Sure enough…įrom 2011’s A Map of the Floating City, Second Single Its a moody, atmospheric piece that apparently employed a now-famous “bass patch.” There’s a comprehensive fan site that goes into more detail about Dolby’s work than Wikipedia called Andy J’s Guide to Thomas Dolby that mentions this song got Dolby onto Top of the Pops for the first and only time. “Windpower” is one of the songs at the heart of the original album. I think this song does a great job of showing off his musical prowess.įrom 1982’s The Golden Age of Wireless, Third Singleīefore the quirky “She Blinded Me With Science” was added to the sequence, The Golden Age of Wireless received critical praise for being a serious electronic album. Its easy to forget buried underneath the electronic work that Dolby is a first rate musician. “I Love You Goodbye” is performed in a style that Dolby describes as “cajun techno.” I’d like to draw attention to both the synth-string beginning (which would not be out of place on a Kate Bush album) and the confident piano work throughout the song. Two of the songs (coming up) featured guitar work by Eddie Van Halen (because of course Thomas Dolby got to work with Eddie Van Halen). Terenzi sounds great.įrom 1992’s Astronauts & Heretics, Second SingleĪstronauts & Heretics was Dolby’s final album for 19 years and had it been his final album, it would have been a fine capstone to his career.
The song itself a nice little funky piece filtered through just enough electronic instrumentation to make it “future-ish.” I think I made up that word. Because of course Dolby has recorded a song with a noted astrophysicist. Fiorella Terenzi a noted astrophysicist, author and musician.
Creating music for computer animation, however, sounds like a natural fit for Dolby’s work and, sure enough, the video linked there is very compelling for 1994. Honestly, beyond the Wikipedia link above, I know very little about them.
#Thomas dolby radio silence series
These were a series of computer animation videos. One of his projects was creating music from one of the films in the Mind’s Eye series. He didn’t stop creating music entirely by any stretch of the imagination. If they didn’t, this superior version of the song has long since pushed the rock version out of my head.įrom 1994 Film The Gate to the Mind’s Eye, First Single (?)ĭolby took a few years off from recording albums from 1992 through 2011. Anyhow, by the time I bought The Golden Age of Wireless on cassette, I believe they’d restored the original synth-pop version of this song. Absurd! I mean, its good, but… Absurd! Here is something I love – the music video makes this look like a stalker song but actually… this song is sung about a pirate radio station called Radio Caroline. Indeed, the first US pressing of “Radio Silence” did not include the synth-pop single linked above but a rocked out version. Wikipedia details all five (FIVE? Five!) releases.
Upon its initial UK release, The Golden Age of Wireless did not include stand-alone single “She Blinded Me With Science”/”One of our Submarines” Indeed, the first US release (in the grand tradition of believing that UK records could not be released with the same sequence of songs in the US because we’re especially stupid over here I suppose) didn’t include those songs either. That rocks.įrom 1982’s The Golden Age of Wireless, Promotional Single in Several Countries
In Dolby’s case, it wasn’t just “Blinded Me With Science” that made his career (talent, hard work, luck and good career choices accomplished that) but the strength of that song drew a great deal of focus onto his solo work and created a lifelong fan base. I was speaking to a friend of mine the other day and we were discussing how amazing it is that savvy musicians can parlay a few hits into an entire career. He still performs annually and it also seems like his concerts are well attended. He’s followed a number of different career endeavors over the years – it seems like he sort of follows his muse – and seems to have been quite successful at all of them. In 2017, Dolby is a professor of arts at John Hopkins University.
0 kommentar(er)
