1982 in Music

Back with another “the year is…” and this time we’re taking a look at 1982. Some of the biggest songs of 1982 include Ebony and Ivory by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, Come On Eileen by Dexys Midnight Runners (and apparently the Emerald Express, who I always forget about) and Men at Work’s Down Under. But let’s get to the meaty stuff:

The year also saw some fantastic albums by Roxy Music, Fleetwood Mac (below), Toto, Davie Bowie, The Cure and of course Michael Jackson’s Thriller.

1982 also saw the release of Music and Lights, one of the greatest British funk-boogie tracks:

A Year of Debuts

Perhaps more instructive of the year was some incredible debut albums. Eponymous albums from Minneapolis funk trio Vanity 6 (is Prince the hardest working man in the 1980s?), Janet Jackson, Lionel Richie and Sonic Youth, who while didn’t hit their stride until much later decade started making waves in the art rock scene this year. 1982 also saw debuts from London jazz-funk outfit Central Line, Bad Religion, Talk Talk, Musical Youth and Parliament/Funkadelic’a George Clinton released Computer Games.

Roland TB-303

Roland had a busy year, releasing the Juno-6 and Juno-60 and less appreciated drum machine TR-606 but probably one of the most transformative commercial disasters of all time, the TB-303 also saw release in 1982. Along with the guitar amplifier, compact sampler, MIDI and TR-808, the 303 has had one of the biggest single impacts of any synthesiser.

Designed as an accompanist for practising guitarists, it sounded nothing like a bass guitar and was not fondly remembered in its early years. While the 303 didn’t really capture the imagination, a few years later it was being discovered in bargain basements by the young black men from Detroit who would later go on to create the foundations for techno.

The 303 is a simple monophonic analog synthesiser offering square and sawtooth waveforms coupled with a 24dB low pass resonant filter which interestingly didn’t self oscillate when the resonance when cranked up. There’s alarmingly few controls for the the synth, envelope depth and decay length, filter cutoff and resonance. The 303 has an idiosyncratic programmer with characteristic slides that gives it such a unique sound, often (poorly) emulated by other synth manufacturers.

One of the distinct characteristics of sequencing notes with the programmer is it led to shorter sequences, which really caught the imagination of producers influenced by electro, hip hop and other genres, favouring repetition and linear development over binary and ternary form that had dominated more song-based composition.

Thriller

Part of a run of four incredible albums, two years after Off The Wall, Thriller is widely regarded by some as Jackson’s magnum opus. The personal involved aside from Michael is music royalty, produced by Quincy Jones with cowriting from Rod Temperton, James Ingram and Steve Porcaro, engineered by Bruce Swedien, keyboards from Greg Phillinganes and guest appearances from Eddie Van Halen and Vincent Price. Here’s a selection of tracks from the album, starting with a track with one of the greatest codas: