I simply love this, one of my all time favourites...

Speaking of New Order, I can't forget one of the pop supergroups of the 90s:

Singer-songwriter Bernard Sumner teamed up with Johhny Marr (former The Smiths guitarist) to make a highly danceable, still alternative collection of catchy pop songs.
In a situation like these (mostly for the music press) hailing the forthcoming album is not uncommon. But when Neil Tennat (of Pet Shop Boys) was a featured vocalist on the first single, it was obvious the album will be a special project.
On top of all this, the track's string section was arranged by Annie Dudley of the Art Of Noise...

Blue Monday was far the biggest hit from New Order's "Power Corruption & Lies" album. It was regarded as the best selling British 12" record of all time exceeding 1 million units sold. The original single cover looked like a 5.2 inch floppy disk (you might see those in museums, though ancient samplers like the Emulator II still stores their sounds on them.) In 1988 Quincy Jones did a memorable remix, then Hardfloor took a great spin on the original in 1995.
In a word, it's a synth classic at its best.

The bass line is so sick, I remember playing it on my first synth for days...

When this album released in 1984 little did I know about anything it was about. I didn't even speak any english.
All I knew Jimmy Somerville had a very cool voice, and those songs were so sad, angry still very danceable and energetic.
Bronski Beat's "The Age Of Consent" was the second album I ever bought. Those songs - despite the twenty something passed years - are still surprisingly actual.
Even though the 80s were the age of upfront-mixed (energetic) snare drums, this one is a winner: the snare is way louder than the lead vocal...

Normally one wouldn't consider Brian "BT" Transeau the typical synth pop act, I still feel his place is right here among the other influential artists. Production wise his music sounds amazingly good. By mostly creating his own music making tools he's light years ahead of everyone else in terms of soft- or hardware using. Several editing techniques he created for his music now considered as "Classic" effects.
A classically-trained musician, who made N'sync's "Pop" sound cooler than any boyband ever (more than 1800 edits in Justin's beatbox solo only!!!), still can write a song like this with Jan Johston - one of the highest class voices in trance.

This song is one of the reasons I became Shane 54...

Ronny Schreinzer & Sven Dohrow made their marks in the German Synthpop History. Their new romantic songs not only were hypercool, but commercial enough to get tons of airplay. They also had their not-to-confuse-it-with-anyone-else-type signature sound.
Besides singing, Ronny was a fully fledged drummer using both acoustic and electronic drumkits on their albums. (whenever they used drum machines they were also programmed with a drummer's mind.)

This song was one of their biggest hits in Hungary (back in 1984-85), Twins was the first music I ever danced "seriously" with a girl to, and also the first concert act I went to see without my parents...

No one can do pop music like Trevor Horn. The british Uberproducer, the father of extremes (reportedly he can spend weeks tweaking a snare drum only), creator of many exceptional, ageless albums. Propaganda was his (label ZTT's) musical creation.
The German band's first (classic) lineup featured Claudia Brucken (the iconic front girl), Ralf Dörper (Later found in Die Krupps), Michael Mertens and Suzanne Freitag. Unlike many european musicians they made their nationality something of a feature both within their music and their image. Athough their songs have lyrics in english, they delivered and recorded with German accents.

I can't remember when I first encountered Propaganda, but I remember none of my friends liked it, because it was so depressing and dark...
Anyway "A Secret wish" is still in my top 10 albums of all time.

In the mid 80s, there was a short time when it seemed Real Life will line up next to INXS, Men At Work or AC/DC as Australia's most succesful musical exports. (It was waaaay before Kylie) However after two successful singles, unfortunately they vanished. Such A Shame...

Anyway when I first heard Real Life in 1984 (yeah, I was 11), I didn't even know who they were: after the "Forever Young" album on the B side of the tape I had of the Alphaville's masterpiece there was some more music to fill up the remaining time. There was no sign of they being another band, just the track names. For a long time, I thought "Send Me An Angel" is a great Alphaville song...

Front 242 are simply the fathers of Electronic Body Music (the expression also originates from them) they inspired and infulenced generations of industrial and/or electronic acts.
This video was made by Anton Corbijn in 1987, not surprising it looks like a Depeche Mode video from the same era.

There is a certain Richard 23 in the band, I just recently realized my attraction to the name-number combination might started here, Shane 54 was also a subconscious nod to this guy...

YMO was founded in Tokyo, Japan by Riuichi Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi and Haruomi Hosno in 1987. The trio released their first album "Solid State Survivor" the same year. This song is taken from there, showing a fine example of greatly produced synth pop. YMO is often mentioned next to Kraftwerk as one of the most influential pioneers of today's electronic dance music.

I loved them so much, when I was around 15 years old, I even learned how to write down all the tracks in Japanese!
How the hell did I found about a Japanese band from behind the iron curtain in Hungary? My friend (who moved back to Budapest from Tokyo) was a huge YMO fan, and had all the records...

Aye, what's best to start with my new, Synth Pop Museum blog with the maestro himself:

Jean Michel Jarre

After his highly-succesful (16 million copies sold worldwide) 1976 album "Oxygene", French synth prodigy Jean Michel Jarre came up with the none less exciting "Equinoxe" (parts 1-8). It was released in 1979 (after six-months of mixing sessions) and featured some of synth music's most memorable instrumental tunes just as its precedessor.

Not to mention the fact these albums highly influenced my musical childhood: When I was 8-9 years old I was listening to it all the time. I used to go to sleep with a headphone listening to those space sounds and ethereal pads made by that "French guy something Michel". Yeah, those sounds burned into my deepest mind, so it was obvious I will do a faithful cover of E4 sometime...

I've never seen the original video before bumping into it on Youtube, actually that was the moment I decided to get those old, sometimes totally underrated/forgotten videos together, whose sounds shaped my musical taste. JMJ is definitely one of the most important of them...