Synth Pop explosion - Howard Jones

Synth pop was on the rise in the early 1980s and two of the main chiefs were Howard Jones and Nik Kershaw.

Both aristes had major success on the charts and there popularity rised as the synth genre began to take control of the market. Although the success lasted only a few years there impact was massive and helped other artistes in that genre adapt and bring forward the whole synth thing.

Howard Jones was one of the defining figures of synth pop in the UK and was popular in the UK and America. Although born in Southampton he was raised in his early years in Cardiff before emigrating to Canada, he then moved back to Manchester to study his first love music.

His early music career was defined by a meeting of a close friend Bill Bryant where he co-wrote the album 'Humans Lib' to help kick start Jones pop career. Howard then resided in the High wycombe area and promoted himself along with mime artist Jed Hoile. He then hired the Marquee club and invited record labels to see him perform. At the same time he did a Radio 1 session and the net result was he signed to WEA in 1983.

He released 'new song' in autumn 1983 and made an appearance on Top of the pops to boost his profile and sales, the song reached the top 5. The album duly followed and 'Humans Lib' went to number one in the UK album charts and his popularity reached America due to the medium of MTV.

Further hits followed and the success was seeing him as one of the biggest acts in the UK. Howard then phased out the mime act and introduced a backing band and singers. The singers were the group Afrodiziak which featured the talents of Caron Wheeler who went on to front Soul II Soul. Also Howard's brother Martin also joined the band as a bass player.

1985 saw a busy year for Howard in terms of touring where he reached Australia, Japan and America and sandwiched in between that was an appearance at Live Aid concert at Wembley where he played his song 'Hide and seek' on Freddie Mercury Piano.

By the following year his releases were starting to fall in terms of chart positions and as always the tastes of the public started to change which sadly saw a decline in his output.

In terms of the 1980s, he released 4 studio albums with the debut 'Humans Lib' reaching number one, the follow up 'Dream into action' reached number 2. In 1986 he released 'One to one' which peaked at number 10 and in 1989 'Cross that line' reached a sluggish number 64 in the UK charts.

The singles count was more succesful where he released 15 singles in the UK charts. His debut 'New song' reached number 3 and the follow up 'What is love?' peaked at number 2 in 1983. The follow up 'Hide and Seek' reached number 12 but the 4 subsequent releases all reached the top 10. The catchy 'pearl in the shell' reached 7 and 'Like to get to know you well' peaked at 4. In 1985 2 further top 10 followed with 'Things can get better' hitting number 6 and 'Look Mama' just peaking at number 10.

That was his last top 10 hit and although 'Life in one day' and 'no one is to blame' got top 20, it appeared the bubble had burst. Synth pop had a great start and it was left to others to carry on the baton and Howard certainly had played his part in the digital revolution.

Further listening