The Synthesizer in Rock Music

Image result for rock synthesizer
When people think of rock, it's a knee-jerk reaction to think traditional instruments (a la guitar, bass, drums, piano, organ, sometimes woodwind instruments, etc).

But what most don't realize is there's more to rock besides the blazing, mean guitars. The advent of the synthesizer is perhaps the most popular of these examples.

A Brief History:
Up until the early to mid 60s, there was not widespread usage of the terms keyboard player or keyboardist. Rather, such musicians were referred to either as pianists or organists depending on what they played.

Then, in the mid 60s, there was a technological boom. The first electronic music instrument most popular was the melotron. Being a sampling keyboard, it acted as a portable orchestra or choir without the need to book extra manpower to record an album or song. Perhaps, the best usage of the melotron was the Moody Blues' Michael Pinder most extensively on their 1967 record Days of Future Past. The theramin also became popular used as early as on the Beach Boys' 1966 record Pet Sounds.

The Moog is perhaps the first prominent synthesizer. Early users were the Beatles (on Here Comes the Sun) as well as the Monkees. Next to the melotron, the Moog made a name for itself  in prog rock. The Moog featured in Emerson Lake and Palmer's music played by virtuoso Keith Emerson, as well as in Yes music starting with their fourth LP, Fragile. However, Tony Kaye, the first keyboardist of Yes, did not play the melotron or the Moog. Due to this, he was replaced with Rick Wakeman in time for the making of Fragile.

Besides ELP and Yes, Pink Floyd were predigous users of synths starting with their most popular album, The Dark Side of The Moon. They branched out to ARP String synthesizers, as well as the EMSVC3 and Synthai shortly thereafter. Synths were most heavily featured on nearly every track of 1975's Wish You Were Here as well as on Animals (1977), and The Wall (1979) and The Division Bell (1994). By then, the Oberheim and Elka Rhapsody were also becoming popular most prominently used by Supertram on their 1977 record Even in The Quietest Moments, 1979's Breakfast in America, and most of their live shows of the day.

Around this time, different organs were used notably was the plastic organ or mouth organ as heard in Steely Dan's 1972 hit single Do it Again.

David Hentchel, who colabed with Elton John on his 1973 record, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, played the ARP on the album's opening tracks. Other artists of the timeframe who came to embrace synthesizers were Electric Light Orchestra (moreso in the 80s), Styx (using and Oberheim for the solo on Come Sail Away (1977), and Queen, but again, more popular in the 1980s.

By the late 70s/early 80s, new wave and punk began to take firm hold. Now bands were using synths for orchestration and other significant productions more than ever. Perhaps the most populr band in the day to use synthesizers were The Cars.

Synthesizer usage was more widespread in the 80s used by rockers, and non-rockers allike. The Eurythmics 1983 smash hit and signature song Sweet Dreams Are Made of This, features a MEMORABLE synth line. Peter Gabriel, formerly of Genesis fame, also used synthesizers most notably the Farlight CMI - popular amongst most 80s musicians.

Even heartland rock, that most notably AVOIDS synthesizers, began featuring it. The BEST example has got to be Bruce Springsteen's Born in The USA. The title track and Glory Days feature heavy synth usage.

Hard rockers from the late 70s through to the early 90s also used synthesizers. Most notable examples of these are Foreigner, Loverboy, Heart, and Van Halen among others.

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