History of Musical Influences by that SharePoint Guy - Part 3 - 1980-1981

  • Article

History of Musical Influences by that SharePoint Guy - Part 3 - 1980-1981

Before I start with 1980, let me note that I'm afraid the same thing that happened after I made my previous post in this series of becoming inspired to create a piece of work based on the artists in that time frame is going to happen again :).

Shortly after posting part 2 of this series, I got inspired and wound up composing The Maestoso Interstellar Suite. (See the blog posting on this) I finished that CD, and it should be live on CDBaby any day now, then shortly thereafter, distributed to the digital download services.

Now that I'm working on Part 3, it's already happening again :).

1980

During this year, I discovered Kraftwerk. Interestingly enough, as I was listening to my limited Kraftwerk collection, a member of my team must have noticed my link to their official site on my blog Music category. (Btw, if you have not visited Kraftwerk's official site, it's actually pretty darn cool). This team mate made the statement something to the effect of "You're about the only other person I've seen since High school that lives in America that actually has heard of Kraftwerk as well"

Jean Michelle Jarre came to my attention by hearing Oxygene and Equinoxe. (I really don't follow Jean, but he was still an important part of the story at this time).

There was also work by Brian Eno brought to my attention as well as Gary Numan . You've got to thank Gary for his song Cars, now considered a classic rock staple.  

The early 80's introduced me to so many different inspirational artists, it would be impossible to list them all. And I can't end 1980 without mentioning The Cars, themselves. Every single one of their albums up to 1980 were in my regular play list all the time and into 1981. I know I wore out at least 10 different cassette copies of Panorama, along with constantly swiping my brothers vinyl copy :) I even own a copy of Greg Hawkes solo release, Niagara Falls.

1981

The only thing I can say about 1981, is simply, Vangelis and Chariots of Fire. This entire release is a fantastic work of art IMO.

During these years, I heard a lot of music utilizing a Vocoder. With my latest round of listening to my Kraftwerk collection, I've been playing around with a virtual synth version of a Vocoder, and thinking about doing yet another CD on the Kraftwerk like style. It's undecided, but inspiration is happening yet again :).

Next up, 1982-1983

 - Keith

Previous Posts in this series:

Additional references and links: