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Listening to the Music the Machines Make: Inventing Electronic Pop 1978-1983
Listening to the Music the Machines Make is the revolutionary story of electronic pop from 1978 to 1983, a true golden age of music.
This definitive account explores how krautrock, disco, glam rock and punk inspired a new generation to rip up the rulebook and venture toward a new frontier of electronic music – one that laid the foundations for Hip-Hop, house, techno and beyond.
Including an extensive collection of archive images throughout, Richard Evans’s kaleidoscopic narrative draws on years of research, a plethora of archive press materials and the input of key figures, including Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure), Martyn Ware (The Human League, B.E.F., Heaven 17) and Daniel Miller (The Normal, Mute Records).
From the gritty and experimental to the camp and theatrical, this book charts the careers and impact of electronic pop’s earliest innovators and luminaries, from Devo, The Normal, Telex and Cabaret Voltaire to Soft Cell, Gary Numan, OMD, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode.
This definitive account explores how krautrock, disco, glam rock and punk inspired a new generation to rip up the rulebook and venture toward a new frontier of electronic music – one that laid the foundations for Hip-Hop, house, techno and beyond.
Including an extensive collection of archive images throughout, Richard Evans’s kaleidoscopic narrative draws on years of research, a plethora of archive press materials and the input of key figures, including Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Erasure), Martyn Ware (The Human League, B.E.F., Heaven 17) and Daniel Miller (The Normal, Mute Records).
From the gritty and experimental to the camp and theatrical, this book charts the careers and impact of electronic pop’s earliest innovators and luminaries, from Devo, The Normal, Telex and Cabaret Voltaire to Soft Cell, Gary Numan, OMD, Duran Duran, Depeche Mode.
- GenresMusicNonfictionHistory
528 pages, Paperback
Published August 6, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
April 10, 2024
Excellent book about electronic music, showing its influences and how some of the best known bands of the early 80s got started. Even though I already had a decent knowledge of this time there were still some new nuggets of information for me.
December 31, 2024
An interesting book about electronic round the turn of the eighties. There is a strong focus on the UK, (meaning it isn't US-centric, for a change), but as I'm from the Netherlands I knew pretty much all of the acts mentioned.
There is a Spotify playlist to accompany the book (although it is far from exhaustive), which is a nice way to dive into the music more.
What the book could have used, is either more sub headings, or clearer signaling when the topic is changed to a different group. Because this often happens sort of between the lines, so it takes you a while to realize that you are now reading about a different group actually.
There is a Spotify playlist to accompany the book (although it is far from exhaustive), which is a nice way to dive into the music more.
What the book could have used, is either more sub headings, or clearer signaling when the topic is changed to a different group. Because this often happens sort of between the lines, so it takes you a while to realize that you are now reading about a different group actually.
October 3, 2026
I’ve just finished Richard Evans’s Listening to the Music the Machines Make, and I’m left with two fairly strong feelings: firstly, what an extraordinary story the birth of electronic pop really was; and secondly, quite how much work must have gone into researching this book.
Evans has taken a period of music history that I thought I knew reasonably well and made me look at it in a completely different way. His focus is largely on the years around 1978–1983, when punk, glam, disco, krautrock, experimental music and rapidly developing technology collided to produce something that sounded genuinely new. The familiar names are here — Kraftwerk, Bowie, Gary Numan, The Human League, OMD, Soft Cell, Ultravox, Japan, Depeche Mode and many others — but what makes the book so enjoyable is the way Evans puts them back into the world in which they actually emerged. And that world was considerably less certain than the one we know with hindsight.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed was being reminded that nobody knew at the time where all this was going. Artists who are now regarded as pioneers could initially be treated with bewilderment, suspicion or outright dismissal. Records that subsequently became classics were not necessarily recognised as such when they appeared. Evans is very good at capturing that sense of uncertainty, and the contemporary music press provides a wonderfully revealing — and sometimes very funny — window onto it. This is where the meticulous research really shines through.
Evans has clearly gone far beyond the usual sources and familiar anecdotes. A huge amount of his research involved going back to contemporary newspapers and music magazines, particularly through the archives of the British Library. He worked through thousands of pages of material, finding interviews, reviews, advertisements, news stories and obscure little details that could easily have disappeared into the archives. He has then painstakingly assembled all of this into a coherent chronology. Frankly, it is an astonishing amount of work.
What I found particularly rewarding is that Evans doesn't simply repeat the mythology that has grown up around electronic music. Instead, he goes back to the evidence and allows the people who were actually there to tell much of the story. That gives the book a freshness that a straightforward history written entirely with the benefit of hindsight could never have.
