The simple, synth-based Europop of Berlin's Alphaville borrowed heavily from the textures and drama of Ultravox and was essentially a showcase for the over-the-top, Bryan Ferry-influenced vocals of Marian Gold; the early lineup also featured Bernhard Lloyd and Frank Mertens, but membership fluctuated over most of the group's career. Alphaville... [+] Read More

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London's Bronski Beat will be remembered for a number of things. Anyone who has seen the video for "Smalltown Boy" -- which remains gripping and sobering decades later -- can likely recall at least one of its scenes in vivid detail. It was only Bronski Beat's first single, but it became the group's best-known, reaching the top of Billboard's... [+] Read More

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C+C Music Factory wasn't really a group -- it was the product of Robert Clivillés and David Cole, two pop-savvy dance producers. In 1989, Clivillés and Cole hired all the singers and created all the tracks for Gonna Make You Sweat, C+C Music Factory's first album. While it was prepackaged, it wasn't necessarily faceless; in Freedom Williams, the... [+] Read More

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After disbanding Soft Cell, vocalist Marc Almond pursued a solo career that followed the same vaguely sleazy, electronic dance-pop his former group had made popular. Almond's strength was never his personality -- his voice tends to waver around the notes instead of hitting them. It was the atmosphere he created with the synths and drum machines.... [+] Read More

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Postmodern ironists cloaked behind a veil of buoyantly melodic and lushly romantic synth pop confections, the Pet Shop Boys' cheeky, smart, and utterly danceable music established them among the most commercially and critically successful groups of their era. Always remaining one step ahead of their contemporaries, the British duo navigated the... [+] Read More

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At the start of their career, Talking Heads were all nervous energy, detached emotion, and subdued minimalism. When they released their last album about 12 years later, the band had recorded everything from art-funk to polyrhythmic worldbeat explorations and simple, melodic guitar pop. Between their first album in 1977 and their last in 1988,... [+] Read More

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