My goodness, what an absolute ICONIC instrument. You may never heard of it, but you assuredly have heard it before. It’s one of my all time favorite sounds in music. It dominated the 80s with countless power love ballads. Almost every other song that came out in the 80s was heavily produced with it. Every time I hear a song that has the sound, I make a mental note in order to create a playlist of all of the ones I discover. It allowed me to test my musical ear as well. Over time I forgot to curate the playlist and a lot of the songs I’ve made note of have faded away.
I was going through some music in my Spotify and I came across the song “Human” by ‘The Human League’. It was one if not their most popular song next to ‘Don’t you want me’. I’m not a fan of the later, but I absolutely adore Human. My dad had the album on CD when I was a kid. Most of my musical discovery at that age occurred when I would sneak something from his collection. I would listen and listen until I got tired of whatever I had and then swap it for something else. I’d love to recall some of the most memorable finds, but I’d be hard pressed to do so off of the top of my head. Maybe I’ll circle back to this later, but the albums I do remember at the moment are the following:
- Dire Straits: Brothers in Arms
- Led Zeppelin
- Shalamar: The Look
- Michael Jackson: Off The Wall
- Michael Jackson: Bad
- Michael Jackson : Thriller
- Abba: Souper Trooper
- The Human League: Crash
These albums were pretty solid in my rotation. I would usually listen to them on the couch while I rocked to sleep. There were many nights my Mom would find me passed out, radio in my lap and headphones still on my head playing music until she’d move me to bed. Anyway, I’m not sure what made me think of it, but the song Human popped into my head. As I started the song and heard the intro to the track, it sparked my realization that I still needed too curate this list. It also made me realize just how fucking wonderful the Yamaha DX7 sound is. If there was a song I would use to demonstrate the sound, it would without a doubt always be Human.
I could write and entire post on the album Crash. It’s not particularly good by any means. In fact, most of the songs are down right junk. The band members became a smash hit in the UK in the 80s and wanted to bring that spark to the US. The record label at the time, Virgin, didn’t really do their due diligence and signed them without looking much into them. All they seen were dollar signs and decided to sign them and fly them to the US. Only when they got here did they realize that they weren’t too proficient at their instruments. They paired them with the legendary producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis who have already worked with other huge names like Janet Jackson and George Michael. It didn’t go to well in the studio. The band wanted to do their own thing and hated taking direction from the pair of producers. Hell, even the cover of the album is out of focus because they couldn’t even co-operate with the photography team. Virgin stepped in and demanded that there be a radio hit from the album. This is where Jimmy and Terry stepped up. They wrote the song Human for the band. As expected, the band hated it and didn’t think it fit their image and sound. However when the people signing your checks and flying you across the world say to do it, you do it. As you know it, it turned out to be a huge hit and the song they are known for.
All that unnecessary history aside, I personally enjoy the album. Sure, it’s absolutely nostalgia driving that fact, but there really some decent little ditties on there. “Are you ever coming back?” is a their attempt at a power ballad in their style. It works and it’s good. Other songs like Swang (good lord almighty give this one a listen), Money or Party are just cheap crappy synth salads that I still know all the lyrics to. Jam on the other hand is actually really good!
ANYWAYYY — sorry for that tangent — back to Human! If you start the song after listening to the other tracks, you’ll immediately notice a shift in tonality. Sonically, it’s entirely different from the rest of the album. It starts out with a stabbing chord on the keys which holds until it decays out. All while this low groaning bass growls underneath. There is percussion that sprinkles and dances over top. A shaker that splashes triplets. The snare drum cracks through steadily in order to keep the rhythm driving. To spice it up and keep it sounding fresh, they add the all famous reverb effect around the 2 and 4 snare along with what I believe to be pitched up and pitched down snares panned all around to give it a spacey sound image. It holds this for 7 bars! It builds an unbelievable amount of tension during this. Finally on the 8th bar, it releases it with not one, but TWO Glissandos right into a bright note with a chorus effect applied. The 20 intro alone is a masterpiece! Chills every time. This is how the song carries for however long it is. If you find the extended version you get a longer outro with some nice flavoring on top.
It’s absolutely without a doubt my favorite DX7 songs. I went ahead and added a few off the top of my head that I could think of to a Spotify list, here:
I could be wrong about the songs, but I’m pretty damn sure these all have DX7 in them. Just listening to them, you can hear the similarities between them. They are awesome songs to boot! It’s a shame decades no longer have defining sounds like this. I don’t have to tell you what decade ANY of these songs came out in, you just know.
I have more to write, but I have to get ready for the gym. I’ll update and proof read later!