Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music

by David Stubbs

In Mars By 1980 , David Stubbs charts the evolution of electronic music from the earliest mechanical experiments in the late nineteenth century, through to the ubiquitous, familiar sounds of electronica, house and techno that we know today. It's a tale of mavericks and future dreamers overcoming Luddite resistance, malfunctioning devices, and sonic mayhem. The beginnings may be in the world of avant-classical composition, but it continues on through the sonic funk of Stevie Wonder and Giorgio Moroder, via the astonishing sounds of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, through unforgettable eighties electropop by the likes of Depeche Mode, the Pet Shop Boys and Laurie Anderson, and right up to present-day innovators on the underground scene.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, History, Art, Cultural, Collections

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

David Stubbs is a British journalist and author, covering music, film, TV and sport. He is known for his work on the Maker’s "Talk Talk Talk" column, converting it from a two-page gossip spread into a satirical and surreal take on the rock and pop world and those characters who stalked it, both the heroes and the hapless.

Among his creations were Pepe Le Punk, a Belgian music journalist (author of Hi, I’m Mr Grunge – An Unauthorised Autobiography Of Kurt Cobain); Derek Kent, MM staff writer since 1926, wit, raconteur and pervert, and Diary Of A Manic Street Preachers Fan (who admired the group for their “intense intensitude”); The Nod Corner, the fictional journals of the Fields Of The Nephilim drummer whose scheming bandmates continually got him into hot water with lead singer Carl McCoy, who would administer him the punishment of ten press-ups. The likes of Sinead O’ Connor, Morrissey, The Mission, Andrew Eldritch, Bono and Blur were also sent up on a regular basis.

However, his most famous and beloved creation was Mr Agreeable (formerly Mr Abusing), whose weekly column was a terse exercise in unmitigated, asterisk-strafed invective scattered at all and sundry, especially the sundry, in the rock world – the various c***s, streaks of piss, f***wits, arseholes and twotmongers who raised his blood pressure often by their mere existence. Although Stubbs left Melody Maker in 1998 to work for a cross range of titles including NME, Vox and Uncut, Mr Agreeable remains an occasionally active commentator, occasionally dropping in at The Quietus to vent his ire.

- excerpted from his website: http://www.mr-agreeable.net

Librarian note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

David^^Stubbs

Reviews

[Korcan Derinsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elektronik müziğin çıkış noktasından günümüze dek gelen yolculuğunun hikayesi. Konuya dair okuduğum kitaplar içerisinde en derli toplu olanı. Üstelik yazarın türün kilometre taşlarını da çok doğru tespit ettiğini düşünüyorum. Elektronik müziği merak eden herkes için okunması gereken bir kitap.

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some books on dance/electronic music that I’ve read have been content to declare “it all started with Kraftwerk and the soundtrack to ‘A Clockwork Orange’”, but in “Mars by 1980”, David Stubbs delves far deeper to uncover its genesis. In the early and most illuminating chapters of this wide-ranging history, Stubbs traces the roots of contemporary electronic music to the Italian futurist movement of the early 1900s and their radical “Art of Noises” manifesto, and back to avant-garde classical composers like Edgard Varese and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He gives long overdue credit for the development of electronica to Delia Derbyshire of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, but also to Stevie Wonder who brought electronic instrumentation into the mainstream while bringing a more human, soulful dimension to synthesiser-based music.

“Mars by 1980” doesn’t follow a rigid chronological order, and as Stubbs charts the development of electronic music he flits back-and-forth between eras and genres, touching on themes from afro-futurism, automation and A.I., dadism and surrealism, proto-fascism and communism. Stubbs is excellent on how the latest technological advances in electronic instrumentation – from moog synthesisers to vocoders and samplers – have driven the artform onwards. Incredibly knowledgeable about all genres of music from the last century (not just electronic/dance), Stubbs can weave the connections between acts as seemingly disparate as Throbbing Gristle, De La Soul, Young Gods and Beyonce within the space of a single page.

What diminishes “Mars by 1980” somewhat (and prevents it attaining the level of “Energy Flash”, Simon Reynolds’s peerless exploration of dance culture) is that it relatively fleetingly deals with the development of electronic music forms during the last 25 years. Even though we appear to be an age when electronica is in the ascendancy – as it has been so thoroughly absorbed into mainstream that it now provides the soundtrack to Volkswagen ads and property programmes – the vast bulk of Stubbs’s analysis is devoted to the periods before pre-Acid House and Rave. Through this focus on the 20th century, and even through his title of “Mars by 1980”, David Stubbs contends that electronic music has lost the revolutionary fervour that once propelled it.

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent, passionate and highly lyrical - with some great lists and an impressive reach of the twentieth century to the present. Anyone who can persuade me to try out Brian Eno (easy) and Karlheinz Stockhausen (much harder) needs applauding (I always got Kraftwerk and Neu entirely - no convincing needing there).