There is also an infectious enthusiasm running through the whole thing. Evans clearly loves this music, but he doesn't turn that enthusiasm into hagiography. There are successes, failures, eccentricities, rivalries, odd decisions and plenty of records that have not exactly survived the passage of time. That makes the story feel human rather than simply a procession of celebrated pioneers.
The sheer breadth of the book is impressive, too. It isn't just about the handful of artists who eventually became famous. Evans digs into the wider network of musicians, producers, record labels, technology and ideas that made the electronic revolution possible. Reading it, I repeatedly found myself thinking, “I didn't know that,” or, even better, reaching for a record I hadn't played for years.
If I have one reservation, it is simply that the enormous amount of detail can occasionally feel overwhelming. But, in truth, that's hardly a criticism. This is a book that wears its research proudly, and I'd much rather have a music history that gives me too many fascinating details than one that skims over them.
Most of all, I came away from Listening to the Music the Machines Make with enormous respect for Richard Evans. You don't produce a book like this without an almost obsessive level of curiosity, patience and dedication. The research is not merely impressive in quantity; it gives the book its authority and its sense of authenticity.
Evans deserves to be congratulated wholeheartedly. He has taken a hugely influential but sometimes oversimplified period of music history and given it the detailed, affectionate treatment it deserves. For anyone who loves electronic music, early synth-pop or simply the story of how musical revolutions happen, this is a fascinating read.
And for me, the best kind of music book is one that makes you want to stop reading, put on some records and hear them all again with fresh ears.
This one certainly did that.
Evans has taken a period of music history that I thought I knew reasonably well and made me look at it in a completely different way. His focus is largely on the years around 1978–1983, when punk, glam, disco, krautrock, experimental music and rapidly developing technology collided to produce something that sounded genuinely new. The familiar names are here — Kraftwerk, Bowie, Gary Numan, The Human League, OMD, Soft Cell, Ultravox, Japan, Depeche Mode and many others — but what makes the book so enjoyable is the way Evans puts them back into the world in which they actually emerged. And that world was considerably less certain than the one we know with hindsight.
One of the things I particularly enjoyed was being reminded that nobody knew at the time where all this was going. Artists who are now regarded as pioneers could initially be treated with bewilderment, suspicion or outright dismissal. Records that subsequently became classics were not necessarily recognised as such when they appeared. Evans is very good at capturing that sense of uncertainty, and the contemporary music press provides a wonderfully revealing — and sometimes very funny — window onto it. This is where the meticulous research really shines through.
Evans has clearly gone far beyond the usual sources and familiar anecdotes. A huge amount of his research involved going back to contemporary newspapers and music magazines, particularly through the archives of the British Library. He worked through thousands of pages of material, finding interviews, reviews, advertisements, news stories and obscure little details that could easily have disappeared into the archives. He has then painstakingly assembled all of this into a coherent chronology. Frankly, it is an astonishing amount of work.
What I found particularly rewarding is that Evans doesn't simply repeat the mythology that has grown up around electronic music. Instead, he goes back to the evidence and allows the people who were actually there to tell much of the story. That gives the book a freshness that a straightforward history written entirely with the benefit of hindsight could never have.
There is also an infectious enthusiasm running through the whole thing. Evans clearly loves this music, but he doesn't turn that enthusiasm into hagiography. There are successes, failures, eccentricities, rivalries, odd decisions and plenty of records that have not exactly survived the passage of time. That makes the story feel human rather than simply a procession of celebrated pioneers.
The sheer breadth of the book is impressive, too. It isn't just about the handful of artists who eventually became famous. Evans digs into the wider network of musicians, producers, record labels, technology and ideas that made the electronic revolution possible. Reading it, I repeatedly found myself thinking, “I didn't know that,” or, even better, reaching for a record I hadn't played for years.
If I have one reservation, it is simply that the enormous amount of detail can occasionally feel overwhelming. But, in truth, that's hardly a criticism. This is a book that wears its research proudly, and I'd much rather have a music history that gives me too many fascinating details than one that skims over them.
Most of all, I came away from Listening to the Music the Machines Make with enormous respect for Richard Evans. You don't produce a book like this without an almost obsessive level of curiosity, patience and dedication. The research is not merely impressive in quantity; it gives the book its authority and its sense of authenticity.
Evans deserves to be congratulated wholeheartedly. He has taken a hugely influential but sometimes oversimplified period of music history and given it the detailed, affectionate treatment it deserves. For anyone who loves electronic music, early synth-pop or simply the story of how musical revolutions happen, this is a fascinating read.
