Album: The Sound of the Crowd

Various Artists, Universal

With Fischerspooner's louche techno-glam wowing them in New York, and Sugababes bringing Gary Numan back to the UK charts, "electroclash" is suddenly all the rage, its proponents closely watched by an industry in desperate need of new blood. It remains to be seen whether the current crop will be as successful as the Eighties pioneers featured on this compilation, but they couldn't possibly compare in terms of innovation. The likes of the Human League, Devo, Sparks and Visage may be most fondly recalled for the asymmetry of their hair and the eccentricity of their dress, but at the time, their blend of pop and electronics was regarded as shockingly avant-garde, its application of cutting-edge synthesiser and sequencer technology looking back no further than Kraftwerk. And compared with the coy, retro-kitsch attitude of electroclash, the spirit driving those such as New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Simple Minds and Yello was firmly fixed on the future – but with a keen appreciation that technological progress could as easily lead to dystopia as to paradise. Understandably, the tracks have aged differently: the chattering synths and basic drum programmes of New Order's "Everything's Gone Green" and Soft Cell's "Memorabilia" seem primitive by today's standards, but there's a sophistication to Yello's "I Love You", with its sampled car skids, twanging electro-bass and treated choral hook, that's wholly contemporary. Cabaret Voltaire's sample'n'synth work on "Sensoria", meanwhile, has a raw, dangerous vitality that stubbornly defies the elegance and clean design favoured by synthesiser bands of all eras.