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User:T1980/Spacesynth

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Spacesynth, synthdance, spacedance, spacedisco or whatever you want to call it is instrumental upbeat synth music that focuses on melodies instead of rhythm. Driving basslines, catchy synth riffs, science fiction influences and futuristic track titles and album covers have always been a major part of spacesynth.

Spacesynth originated in the mid 80's. At that time synthesizers and electronic sounds had become an essential part of popular music and were widely used by such artists as Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Kraftwerk and Art of Noise. Synthpop hits like Magnetic Fields 2, Pulstar and Magic Fly are well known tracks even today.

In the meantime in Italy a music style called italodisco was dominating discos. Basically Italo Disco consists of rather simple vocals, melodic synth riffs and a four-to-floor beat. It had that recognizable 1980s disco sound that people either love or hate these days.

Italo disco became popular in other parts of Europe too. At first spacesynth was just an instrumental version of Italo Disco focusing on the synth side of Italo Disco. But eventually it became a genre of its own. Cyber People released successful singles "Polaris" and "Void Vision" for the Memory Records (Italy). Koto developed his own Italo-inspired synth music style and the single "Visitors" was a big hit in 1985s.

Soon after there were other similar groups - also outside of Italy. Erik van Vliet from The Netherlands established Laserdance and together with Michiel van der Kuy Laserdance became the most successful spacesynth group ever. Their debut album "Future Generation" (1987) sold approximately 150 000 copies and the singles "Powerrun" and "Humanoid Invasion" were big hits in Europe. Koto and Laserdance could be considered the most popular spacesynth groups. They set the standards of the genre and since the golden era of spacesynth many producers have tried to replicate that sound.

In the early 1990s spacesynth started to lose its popularity and almost completely vanished during the 1990s when eurodance, house, techno and its subgenres were dominating electronic music charts. Spacesynth was nearly forgotten until it showed some signs of recovering towards the end of the 90s. Now there's growing interest in spacesynth again as 1980s melodic sound is getting more popular. During the last few years Hypersound and Alpha Centauri have released a numerous of spacesynth albums from many new artists. It will be interesting to see and hear how this music is going to evolve. Time will tell.

List of artists

  • Daylight
  • Hipnosis (Italy)
  • Cyber People (Italy)
  • Koto (Italy)
  • Laserdance (Netherlands)
  • Proxyon (Netherlands)
  • Syntech (Netherlands)
  • SpaceRaider (Poland)
  • mindXpander (Sweden)
  • Macrocosm
  • Protonic Storm (Poland)
  • Rygar (Netherlands)

Record labels:

Sites with music and more info:

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