And for me, the best kind of music book is one that makes you want to stop reading, put on some records and hear them all again with fresh ears.
This one certainly did that.
November 13, 2024
Slightly disappointing.
The scope of what is covered in this book on electronic music is very narrow, limited to the UK record charts over a 6 year span (1978-1983). There is cursory mentioning of influences from the US or from Germany, but the bulk of the content is made up of snippets of writing by music critics from pop-music magazines within the UK during that period. Some critics hated a song or an album and some praised it, and how the record sale proved which critic was right. Nearly all the singles or albums mentioned in this book followed the same format of introduction, which became a little tedious after a while. After 40 years, none of what they wrote then, for the sake of selling fanzines. carries much weight nor insights anymore. It was fluff then, it's even less now. The way the author transitioned from one record to another, or one musical act to another, was also a little awkward and lacked a narrative flow.
There is very little information on the development of the technical side of the story, the hardware, the specific advances in the capabilities of the synthesizers, which machines brought about a breakthrough in the sounds, which song contained a specific mentionable tech innovation, etc.
The final chapter of the book covers a longer period (1984-1993), but the style of writing appeared to be completely different from all the previous chapter. Another weird and seemingly haphazard transition.
Despite its shortcomings, it appears that the author had done extensive background information gathering via the various biographies of the musicians and the bands. And if you were a fan of the music from that time, it can still be a good addition to your library.
The scope of what is covered in this book on electronic music is very narrow, limited to the UK record charts over a 6 year span (1978-1983). There is cursory mentioning of influences from the US or from Germany, but the bulk of the content is made up of snippets of writing by music critics from pop-music magazines within the UK during that period. Some critics hated a song or an album and some praised it, and how the record sale proved which critic was right. Nearly all the singles or albums mentioned in this book followed the same format of introduction, which became a little tedious after a while. After 40 years, none of what they wrote then, for the sake of selling fanzines. carries much weight nor insights anymore. It was fluff then, it's even less now. The way the author transitioned from one record to another, or one musical act to another, was also a little awkward and lacked a narrative flow.
There is very little information on the development of the technical side of the story, the hardware, the specific advances in the capabilities of the synthesizers, which machines brought about a breakthrough in the sounds, which song contained a specific mentionable tech innovation, etc.
The final chapter of the book covers a longer period (1984-1993), but the style of writing appeared to be completely different from all the previous chapter. Another weird and seemingly haphazard transition.
Despite its shortcomings, it appears that the author had done extensive background information gathering via the various biographies of the musicians and the bands. And if you were a fan of the music from that time, it can still be a good addition to your library.
June 10, 2024
Very enjoyable but I’m not at all sure this would much interest people who weren’t living through this era of music.
What comes across especially powerfully is the influence that the music press had at that time. I was quite a keen reader myself. The extensive quotations from reviews over these years served mainly to illustrate what absolute ponces most of the writers were. The levels of spite and pretension are staggering.
Which makes it all the more satisfying that the genuinely biggest star of the era, despite all the abuse and sneering of the public school types, was Gary Numan.
The last chapter is a very condensed history of what happened next: house, techno, industrial and so on.
It was a great era for music, though relatively few of the synth acts put together more than one genuinely great album. It seems to me appropriate that the title of the book comes from one of the bands that put together four or five very solid albums, Ultravox. The NME etc truly hated them!
What comes across especially powerfully is the influence that the music press had at that time. I was quite a keen reader myself. The extensive quotations from reviews over these years served mainly to illustrate what absolute ponces most of the writers were. The levels of spite and pretension are staggering.
Which makes it all the more satisfying that the genuinely biggest star of the era, despite all the abuse and sneering of the public school types, was Gary Numan.
The last chapter is a very condensed history of what happened next: house, techno, industrial and so on.
It was a great era for music, though relatively few of the synth acts put together more than one genuinely great album. It seems to me appropriate that the title of the book comes from one of the bands that put together four or five very solid albums, Ultravox. The NME etc truly hated them!
December 16, 2023
The first third of the book I would have given this five stars easily. However, as it got into the weeds I felt like there could have been a lot of trimming going on. It also would have been nice if chapters would have started with a bigger picture as to what was happening with the technological development and the culture along with the specific bands that the author followed. I think instead of following bands chronologically and going over each and every release and each and every review that was given, it would have been interesting to look at this through a chapter of synthesizers or another chapter of effects or another chapter on the music press and to really get a bigger picture and then maybe follow a few bands through the scene. There were too many music reviews included, but I did learn that the British music press is absolutely ruthless.
