Dylan is a good lad. Great show & good detail.

Access to great new music technology helped. It seemed to generate a self-belief in people who would not have dreamed of starting a band or developing a solo act. Affordable little synthesizers and multitrack recorders offered people the chance of overdubbing sound grabs and vocals that sounded so much better than music recorded on a one-track tape player set up in the corner of a rehearsal room.

Wonderful episode, really looking forward to reading the book. I suspect it'll be a great companion piece to Simon Reynolds wider "Rip It Up And Start Again" book, which is an absolute classic. The period Dylan covers in this book has some of the best pop music ever. Not surprised Heppo is sniffy about the the time, but would've loved to hear more from Mark who seems way more open to this golden era of shiny pop music.

Lad's, Looking back All I seem to do was sit in front of the T.V. watching M.T.V. *0's a time I hadn't given much thought to but now looking back it was a really creative time for British pop and media.Cheers, Chris Perry.

Thank you 🥃 x

I had been a Disco/Club/Mobile DJ since 73 and by the early 80s had witnessed continual evolvement in the dance/disco scene. From my DJ standpoint there was never any Year Zero just constant change totally embraced by the clientele and DJs alike. Disco entertainment as such on my gigs was always music that was chart/club hits of the time but continually retrospective that made it music entertainment not just playing music of the day. It was never played from a New Romantics, Disco, Gay, Soul, Hi NRG, or any other label it was played to entertain Looking back at snapshot of a 1984 playlist on one of my gigs in Brighton UK (Metro nightclub Metropole Hotel) some of the track list was..(in sequence) Can’t Take My Eyes Off You - Boys Town Gang (82) Tainted Love - Soft Cell (81) I Feel Love - Donna Summer (77) Relax - Frankie Goes To Hollywood (84) High Energy - Evelyn Thomas (84) Looking at this sequence there were Gay bands, Techno/Euro Disco/ but none of these labels mattered it was always about the music as entertainment nothing more nothing less.

Singles sales: "It could have only happened in a booming economy"? - industrial/manufacturing cities were devastated in the early eighties. Recovery came gradually in the nineties. It's perhaps ironic that in 1981, Ghost Town, by The Specials, spent 10 weeks in the UK top 40.

I'm really getting an education from y'all! Thoroughly enjoy your videos

Huge gap in the connection with Siren (Roxy) and Young Americans (Bowie) was T.Rex's Bolan's Zip Gun album which, admittedly wasn't as commercially successful as the former records.

So the publisher said a book on the New Romantics alone not a big seller ; why not include stars like Wham /George Michael & Sade that we can put on the cover, cover a generational zeitgeist, & sell more copies ( & more than 10 in the U.S.) ? Mr Jones ( 28:00) I concur. I will read this tome - just to check if the European influences from Bowie & Ferry filtered into & through the music.

I've been watching some old TOTP from this era recently, as I was a teenager throughout this period, but I'm afraid that with a very few exceptions, such as Soft Cell and possibly the Human League, there is very lityle to excite. An era of sonorous voices over tinny synths. And very, very silly clothes. I don't look back on this as any sort of golden age.

I was born in 64 and was music obsessed from very young. I think the 80’s was a hideous decade and not just for music. Even Bowie lost the plot in that decade. Of course there were bright lights like the Smiths, New Order and REM, but dear old TOTP’s was a tough watch. I have noticed how our millennials seem to love 80’s music though.

What happened with the split screen? Think I'm missing something - mainly Mark Ellen!

Punk + money = New Romantic

I’ve come full circle about the 80s. When compared to the dreck and dross of the 2000s, 2010s and 2020s (the current crop of cacophony does not bode well for the future...drop the atom bomb already), the 80s produced excellent albums-I’d certainly stand a few up against the greatest of any other decade. These groups produced brilliant albums and a few became game changers: The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, REM, Pixies, Jesus and Mary Chain, The Replacements, Cocteau Twins, Pogues, XTC, The Stone Roses, Dinosaur Jr., The Wedding Present, Fugazi, Sonic Youth, Talk Talk, The Police, The Specials, Orange Juice, Prince, NWA, etc etc etc.

I would read this book as l am interested in this period but l'm not a fan of the music it all seemed rather light weight. Each to their own l guess! I love Ferry and Bowie but l liked Genesis and Quo so go figure..

Isn't Gary Kemp in nick mason band?

bit dismissive of The Thompson Twins there! "Everyone" ?... why not have the courage of your convictions Dylan and say I THINK they were rubbish, as seems your personal view (and that's fine - it's YOUR book!).

New Romantics were part of the Conservative privatisation revolution of the 80s - soul on the dole and loads of money. Labour-driven pop bands were red wedge and old money.