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|subgenrelist=List of electronic music genres |subgenres= |fusiongenres= Electroclash – Electro house – Techno |regional_scenes= |other_topics= Electropunk – Industrial music |current_year = }} Synthpop (also known as electropop and technopop) is a genre of popular music that first became prominent in the 1980s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in progressive rock, electronic art rock, disco and particularly the "Krautrock" of bands like Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the post-punk era as part of the new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s. Early synthpop pioneers included Japanese group Yellow Magic Orchestra and British bands Ultravox and The Human League; the latter largely used monophonic synthesizers to produce music with a simple and austere sound. After the breakthrough of Gary Numan and his band Tubeway Army in the British Singles Chart in 1979, large numbers of artists began to enjoy success with a synthesizer-based sound in the early 1980s, including Soft Cell, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Depeche Mode in the United Kingdom, while in Japan, Yellow Magic Orchestra's success opened the way for synthpop bands such as P-Model, Plastics, and Hikashu. The development of inexpensive polyphonic synthesizers, the definition of MIDI and the use of dance beats, led to a more commercial and accessible sound for synthpop. This, its adoption by the style-conscious acts from the New Romantic movement, together with the rise of MTV, led to success for large numbers of British synthpop acts, including Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet, in the United States. In the late 1980s, duos such as Erasure and Pet Shop Boys adopted a sound that was highly successful on the US dance charts, but by the end of the decade synthpop had largely been abandoned. Interest began to be revived in the indietronica and electroclash movements in the late 1990s and, in the first decade of the 21st century, it enjoyed a widespread revival with commercial success for acts including La Roux, Lady Gaga, Kesha, and Owl City. The genre has received criticism for alleged lack of emotion and musicianship; prominent artists have spoken out against detractors who believed that synthesizers themselves composed and played the songs. Some artists like Depeche Mode, who helped popularise the genre, were criticised for gender bending. Synthpop helped to establish the place of the synthesizer as a major element of pop and rock music, directly influenced subsequent genres including house music and Detroit techno, and has indirectly influenced many other genres and individual recordings. ==Characteristics== Synthpop was defined by its primary use of synthesizers, drum machines and sequencers, sometimes using them to replace all other instruments. Borthwick and Moy have described the genre as diverse but "...characterised by a broad set of values that eschewed rock playing styles, rhythms and structures", which were replaced by "synthetic textures" and "robotic rigidity", often defined by the limitations of the new technology,〔 including monophonic synthesizers (only able to play one note at a time).〔Barry R. Parker, ''Good Vibrations: the Physics of Music'' (Boston MD: JHU Press, 2009), ISBN 0-8018-9264-3, p. 213.〕 Many synthpop musicians had limited musical skills, relying on the technology to produce or reproduce the music. The result was often minimalist, with grooves that were "typically woven together from simple repeated riffs often with no harmonic 'progression' to speak of". Early synthpop has been described as "eerie, sterile, and vaguely menacing", using droning electronics with little change in inflection.〔〔 Common lyrical themes of synthpop songs were isolation, urban anomie, and feelings of being emotionally cold and hollow.〔 In its second phase in the 1980s,〔 the introduction of dance beats and more conventional rock instrumentation made the music warmer and catchier and contained within the conventions of three-minute pop.〔.〕〔 Synthesizers were increasingly used to imitate the conventional and clichéd sound of orchestras and horns. Thin, treble-dominant, synthesized melodies and simple drum programmes gave way to thick, and compressed production, and a more conventional drum sound.〔 Lyrics were generally more optimistic, dealing with more traditional subject matter for pop music such as romance, escapism and aspiration.〔 According to music writer Simon Reynolds, the hallmark of 1980s synthpop was its "emotional, at times operatic singers" such as Marc Almond, Alison Moyet and Annie Lennox. Because synthesizers removed the need for large groups of musicians, these singers were often part of a duo where their partner played all the instrumentation. Although synthpop in part arose from punk rock, it abandoned punk's emphasis on ''authenticity'' and often pursued a deliberate ''artificiality'', drawing on the critically derided forms such as disco and glam rock. It owed relatively little to the foundations of early popular music in jazz, folk music or the blues,〔 and instead of looking to America, in its early stages, it consciously focused on European and particularly Eastern European influences, which were reflected in band names like Spandau Ballet and songs like Ultravox's "Vienna". Later synthpop saw a shift to a style more influenced by other genres, such as soul music.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Synthpop」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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