First major Polysynth songs?

[SynthWizard]

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First major Polysynth songs?

Hi all, I'd especially love to hear from anyone old enough to have lived through the era - I was quite young.

Back when I was a kid, I used to not really know much about Organs or even Monophonic Synths and what I saw mostly were Polysynths. A lot of older things - I just assumed were "synths" - In fact, a lot of the things I though were synths later turned out to be Clav, Electric Piano, Organ, or at least things like Farfisas and Solinas, or Mellotrons.

I knew "Lucky Man" and heard lead lines in plenty of stuff - Yes, ELP - but see I didn't understand that the organ sounds were organs really at that time.

But one of the things that's funny to me is that "the synth" (mono synths) really kind of burst onto the scene as this new thing - Lucky Man, later songs with obvious lead lines...

But polysynths seemed to "sneak on" to the scene to me - especially since for a time I wasn't really sure what was an organ or a synth.

I KNEW "Subdivisions" and the song "You Don't Want Me Anymore" (Steele Breeze) where synths (and polysynths at that) played a significant role in the identity of the song. And that was really formative of what my idea of polysynths were - and that's 82.

I'm looking over the year end singles charts for sort of when "New Wave" began, thinking a lot of polysynths might show up, but a lot of them - like "Cars" by Gary Numan are a lot of overdubbed Monosynths (AFAIK).

None of the songs I'm familiar with here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1980

Are really "synth heavy" and most with keys still have more traditional keys - Organ in all the Tom Petty for example.

Great lead line in "Call Me" but I assume a monosynth. "Funkytown" has nice synth work (and vocoder) but they're all mono lines basically. "Cars" is there.

"Babe" is EP - not sure about "Ride Like the Wind" by Christopher Cross and the other Cross (Sailing)

"Pop Muzik" by M - can't remember if that has any chordal synth stuff in it.

However I dare say that was MY personal introduction to what I would call "new wave" with more modern synth based (and quirky) songs instead of the more core rock band format.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billboard_Year-End_Hot_100_singles_of_1981

So looks like 1981 is a good choice - Bette Davis Eyes has that chordal synth.

I'm not sure about "Time" (APP) or "Games People Play" (nice Arp at the top)

"Whip It" is still all Monosynth IIRC

But looks like 1981 is a good year.

Chariots of Fire came out - and everyone had heard that.

Joruney's "Escape" certainly has synths on it, and the polysynth stabs in DSB are evident.

Now, I wouldn't know the Hancock, or even really any Vangelis other than COF (which IIRC could be mono synth stuff too - I mean I know CS-80 but there are other things going on the song). I would have never heard of Jarre at the time.

So it's kind of funny to me - they just seem to kind of sneak into songs here and there - and maybe not even obviously so because filter sweep mono synth likes (I'm thinking "Come Sail Away" by Styx) or other things like the 5ths patch in "Abacab" by Genesis are harder to tell, especially when layered with a Piano or EP, etc.

Asia's album comes out - super synth heavy. Certainly parts in "Sole Survivor" are at least 2 note pairs (but heck, could still be a theater organ type sound...)

"I Ran" from FOS - for sure - chordal synths in there.

DSB by Journey - the stabs

I think Laura Branigan's has a lot of chordal brass synth work IIRC

"Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy for sure

Any thoughts on anything earlier I'm kind of missing?

Definitely by 83 - we've got "Africa", we've got the Thriller album, "Separate Ways (Worlds Apart), "1999"

So by 1984 we're pretty well entrenched - and everyone heard "Jump" (well both VH and Pointer Sisters :-) - but the VH of course).

It's really interesting looking through to see so many of the "old school" traditional keyboards in so many songs (or no keys at all) and then this mixture of mono synths with poly synths creeping in.

Thinking about bands like Pink Floyd, Styx, or Genesis that did a lot of synth stuff earlier - still most if not all of the chordal stuff was probably on traditional acoustic instruments, or at best, mellotron or solina, until you get to 81-82 ish.

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