Good to read such a hearty defence and ode to electronica, with plenty of satisfying kicks against the meaningless, reactionary dross that is/was Oasis and so much guitar-bothering.

Off to listen to the sound of a man hoovering in a Edwardian diving suit now.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was inspired to read this by the author's excellent and engaging presence on the superb Chart Music podcast while he also contributes regularly to When Saturday Comes . For the most part, it's an interesting trawl through the history of electronic music albeit a volume that never really catches fire. The inspiration is clearly Simon Reynolds' sublime Rip It Up and Start Again but it doesn't match that work in the way it inspired readers to go and seek out the music of unjustly neglected artists (although I do need to go back to Cabaret Voltaire).

Stubbs obviously took the decision to analyse the topic over the longue durée and while this is admirable, it does mean devoting 150 pages to early and mid twentieth century pioneers on the edges of the classical music world when most readers will surely have wished the book would jump straight in on Kraftwerk and The Human League. The book is strong on black music (laying waste to the notion of whiter than white synth boffins making the most pressing contributions to the genre), Suicide, Burial and Dubstep, the 1990s rave era and Joy Division while Drum and Bass gets surprisingly and unfair short shrift. Ultimately, there are very few artists these days that don't deploy electronics and rock music in its purest form is now about as unfashionable as it ever has been so this is a timely chronicle.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surprisingly deep and broad look at electronic music. I found the early chapters in the book, where Stubbs explores Russolo's Art of Noises, fascinating early instruments like the intonarumori and the Telharmonium, and the foundational work of Varése, Stockhausen and other less well known pioneers especially valuable. I appreciate how the book makes a point of recognizing female pioneers like Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram as well as artists like Stevie Wonder who are not widely recognized for their contributions to electronic music.

Mars by 1980 reads more like a long personal essay than an attempt at writing a comprehensive history. Given this, oversights are forgivable. Stubbs has a flair for writing evocative descriptions of sound and draws on his long career as a music journalist.

This book was more than I expected and I will be going back to the long playlist provided at the end of the book again and again as I explore aspects of electronic music where I require further education.

[Michael Ritchie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book touches on all the expected names, from Stockhausen and John Cage to Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode and so on, but as a narrative history of electronic music, it falls quite short. It reads more like a collection of essays, some with interviews, loosely banded together, and Stubbs's style is idiosyncratic and not to my liking. His coverage of artists also seems more determined by his personal liking, devoting, for example, way more space to Suicide than to the arguably more influential Giorgio Moroder. His chapter on Stevie Wonder is marred by some strange critical stances, and he could have done a lot more with electronic soul. A disappointment.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music is a strange, duck-billed platypus of a book. It’s clearly trying to be something of an comprehensive narrative history of electronic music, but Stubbs doesn’t always follow through on this. In some places it’s a personal reminiscence of the author’s discovery of different music, in others a socio-political tract analysing the background and context to different musical movements.

In the areas he covers well, Stubbs is excellent - his analysis of the early roots of electronic music from Varese and Xenakis to the concrete and radiophonic are strong and he’s clearly knowledgeable and passionate about the wider subject. There are however glaring omissions (Tangerine Dream, OMD and Yellow Magic Orchestra are only mentioned en passant, Boards of Canada do not appear at all) which mean this is far from authoritative.

That said, Stubbs is an engaging and amusing guide through the process (he’s never backwards in coming forward with an opinion), and some sections (particularly his appraisal of Stevie Wonder in the context of his work with electronic music) are worth the price of admission alone.

[Ronny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first part of this book is great but it starts to ramble in the second part and there are some glaring omissions, Ryuichi Sakamoto gets completely ignored for example which might be because the book becomes very British white male focused in the second part. I was going to give it 3 stars but because there are some excellent Frank Zappa put-downs it gets 4.

[Alex Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for any house head, bass head, or trance lover alike! This paints such a vivid picture of how we got to where Electronic Music is today and where it all began.

[Matias Sanches · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspirador

[John Levon · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me the more interesting part is in the first half, with the less known history, especially the very early experiments. Later on is more familiar territory, though still a great read.

Some might find the rather florid descriptions of the music a bit silly though.

[DJ_Keyser · Rating 5 out of 5]

Was slightly hesitant coming into this, because most tomes that purport to chart a history of such an expansive genre as electronic music tend to provide little more than broad strokes, but I was astounded by this effort from David Stubbs. His focus is on context rather than pure content, and in taking this approach, it feels more granular than anything I’ve read on the subject previously. It’s less about the what, and more about the why, and it had me completely captivated all the way from the very first page to the last. Essential reading for any music fan, let alone electronica enthusiasts. Outstanding stuff, and I was only disappointed to finally reach its end.

[Graham Catt · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of the development of electronic music.

[Luis Jorquera · Rating 4 out of 5]

-- Spoilers --
Una historia de la música electrónica | David Stubbs | 2019 | Reseña

Sonidos de Marte | Editorial Caja Negra | Traducción Tadeo Lima
Si te gusta la música electrónica este es un libro imprescindible. Si sólo te gusta la música, también. David Stubbs realiza un recorrido centrado mayormente en el siglo XX sobre músicos que utilizaron instrumentos electrónicos, cintas de grabación, osciladores, etc. hasta su evolución en el ordenador. Músicos que experimentaron, mezclaron y crearon sonidos para una nueva era; pero que también supieron crear conceptos que enmarcaron épocas y de cierta forma supieron anticipar el futuro.
En un recorrido exaustivo de más de 450 páginas el autor ha elegido cuidadosamente hitos que dejaron huella tanto en la música como en la cultura general. Los primeros pasos conceptuales y experimentaciones hasta los músicos concretos y electrónicos de mediados de los 50. Los primeros pasos con instrumentos experimentales hasta la masificación de la Roland TR808. De esa visión analógica hasta la digitalización portatil en el ProTools. El libro se detiene de tanto en tanto en pequeñas reseñas sobre autores y sus obras. Nos explica las razones, explica los contextos, la razón casi natural por la cual tal artista debió aparecer, así como también la anomalía que significó la aparición de algunos de ellos y sus implicancias posteriores. Me quedo con el capitulo dedicado a Delia Derbyshire y Suicide.
El libro explora un poco de todo. Se centra fuertemente el periodo de los 80. De Kraftwerk a los Pet Shop Boys. Un tour casi a lo “Che Guevara and Debussy to a disco beat”. Se echa en falta la exploración de algunas bandas alemanas fuera de Kraftwerk del Krautrock, pero supongo que esto se encuentra en otro libro del autor llamado “Future Days: el krautrock y la construcción de la Alemania moderna”. También se echa en falta alguna referencia sobre Wendy Carlos y quizás la aparición de algunas marcas de sintetizadores como Moog, Korg y algunas otros. Nada grave.
En contraposición la lista de referentes por momento resulta abrumadora. Resulta importante que el autor ha entrevistado a muchos de las personalidades citadas e intenta genuinamente darnos su impresión de primera mano. Algo que me resultó interesante es que por momentos el texto cambiaba a ese lenguage casí épico y críptico de las revistas de rock de los años 80–90 logrando llevarte por un momento a esas épocas de descubrimiento musical. Una época cuando los mitos de la música se armaban en charlas de amigos, basadas más en percepciones que en documentaciones. Entonces aún no habían triufado aún las máquinas y el Computer World anunciado por Kraftwerk era sólo un anuncio frío, automático que estaba recién cargando batería.
El gran parte del libro uno se siente estar redescubriendo el género, resultando como una clave para abrir o reabrir muchas puertas y eso se agradece y es lo central.

Una lista de artistas que se pueden encontrar en el libro.
A Guy Called Gerald • Afrika Bambaataa • Aphex Twin • Autechre • Boards of Canada • Brian Eno • Burial • Cabaret Voltaire • Carter Tutti • Coil • Conrad Schnitzler • D.A.F. • Daft Punk • Delia Derbyshire • Depeche Mode • Derrick May • DJ SHADOW • Edgar Varèse • Éliane Radigue • Fennesz • Front 242 • Gary Numan • Gas • Giorgio Moroder • Goldie • György Ligeti • Halim El-Dabh • Herbie Hancock • Holger Czukay • Human League • Beyoncé • Iannis Xenakis • J Dilla • Japan • Jeff Mills • John Cage • Karlheinz Stockhausen • KLF • Kode 9 • Kraftwerk • Laurie Anderson • Leyland Kirby • Liaisons Dangereuses • Luc Ferrari • Luigi Nono • M.I.A. • Madlib • Manuel Göttsching • Merzbow • Miles Davis • Morton Subotnick • Pauline Oliveros • Pet Shop Boys • Ricardo Villalobos • Skinny Puppy • Soft Cell • Steve Reich • Stevie Wonder • Suicide • Sun Ra • Suzanne Ciani • Tangerine Dream • Telex • The Art of Noise • The Orb • Throbbing Gristle • Tim Hecker • Underground Resistance • William Basinski • Yello • Yellow Magic Orchestra • Young Gods • Zomby

[David Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The true test of whether you might enjoy Future Sounds is this: Scope the names listed not-quite-chronologically on the back jacket; if a few of them are familiar and beloved, read it. If nothing rings a bell or strikes your fancy, leave it aside. I found several names whose works I have devoured or merely enjoyed, and I loved seeing where in the multi-dimensional jigsaw puzzle of electronic sound the author places them.

Future Sounds came into my possession via my wife's book prospecting trip to Brazos Books, my favorite indy bookseller in Houston. She has done this just a few times, sometimes surprising me with new releases in which I have expressed an interest, sometimes bringing home books I would have glanced at and moved on if I had gone myself. Jeff Tweedy's memoir Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) is an example of successful prospecting; the English translation of László Krasznahorkai's The World Goes On...less so (but some day, dammit, I will work through this rather challenging set of shorts, just as I plowed my way through Moby Dick).

So, in sum, I was uncertain whether I would enjoy this. My taste in electronic music—which, as Stubbs illustrates, is an enormously broad category—is rather picky. The list of big electronica names on the back jacket seems to indicate that all electronic music points the way to the various sub-subgenres of EDM, personified by Daft Punk, Deadmau5, Skrillex, et al. The ubiquity of EDM and whip-its are my two least favorite aspects of the Burner scene in Texas, and raves only became a thing when I was well into my 30s (too late, really).

Goodreads notes that there are at least two authors named David Stubbs in its database; the other one is a historian. There are also several works with "Future Sounds" in their titles—not very original, mate. It didn't help that I caught some factual slip-ups in the first few pages (I might get around to citing examples—never developed the habit of reading with highlighter in hand), plus the occasional head-scratching goof in the ensuing chapters (sketchy knowledge of US geography, for example, for which we can forgive a Brit); or that Stubbs begins the Introduction name-checking some Top-40 acts not known for their electro-savvy, such as Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran. And then he had the gall to suggest that Frank Zappa's output went downhill after he stopped using the musique concrète techniques found on the early Mothers of Invention albums.

Misgivings officially assuaged: I enjoyed the 400+ pages of this book, including the index, on several levels, thanks. Let's bullet just a few of the reasons I found this tome worth my time.

1. The writing style: I have enjoyed reading album reviews since my teens, when I subscribed to Rolling Stone, Musician, Player, and Listener, and Songwriter magazines. It isn't always that I can enjoy an entire book full of album review–style writing, but Stubbs's prose style is florid, stretching for the loftiest and most florid reaches of his vocabulary without going over the top (or remaining there for long when he does). However, one of the pitfalls of writing from the perspective of a music reviewer is comparing the work of unfamiliar musicians to those he might just assume are household names that require no further identification: e.g., saying something sounds like early Tangerine Dream but offering no appositive to explain what a Tangerine Dream is.

2. The breadth and depth of knowledge: As befits a writer with a lengthy career at outlets such as Melody Maker and New Music Express, Stubbs knows a lot about a lot of modern music. His tastes developed along similar lines as my own: born the same year I was, encountered some of the same musical epiphanies as I did at about the same ages, and having done some DJ work in his university days. Just like your friend's kid who discovers the blues via heavy metal and Led Zeppelin, unsatisfied with just enjoying the present incarnation of the music, from an early age Stubbs sought out the inspirations of the music he liked, and the inspirations for that, all the way back to the late Romantic era and the antitheses of classical music that arose in the early 20th century when Western music had just about run out of original melodies and chord progressions. Stubbs takes pains in his two Prefaces to name-check some of the obvious names omitted from the main chapters, such as Todd Rundgren and Jean-Michel Jarre, pointing out that the book focuses on his own personal favorites (of which there are literally dozens).

3. The inclusion of innovators who weren't pasty-white academics: The chapter focusing on Sun Ra and Miles Davis is super-important in reminding us that black artists and others from the jazz world leveraged technology to expand their musical palettes (and their fans' palates). Detroit techno also has African-American lineage, following the lead of hip-hoppers like Run-DMC and De La Soul, with black mixologists sampling and contorting a wide range of white music and reversing the old paradigm of white artists misappropriating black songwriters' work. Think of how Afrika Bambaataa gave Kraftwerk's "Trans-Europe Express" new life in 1982, or the way Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner" went from a cappella novelty to dance floor sensation.

As much as I enjoyed reading about the careers of musicians whose works I know deeply (Joy Division/New Order) or have only tasted (Karlheinz Stockhausen), my favorite chapter mostly contains names I've never known: "Reverberation and Decay." Here Stubbs not only gets to quote or allude to Jacques Derrida a few times like a proper Oxonian, but also to demonstrate how Derrida-esque deconstructivism has informed the electronic canon of the past 20 years. Do you like found sounds, such as those used by David Byrne and Brian Eno in some of their collaborations? How about making a recording mixing playbacks from badly stored reel-to-reel tapes that literally decompose as you play them in loops, each iteration a tad more gappy than the previous? Check out William Basinski's The Disintegration Loops, recorded mostly in 2001, if you find that intriguing.

I also learned quite a bit about the group Cabaret Voltaire's early years as electro-pioneers in 1970s Sheffield (South Yorkshire UK), emerging from the post-industrial horrorscape and paving the way for the Human League/Heaven 17 axis that in turn birthed the smart-pop from ABC and Thompson Twins. When I first heard Cabaret Voltaire in the early '80s, I just found them annoying, ignorant at the time of their historical importance (still nascent at the time), unable to foresee the influence they would eventually exert on multiple flavors of music.

[La Central · Rating 4 out of 5]

"David Stubbs, periodista musical y crítico en Melody Maker durante más de una década, traza en su nuevo libro una exhaustiva historia de la música electrónica, puntuada aquí y allá por continuos pasajes autobiográficos que denotan también un gusto personal, labrado a lo largo de toda una vida dedicada a la música. Stubbs es también el autor de Future Days, un estudio sobre el movimiento alemán del krautrock, muchos de cuyos protagonistas aparecen en estas páginas, partícipes también de esa visión idealizada del futuro de la que los nuevos sonidos eran su banda sonora.

En Sonidos de Marte asistimos por tanto a la evolución del uso de la electrónica en la creación musical partiendo del trabajo de algunos de los pioneros de finales del siglo XIX, los experimentos del futurista Russolo y su “arte de los ruidos”, la musique concrète de los compositores radicales Edgard Varèse, Pierre Schaeffer, Stockhausen o Delia Derbyshire, la electrificación del jazz, el soul o el funk de Sun Ra, Stevie Wonder o Giorgio Moroder, la conquista del pop por los sintetizadores en muchos grupos de los 80 como New Order o Depeche Mode, la aparición del ambient, el techno o el house, para culminar en la actual dominación global sobre la música popular del siglo XXI." Ramón Andrés

[Niklas Pivic · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Stubbs—the author of this book—wrote "Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany", an excellent recant of how "kosmische" music came about. In that book, he kept a narrow view of how things came to be, and founded much of his analysis on interviews with musicians.

This time, he has written a book that is both sprawling and, at times, probably verges into the fictional, at least where he digresses on actual words from musicians and theories on why they did things.

Having said that, this book does contain much information that is probably of importance both to persons like the perennially name-dropping Moby, and to persons who want to receive a skimpy version of electronic music history. The forté and pain of this book both lie in the fact that it skips over a lot of theory quickly. It's also sensationalistic, which is almost always a bad thing to myself, and to the facts.

The best about Stubbs's writing is undoubtedly his style:

Practically the moment it beams down, ‘I Feel Love’ feels like first contact: the slow opening of the spacecraft door, the blinding shaft of green light. This is … what is this? Brian Eno hears it and rushes straight into David Bowie’s studio, claiming to be holding the future in his hands. Sparks hear it and promptly decide to ditch their band, hit up Moroder and function as an electronic duo. And that’s just the start.

What’s also striking, and similarly depressing, is that pop hasn’t been this non-queer since the days of Rosemary Clooney, the early 1950s. Gay culture had always been one of the great underground drivers of rock and pop, from Little Richard right through to Hi-NRG, often necessarily coded in a world that was institutionally homophobic. And yet today, when gay rights, while by no means universally accepted, are more established in the Western world than ever before, queer pop has disappeared. The charts in 2017 are primarily an idyll of young, photogenic, heterosexual love, preferably experienced in a seaside environment.

A few weeks after I interviewed them, I was at a record-company bash. Though I had spent an hour in their company, when Bangalter flagged me down to say ‘Hi’ there was a mortifying second or so before I remembered who he and his partner, Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, were. Daft Punk, however, had a grasp on the immediate future. ‘Today, it’s possible to make a record in your bedroom at a cheap price,’ said Bangalter. ‘Our album, Homework, is cheaper than nearly any rock album. No studio expenses, producers, engineers. We’re not saying there is a right way or wrong way to go about things, but this is certainly a way. When we started to make music, we were just trying to form the teenage band everyone wants to be in.’

For Futurists like Luigi Russolo, as well as visionary composers such as Busoni, Varèse and, later, Stockhausen, new electronic modes of music-making weren’t novelties, conveniences, cost-cutting devices or objects of tinkering fascination for gadget nerds who were less than human in their make-up. They were the means whereby music would exceed the bounds of mere scripted notation, explore infinite possibilities in tandem with a world whose technological leaps and bounds seemed limitless. In their wildest dreams, they truly believed that electronic music could soundtrack, or even by some occult means be the source of, an expansion of mankind’s capabilities.

Stockhausen’s mind was a brilliant one, operating with the strength of multiple lasers. He could speak – in detail and with a conviction lesser brains found hard to counter – of ancient Japanese ritual and musical custom, of horticulture, of Eastern mystical thought, of the all-embracing importance of spirals (an idea introduced to him by the English writer Jill Purce, with whom he liaised in the early 1970s), allude easily to philosophers like Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, as well as explain, to those with the ability to take it in, the workings of serial music, notions such as periodicity and harmonic perspective. He could out-converse most people across a range of topics, without even resorting to his first language.

‘You know people are going to laugh?’ the host warned Cage gravely – though that, of course, was the entire purpose of this TV exercise. Cage refused to play the stuffed avant-garde shirt. ‘I consider laughter preferable to tears,’ he said, to more laughter. The host referred to Cage as someone who dealt in ‘experimental sound’, only to be firmly corrected by Cage. ‘Experimental music,’ he said. He explained simply that since music was the production of sounds, and sounds were what he produced, then the result was music. It was that simple. He would demonstrate this to the audience with his presentation of ‘Water Walk’, so called because it featured the running of water and himself walking through the piece, event by event.

Even seventeen years later, Alan Vega couldn’t hide his bitterness at the success Soft Cell enjoyed. ‘Suicide finally get to go to Britain, in 1978. And sure enough, a year or so later, you’ve got this big techno-pop explosion. Soft Cell, who admit to being influenced by Suicide – one guy on vocals, one guy on keyboards. And what happens? Soft Cell go on to sell millions of records, Suicide sell squat. Soft Cell come to America, they’re huge, we come back, nada. To this day.’

The book goes from Schaeffer, Rossolo, Stockhausen, and Ligeti, all to Aphex Twin, Actress, and...it's a hyperkinetic mash-up; at times, it felt stressed and forced, other times it felt as though Stubbs's language and style really did the music and the artists a huge service. However, if you want a pop-ish view of the history of electronic music, I can't think of a better place to start than this book.

[Esteban · Rating 3 out of 5]

El subtítulo original dice story en vez de history, matiz perdido en la traducción al español. Desistir entonces de encontrar algún rastro de una historiografía. El objetivo de Stubbs es el de reforzar el nuevo canon de música popular anglo vinculándolo a algunas figuras más antiguas, que a pesar de algunas advertencias suyas tienden a quedar como pioneros de algo más sustantivo. Para quien no esté familiarizado todavía con ese panteón que va desde Throbbing Gristle hasta Daft Punk el libro de Stubbs es una buena introducción.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un excelente recorrido por la historia (una "story" y no una "history") de la música electrónica, con foco en Estados Unidos y el Reino Unido. El abordaje no tiene intención de completitud (me toca marcar la ausencia del glitchpop y el hyperpop en la escena contemporánea), pero sin embargo es ampliamente abarcativo, partiendo de experimentaciones como la del futurismo y la musique concrète para llegar al presente. Los análisis son interesantes, la reconstrucción histórica es a la vez rigurosa y personal. Muy recomendable.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mars by 1980 has been my book to read as I've been recovering from a hip replacement, and it's been exactly the right choice (you get good at this as you get older...). It's fascinating and well written, but not too demanding when the ability to concentrate is compromised. I do know and love a reasonable amount of electronic music, but this book has filled in many gaps in an engaging and interesting manner. In the preface Stubbs admits that the book is not an exhaustive history of the genre, which is just as well as it would have to have been an encyclopaedia, such is the genre's lengthy history and ubiquitous twenty first century presence. The genre's history begins in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, with the invention of such machines as the pianola (1895), and then the exotically named Telharmonium (1906) and the Intonarumori (1910). Part one was perhaps the most fascinating for me, going from the above mentioned inventions through to the pre WWI Futurists and then onto avant-garde electronic composers such as Edgard Varese, Pierre Schaffer, Stockhausen and John Cage. It was rewarding to read about these innovators and at the same time listen to their compositions via You Tube, a recommended approach for anyone wanting to read this book. Although overall the book is a linear history, Stubbs does jump back and forth in time a bit, which is fine. Stubbs also offers a somewhat personal and subjective perspective, recounting his initial exposure to electronic musical works, which proves to be an effective and engaging approach throughout.

Perhaps the real strength of Mars by 1980 is the quality of Stubbs' writing, which is witty, erudite and perceptive. There are never lulls or boring sections to contend with and Stubbs' subjective opinions are never intrusive or excessive in tone. Stubbs evades any criticism of not even trying to be comprehensive by making what he does cover really count. He gives in depth attention to black musical artists who were trailblazers, such as Sun Ra, Miles Davis and Stevie Wonder, as well as female artists, such as Delia Derbyshire and Daphne Oram, who worked at the BBC in the 1960's. Derbyshire produced the Dr Who theme, which became one of the most famous electronic works within mainstream awareness for quite a while. Perhaps the most enjoyable chapters for me personally were 'The Art of the Duo' and 'Substance', both of which covered electronic music in the 1980's when I was a teenager. So, a nice glow of nostalgia for me as I contended with getting my new hip into gear. Stubbs also examines ambient music, 1990's rave culture, the dominance of sampling and then EDM (electronic dance music) in the twenty first century. Along the way he deftly examines the push and pull between black and white music and the associated question of authenticity, such as when white artists become funky by sampling the work of black artists (hello Moby). Mars by 1980 is much more than just a selective overview of electronic music, it also stands as an almost anthropological examination of twentieth century culture, which, in doing so, strongly gives the impression that the invention of machines that allowed humans to compose electronic music was a highly significant development in human artistic endeavour. Recommended for music lovers who are both curious and adventurous, and really, why not be both?

[Avery Bradshaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first saw Future Sounds at Junkman's Daughter in Atlanta a couple years ago. It seemed interesting, but I never got around to buying it. Thankfully a friend bought it for me this past Christmas. I am glad I got it as a gift and didn't have to buy it myself. I definitely liked Future Sounds, though I didn't love it.

