The year was 1982 and synth music was just starting to get big. The seventies saw the rise of the polychromatic organ (can play multiple notes at the same time, thus chords) while the eighties would be a decade of fat, thick monochromatic keyboards (one note at a time). Used together, they created a genre called "new wave" or "synth pop" where the guitar was often completely abandoned. I personally believe much credit has to be given to the musical score to the movie Blade Runner, which entered the box office the same weekend as E.T. Vangelis (Chariots of Fire) tackled the soundtrack to the movie about a bounty hunter (Harrison Ford) who has to track down a group of rebel androids masking as humans in post-apocalyptic Los Angeles in the year 2019. Vangelis matched the dreary, dark mood created by film director Ridley Scott with his ever present and full score.
An initial failure at the theater, Blade Runner quickly became a cult classic at the beginning of the eighties in part because of its unique music and visual effects. Vangelis has since been credited as a favorite of countless artists including Jim James (My Morning Jacket) and Jeff Tweedy (Wilco).
The entire Blade Runner Soundtrack has been remastered and put in a listenable album form by Vangelis himself in the early nineties. I can't recommend it enough even if you haven't seen the movie.
First, here is an example using the opening credits song from Blade Runner demonstrating the two different types of keyboard available in 1982. Note the amazingly thick texture and tone of the larger keyboard on bottom, allowing it to cut straight through the smaller one...
And here is a phenomenal example from Blade Runner that demonstrates why Vangelis was is such a game changer in the early eighties...
1 comment:
I remember my Papa taking me to see Blade Runner when it was first released and the only thing that I can recall about the movie was the naked, or practically naked chick, doing cartwheels across a room.
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