March 13, 2023
I was drawn to this weighty book initially by its title, taken from an Ultravox classic, which I am glad it did as I got into the likes of Heaven 17, Human League, OMD, Tubeway Army/Gary Numan and Kraftwerk (discovering them during this time period) back then. Very well researched with quotes/interviews from many of the bands from this genre plus articles/reviews from the music press. Will be digging out cds I haven't listened to in a long time thanks to Richard Evans.
September 1, 2025
Everyone was very mean about Ultravox
January 6, 2023
This review first appeared on my blog - https://nsfordwriter.com - on 15th March 2023.
With a foreword by Vince Clarke and a focus on source material such as the music press and the charts, this is a detailed and thorough exploration of how a number of bands, mainly British, developed their sounds from 1978 - 1983. The book begins with influential artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. It then goes on to look in detail at each year and the careers of the bands who emerged, plus occasional context such as the Musicians' Union being worried about synthesisers, the introduction of CDs and the 'home taping is killing music' campaign. It ends by looking at how early electronic pop influenced acid house and rave music later in the decade. There are a huge number of quotes from the music magazines and these were cringeworthy to read because the critics were cruel to pretty much all of the bands featured in this book.
The book includes the following artists (take a deep breath): Devo, Cabaret Voltaire, Tubeway Army, Gary Numan, The Human League, Soft Cell, OMD, Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Visage, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, John Foxx, Japan, Heaven 17, Joy Division, New Order, Thomas Dolby, Fad Gadget, Silicon Teens, Landscape, Blancmange...
There are a number of curious omissions, however. Tears for Fears' debut album topped the chart in 1983 yet they are never mentioned. Talk Talk (entered the charts in 1982), Aneka, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Hazel O'Connor, Grace Jones, Madonna, Blondie. I felt that women were underrepresented because they consisted of a few pages on Annie Lennox, with minor cameos from Delia Derbyshire, the Human League girls, Gillian from New Order and Thereza Bazaar. I also felt that some of the excruciating detail about the chart placings of, say, Duran Duran, could have been replaced with more about other bands who barely feature or are not featured at all.
The journalistic style of the book was quite repetitive, but somehow oddly soothing. I did enjoy the book but I have read more compelling narratives covering the same topics and era. It's an excellent achievement and meticulously researched, with a generous number of black and white photos as well as a colour plate section. The author, Richard Evans, has worked for the group Erasure for many years.
With a foreword by Vince Clarke and a focus on source material such as the music press and the charts, this is a detailed and thorough exploration of how a number of bands, mainly British, developed their sounds from 1978 - 1983. The book begins with influential artists such as David Bowie, Brian Eno, Kraftwerk and Giorgio Moroder. It then goes on to look in detail at each year and the careers of the bands who emerged, plus occasional context such as the Musicians' Union being worried about synthesisers, the introduction of CDs and the 'home taping is killing music' campaign. It ends by looking at how early electronic pop influenced acid house and rave music later in the decade. There are a huge number of quotes from the music magazines and these were cringeworthy to read because the critics were cruel to pretty much all of the bands featured in this book.
The book includes the following artists (take a deep breath): Devo, Cabaret Voltaire, Tubeway Army, Gary Numan, The Human League, Soft Cell, OMD, Simple Minds, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Visage, Depeche Mode, Ultravox, John Foxx, Japan, Heaven 17, Joy Division, New Order, Thomas Dolby, Fad Gadget, Silicon Teens, Landscape, Blancmange...
There are a number of curious omissions, however. Tears for Fears' debut album topped the chart in 1983 yet they are never mentioned. Talk Talk (entered the charts in 1982), Aneka, Kim Wilde, Toyah, Hazel O'Connor, Grace Jones, Madonna, Blondie. I felt that women were underrepresented because they consisted of a few pages on Annie Lennox, with minor cameos from Delia Derbyshire, the Human League girls, Gillian from New Order and Thereza Bazaar. I also felt that some of the excruciating detail about the chart placings of, say, Duran Duran, could have been replaced with more about other bands who barely feature or are not featured at all.
The journalistic style of the book was quite repetitive, but somehow oddly soothing. I did enjoy the book but I have read more compelling narratives covering the same topics and era. It's an excellent achievement and meticulously researched, with a generous number of black and white photos as well as a colour plate section. The author, Richard Evans, has worked for the group Erasure for many years.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews