# I'm in the Moog for love, or, songs of the synthesizer **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 9, 2002, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581 "2002-04-09T00:45:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/21 "2016-03-25T11:49:34Z")
I still love Carlos’ _Switched-On Bach_ and _Switched-On Bach II_, but my favorites of his/hers is _The Well-Tempered Synthesizer_, which most people seem to have forgotten. _Walter Carlkos by Request_ has some good stuff, too. I dislike most original Carlos’ compositions (you can keep _Sonic Seasonings_), but I really did like _Pompous Circumstances_, which isn’y merely Elgar’s most famous composition played on the synthesizer, but is the sort of musical mash-up that Charles Ives indulged in with his _America Variations_. I’m also a big fan of Rick Wakeman, who mixes piano and organ with his synth stuff. I still listen to his oldest solo stuff – _Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Myths and Legends of King Arthur_. I also like _Return to the Center of the Earth_, his quarter-century later sequel (except I think he shouldn’t have written the spoken lines himself. For the original _Journey_ he used quotes from the Penguin edition of the Verne book. For _Return_ he obvious wrote the lines himself, and as an editor, I have to cringe at his abuse of the English language.) I recently found a recording I’d never seen before, of a live concert of his that I actually attended, back in the Pleistocene Era. I like Jean-Michel Jarre’s work, too (He’s the son of frequent film scorer Maurice Jarre), especially _Oxygene_. ---
**Author:** ![TCMF-2L](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tcmf-2l/32/16553_2.png) [@TCMF-2L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TCMF-2L)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/22 "2016-03-25T12:02:30Z")
Seems like back in 2002 no one had any love for **Tubeway Army** ’s (Gary Numan’s) **Are ‘Friends’ Electric** or Replicas, the album it came from. Gary Numan wasn’t the first but he was one of the the first to have a big pop hit in the UK with a heavily synthesised sound. One of my favourite songs. TCMF-2L ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/23 "2016-03-25T12:59:44Z")
I saw it on Netflix. Made in 2014: [I Dream of Wires (2014) - IMDb](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3636334/) History of synths from the 60’s on. East Coast (Moog) vs. West Coast (Buchla) approaches to music synthesis, how synths got huge, then faded and then have been having a renaissance for a while now. The narrator’s voice is bit flat, and I wish they spent more time actually showing how to work a synth - for the modular ones, show how one module generates a waveform and another module manipulates it, etc. By the way, to my knowledge 96 Tears has no synths on it - that’s an organ. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/24 "2016-03-25T13:35:29Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > I’m also a big fan of Rick Wakeman, who mixes piano and organ with his synth stuff. I still listen to his oldest solo stuff – _Six Wives of Henry VIII, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Myths and Legends of King Arthur_. Wakeman is currently recording an expanded remake of _King Arthur_–which makes a change from his endless recyclings of _Journey to the Center of the Earth_. > [@TCMF-2L](#): > > Seems like back in 2002 no one had any love for **Tubeway Army** ’s (Gary Numan’s) **Are ‘Friends’ Electric** or Replicas, the album it came from. Although he had some sustained success at home in the UK, he was a one-hit wonder in the USA. “Cars” made the Top 10, bolstered by a performance on Saturday Night Live, and the album it came from, _The Pleasure Principle_, charted respectably. But even though I remember “Are ‘Friends’ Electric” and “Me I Disconnect from You” getting substantial FM airplay in the day, he seemed to disappear soon afterwards. > [@WordMan](#): > > By the way, to my knowledge 96 Tears has no synths on it - that’s an organ. As **ZipperJJ** noted in post #3, several of the songs in the OP feature organs, not synths. “Runaway,” however, does feature a homemade version of the [clavioline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavioline), the electronic instrument used by the Beatles on “Baby You’re a Rich Man,” which keyboardist and co-writer Max Crook called the Musitron. ---
**Author:** ![Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/les_espaces_du_sommeil/32/308_2.png) [@Les\_Espaces\_Du\_Sommeil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Les_Espaces_Du_Sommeil)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/25 "2016-03-25T15:01:54Z")
My brother had a tape that was titled “Best of Synthetizers Instrumentals” or something like that. I remember we listened to it a lot in the summer of 1990. Most of the songs were already old at the time, dating mainly from the 70s - early 80s but I still cherish those old-fashioned “cutting edge” sounds. **Jean-Michel Jarre** : **Oxygène II** and (especially) **IV** , _Equinox IV_ **Ryuichi Sakamoto** : _Forbidden Colours_ **Kraftwerk** : _The Model_ **Vangelis** : _Chariots of Fire_ ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/26 "2016-03-25T15:05:49Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Wakeman is currently recording an expanded remake of _King Arthur_–which makes a change from his endless recyclings of _Journey to the Center of the Earth_. > > . “Endless”? Aside from _Return_ has he done another version? The only other things I’ve heard are excerpts (although I admit that the concert tape I picked up included the whole thing) ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/27 "2016-03-25T19:27:40Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > “Endless”? Aside from _Return_ has he done another version? The only other things I’ve heard are excerpts (although I admit that the concert tape I picked up included the whole thing) There have been all sorts of live and remake versions released over the years (including the version on _Rick Wakeman’s Greatest Hits_, which is not a greatest hits album per se, but a double CD of instrumental remakes of Yes and solo material), and even a release of the \*rest \*of the concert that the original JTTCOTE album was taken from. This [40th anniversary remake](http://www.amazon.com/Journey-Centre-Earth-Rick-Wakeman/dp/B00JWWBLDW)with added material is really nice. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2016, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/28 "2016-03-25T23:28:25Z")
Mickey Dolenz played a moog in The Monkees “Daily Nightly”. That might be one of the earliest pop recordings of one. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/29 "2016-03-26T00:11:46Z")
No Baba O’Riley? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/30 "2016-03-26T01:01:13Z")
> [@drad\_dog](#): > > No Baba O’Riley? Another one that’s not a Moog, or even a synthesizer: that chattering keyboard part is a Lowrey organ. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/31 "2016-03-26T01:45:13Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > Another one that’s not a Moog, or even a synthesizer: that chattering keyboard part is a Lowrey organ. Yep, Lowrey TBO-1 with “marimba repeat” for that delay effect. Pretty good demonstration [here](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZwOq0tTEPE) on a slightly different Lowrey. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/32 "2016-03-26T01:58:17Z")
Anything by Chick Corea, especially “My Spanish heart.” ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [March 26, 2016, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581/33 "2016-03-26T05:51:32Z")
As long as Cal has brought up _Switched-on Bach_, I’ll mention _The Moog Strikes Bach_. [Hans Wurman - The Moog Strikes Bach [Original German Stereo LP] (1969) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-TgvSJJdis#t=0) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/im-in-the-moog-for-love-or-songs-of-the-synthesizer/102581.md?page=1)