What I liked about Future Sounds is that it felt well researched without feeling too academic or sterile. Stubbs knows what he's talking about and it feels conversational. At times it feels like talking to a friend who just showed you a song, which you immediately like, by an artist they are very passionate about. I definitely became more interested in early electronic music and enjoyed learning more about those I already like such as Joy Division and Brian Eno.

Why I didn't love it though: This is a book for someone who already enjoys electronic music in some form or another. Someone who doesn't like electronic music is not going to have their mind changed by reading Future Sounds. For those that do, I would recommend focusing on the chapters/sections that discuss artists/groups and subgenres you already like, or are interested in learning about. I say this because I ended up skipping some sections that covered artists/groups or subgenres I already knew I didn't care for. Best personal example being that I skipped the majority of the next to last chapter about recent developments of acid house and dubstep. I already know I don't like Skrillex and deadmau5; what little bit I did read about them didn't change my mind and I got bored quickly. This is due to the flip-side of the conversational comparison coin. Attempting to read the sections about the stuff I didn't like was akin to someone continuing to play and rant about music they liked, even though you've already been vocal about your distaste for it.

Stubbs is not entirely objective; rather his personal bias and left-leaning socio-political views tend to be the basis of why a particular artist is good and impactful. It comes off as arrogant and domineering, as if he's trying to say something to the effect of, "You should like this. If you don't you aren't cool and/or your morals should be questioned." This also created a greater sense of disappointment in checking out some artists I hadn't heard of before. Another personal example is reading about the group Suicide. I didn't enjoy them upon listening, and I kept asking myself "This is it?" because of Stubbs' constant over-hyping of the group spread over 11 pages.

Overall, I am happy with reading Future Sounds. Despite Stubbs' being somewhat overbearing at times, it made me enjoy the electronic music I do like even more. It further amplified my interest in electronic music and I would like to read another book of his, Fear of Music.

[Gordon Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really interesting look into the culture and technology which gave birth to electronic music. The quest of 1920s 'futurists' to reject classic song structures and instrumentation started everything.

The earth, nature, and acoustic instruments makes 'sounds', but machines make 'noise'. How can noise be turned into music? The noise machine 'instruments' developed by futurists sound like the stuff of nightmares if you listen to them.

Skip forward a few decades and the introduction of the Moog synthesiser would change the landscape. Giorgio Moroder / Donna Summer's 'I Feel Love' is the undeniable tipping point which changed music. Move over 7 inch singles hello 12 inch, cya disco string sections hello to the synth loops. The story goes that to quench dancefloors and play tracks for longer, DJs would buy 2 copies of 7" singles and then fade back and forth. Finally labels had the bright idea of issuing singles on the larger format which allowed artists to extend track lengths and made DJs happy. I Feel Love was one of the first to benefit from this. I have an original copy myself for my turntable. I Feel Love was and will continue to be the catalyst for so much in the genre.

This definitely has given me a new perspective on other early icons such as Kraftwerk, as well as Brian Eno. Ambient is still a bit of a mountain to climb for me but Stubbs does well to counter the often made point that it is just 'background music' - i.e. there is an art in subtraction.

As with any book of this type it ebbed and flowed with how interesting I found each topic to be, but generally Mars by 1980 keeps you on the hook.

Chapters ranged from highly interesting 9/10s to average 5/10s - lets call it 7.5/10 overall.

[Sherry Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, the synthesizer! To some, it defined a generation adored by many and to others, it debased instrumentation. Either way, it completely changed the landscape of music and ruffled a few feathers along the way.

David Stubbs takes a complex look at the history of electronic music in Future Sounds: The Story of Electronic Music from Stockhausen to Skrillex. Stubbs provides a disclaimer, which basically states that not every artist affiliated with electronic music are not incorporated. However, a range of genres (funk, new wave, EDM, classical) and decades are acknowledged. Don’t worry though – Kraftwerk and Depeche Mode are found in the pages.

Future Sounds: The Story of Electronic Music from Stockhausen to Skrillex is encompasses an Introduction that provides a brief overview, Preface I and Preface II which offers a bit of insight behind the author and his fascination with the sounds emanating from his speakers, and four complete parts that dissect the history and future of the innovative invention. At the conclusion, there is a helpful timeline of Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Musical Technology and A Future Sounds playlist.

Future Sounds: The Story of Electronic Music from Stockhausen to Skrillex takes some time to digest due to its size and a plethora of information, but interesting nonetheless. This is the perfect book for a musicologist or lover of electronica in general.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read *Mars by 1980* I now I know a little more about the history of electronic music, but not as much as I'd hoped. The book rotates between history lessons, personal anecdote and discursive stream-of-consciousness rambling about the music and what it means. It dwells on early 20th Century experiments and the use of tape loops in contemporary classical works, followed by an idiosyncratic selection of notable (and not-so-notable) artists of the 1960s-2000s but says very little about today’s innumerable genres of EDM. It also says almost nothing about the development of technologies this side of the 1950s (synthesisers, drum machines, samplers etc.) beyond mentioning that they exist and were used by various artists.

