'Face To Face' by the 1980s West German synthpop duo The Twins, who are relatively unknown outside continental Europe:

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I can't get over the fact that they look like models for 'Man At C&A' in this video, as normally they wore pastel-coloured two piece suits. Perhaps they were at the dry cleaners on the day of filming? *snerk ( Read more... )

'Cars' by Gary Numan. Excellent:

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Shepfact: Gary Numan discovered synthesisers by accident when he leaned on the keyboard of a switched-on Minimoog at the studio that his band, Tubeway Army was using to record their first album, which replied with a booming electronic bass sound. The rest is history :)

'Just Can't Get Enough' by Depeche Mode, the pride of Basildon. Taken from their debut album, Speak and Spell:

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Shep sez: The band got their name from a French fashion magazine called Dépêche Mode, which roughly means 'fashion update' in English :)

Here's today's Shepfact:

On this day in 1959, Dave Ball, the keyboardist of the 1980s UK synthpop duo Soft Cell was born.

The original (pre-1980) line-up of the Human League, circa 1978, when they were a sort of more dark, more experimental, more northern version of Kraftwerk:

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I would have loved to have seen them perform live. Got to love Phil Oakey's haircut :P

An oft-overlooked gem from the early 1980s, about a subject dear to many peoples' hearts back then, namely nuclear war:

Should have posted this yesterday (see Shepfact), but it only came into my head about five minutes ago ;)

Another great J&V song (perhaps the greatest), set to the Aurora Borealis:

I think I'd like this played at my funeral...

Chronologie by Jean-Michel Jarre is borderline genius and in my opinion almost as great as Oxygene and Equinoxe :)

My favourite Y.M.O. track of all, performed with a great deal of conviction in 1979:

I wonder if the group will reform, like quite a few 1970s and 1980s outfits have done recently? After all, they have recently been the stars of a Japanese ad for Kirin beer :)

The people at Last.fm really know how to push my music buttons; For the last three hours, I have been listening to a constant stream of 1980s Italo-disco and synthpop *beams*