewart and Annie Lennox as one of the great songwriting duos of the 1980s.
8. Gary Numan The Pleasure Principle (1979)
Gary Numan’s role in the birth and popularity of synthpop cannot be underestimated. With his band Tubeway Army he released two albums: an eponymous debut in 1978, and Replicas, a UK No. 1 album in 1979 that includes classics such as ‘Down in the Park’ and ‘Are Friends Electric?’ With the release of his first solo album The Pleasure Principle the same year, Numan scored a worldwide hit with ‘Cars’, and another UK No. 1 album. Numan completely abandoned the use of electric guitars on The Pleasure Principle, making it one of his most electronic and austere records of the 1980s.
7. Ultravox Vienna (1980)
With new frontman Midge Ure in place and a switch of record label from Island to Chrysalis Ultravox were revitalised, releasing the synthpop tour de force Vienna in 1980. The album was produced by Conny Plank, the hugely influential German record producer behind many Krautrock releases. A stylish black and white music video for the album’s title track propelled the single to the top of the charts in several countries and it remains the band’s signature song.
6. Visage Visage (1980)
Prior to joining Ultravox, Midge Ure had formed Visage with drummer Rusty Egan. They would later be joined by frontman and style icon Steve Strange, Ure's future Ultravox colleague Billy Currie and core members of the band Magazine to form a formidable live act. Strange was a seminal influence in the new romantic scene, hosting themed club nights at the Blitz Club in Covent Garden with a strict door policy where he would admit only the ‘weird and wonderful’, reflecting his own fashion tastes and stage persona. Visage spawned three classic singles, the iconic and ethereal ‘Fade To Grey’, ‘Mind of a Toy’ and ‘Visage’.
5. Tears For Fears The Hurting (1983)
The debut album from Bath, UK duo Tears For Fears was a commercial and critical success upon its release in March 1983. A concept album, The Hurting deals with themes of child abuse and trauma influenced by the writings of American psychotherapist and author Arthur Janov.
The band builds a stark, emotive soundworld of icy synths, booming drums, and brooding melodies, blending psychological intensity with pristine pop craftsmanship to create one of synthpop’s most haunting atmospheres. It spanned three top 5 singles in the UK including the haunting ‘Mad World’.
4. Japan Gentleman Take Polaroids (1980)
As the Eighties dawned, Japan's songwriter and lead singer David Sylvian had changed his singing style from the Bowie/Roxy-esque art rock of Japan’s first two albums to the deeper, more nuanced new-wave stylings of Quiet Life, released in January 1980. Later that year the band would change record company from Hansa to Virgin and release arguably their finest album, the darkly atmospheric Gentleman Take Polaroids.
Musically and stylistically the band were untouchable, spanning diverse styles from uptempo Euro-disco-inspired tracks such as ‘Methods of Dance’ to the gloriously atmospheric ‘My New Career’. Mick Karn’s unmistakable fretless bass playing along with the high level of musicianship and experimentation contributed by all members delivered a signature sound for Japan and a legion of devoted followers.
3. Kraftwerk The Man-Machine (1978)
It's impossible to overstate Kraftwerk’s influence on synthpop, and electronic music in general, during the 1970s and 1980s. Many if not all of the artists in this list were influenced in one way or another by the band’s futuristic sounds. The German quartet's seventh studio album The Man-Machine, originally released in 1978, gained a wider popularity when the single ‘The Model’ was re-released and eventually topped the UK charts in 1981. The use of synthesizers in pop music had blossomed during the three years since the album’s first release, showing how far ahead of the curve Kraftwerk were.
2. Soft Cell Non-stop Erotic Cabaret (1981)
Soft Cell’s era-defining cover version of Gloria Jones’ Northern Soul classic Tainted Love was a phenomenon in 1981. The duo’s debut album soon followed presenting an irresistible mix of kitsch electro-disco, torch songs and observations on sexual frustration, to name only a few of the album’s subjects.
It proved that vocalist Marc Almond and keyboard player Dave Ball (who sadly passed away on 22 October 2025) were not merely a one-hit wonder with a cover version but actually rather good at writing their own songs, with the poignant ‘Youth’ and the timeless ‘Say Hello, Wave Goodbye’ being two of the album’s many highlights.
1. The Human League Dare (1981)
When you consider how much of a pop anthem ‘Don’t You Want Me’ has become, it's interesting to note that it was actually the fourth and final single from Dare. Lead singer Phil Oakey thought it was the weakest track on the album (he placed it last in the running order for this reason) and fought its release, but he was overruled by the record company.
With its stark minimalist album artwork joined to the band’s brilliant songwriting, plus their inventive use of synths and the Linn LM-1 drum machine, Dare captured a sound, a look and an era, making it the quintessence of synthpop.
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