Where the book is at its best (or at least, most emotionally satisfying) is in its sociological and political analysis of electronic music: it charts waves of futuristic optimism, hippy freedom, punk rebellion and neoliberal disintegration, and the electronic music each wave spawns and subsumes. The connections between electronic music and racial politics are particularly explored.

[Jacob Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent attempt at outlying the developments of electronic music. It starts right back before kraftwerk and even before John Cage. Stubbs attempts to build a narrative from the beginning to the present. Occasionally, he jumps ahead or even back on himself in non linear fashion. However, its almost impossible not to do that. He splits sections off quite neatly and manages to follow many trends. Some of the newer stuff becomes a little too messy, unstructured or even unmentioned. I can understand that though as part of the argument is that it's about all the small changes each decade up to the point it's now crazy and so much happening at a rapid rate. It's also extremely difficult to right about a cycle or movement whilst currently in it. That shit takes time. Stubbs deserves praise for his ability to weave in a political narrative, connect genres and not shy a way from lower quality popular stadium filling music. Hes quite respectful in distancing himself from some of the material, whilst acknowledging the contributions made to the history of electronic music.

[Andrew Corsini · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Stubbs tells the story of electronic music which includes enough genuinely interesting material for the reader to discount some of his errors. For instance, "Stranvinsky" or his wrong dating of the Kent State shootings to 1974. I'd put these down mainly to a first edition error, so not entirely his fault. He veers into a personal style that I worried would be too much like Paul Morley, a music journalist I hate, but Stubbs won me over by actually slamming the real Paul Morley late in the book. He has some fascinating threads. His connection of early electronic music to fascism. Something that, ironically, led a coked-up Hitler-obsessed Bowie to Kraftwerk in the 1970s. Stubbs also has an incredible reading of the anti-colonial themes in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein which, while has little to do with electronic music, piques the reader's interest. Naturally, I was more interested in his takes on Kraftwerk and Joy Division, rather than Stockhausen, but the entire book is worth a read.

[El Sh'Booms · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly engaging. A thorough, if not complete, review of major contributors to the development of electronic music in the 20th century. It begins with the Futurists' "The Art of Noise" and travels through time to Delia Derbyshire's production of the "Dr. Who" theme song to "Paul's Boutique" and "The Disintegration Loops". This is one of the greatest books I have read in a while. I listened to each work on YouTube as I was reading and it was such a gratifying reading experience. So much to learn, so much to listen to, so much knowledge to walk away with when you close the book. If you've ever heard the name Stockhausen and said, "huh?" or wondered why Stereolab titled one of their tracks "John Cage Bubblegum", then you've got answers coming when you give this one a look. I actually read this in tandem with Julian Cope's "A Krautrock Sampler" and Harry Sword's, "Monolithic Undertow" and it's amazing how much overlap there is between Krautrock, Drone, and Electronic.
Cannot recommend more.

[Paul Forrest · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulously niche read. His survey of the field begins in the very early days of recorded music, with a lot of the book, understandably, devoted to the pre-midi, pre-digital age. Nevertheless, there are a couple of chapters on developments in 21st century, which will, no doubt, get their own book one day, if it hasn't been written already. His survey also includes some of the now, slightly better known, female and non-white pioneers of electronic music.

Stubbs has a very engaging writing style and his thesis on the particular creativity that blossomed in the pre-digital age is lightly woven through the narrative, without labouring any point too much. The book also contains a personal discography that I've enjoyed exploring as I've been reading.

I hope he writes a follow up volume on the digital age and the impact of technology on the music's of the wider world, not just Europe and North America.

[Clicky Steve · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up as something to read while feeling musically inspired, but unfortunately didn't enjoy it. While the book has some interesting stories, and the descriptions of the music it talks about are creative and original, it ultimately felt like it didn't quite know what it was. In some ways it feels more like an academic textbook in how it approaches the history, as opposed to providing a narrative... but at the same time it lacks the demonstration of sources one would expect from that kind of text.

I appreciate the knowledge and experience of the author, but ultimately I found this a struggle to read. If the book had spent more time telling the story of electronic music, and less meandering from one artist to another by way of seemingly random anecdotes, it would have been far more compelling.

[Erica Basnicki · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the breadth of artists covered, and the introduction to so many that are new to me. Unfortunately, the writing was, too often, sloppy. I get the distinct feeling this book was hastily put together, with not enough time to give it a proper edit. Or maybe I’m just not a fan of this kind of describe-it-in-every-kind-of-metaphor-possible style of music writing. And my head hurts from being bashed with the hammer that is Stubbs’ disdain for Margaret Thatcher’s politics (which is fair enough but I think she gets name-dropped more than half the artists profiled). Still, it’s a treasure trove of sonic delights to be explored, and maybe that’s the better way to take in this book: Read a little bit, stop, and listen.