Favorite Song No. 345: Fad Gadget – State of the Nation

When it comes to music, nearly everyone has their favorite eras. I have competing theories in my head as to why this is the case. It may be that the songs that were being made during a certain span of time were more in tune with our taste, or it may be that our life during that span was more in tune with what was happening musically; it may be a combination of both. I’ve read that most people’s favorite musical era coincides with their teen years.

I’m not all that fond of the music that was popular when I was a teen. I certainly know it better than other eras, as I lived through its popularity, which may be why I’m not into it. I heard those songs too many times when they were new! Instead, I tend to gravitate towards the sounds of certain eras. One such era is the one that spawned what is now known as post-punk music. I was too young to have experienced it first-hand, but when I did learn more about it (which wasn’t until I was in my mid-30s), I found it fascinating.

Since I’m on the topic of great eras of music, when I ask myself, “when was the best music being made in my lifetime?” I come up with the following:

1977-1980
1984-1986
1993-1997
2003-2006

If you ask someone else, you’ll almost certainly get an entirely different set of dates, and possibly even some sneering comment about how bad the music was in, say, 1985, and how clueless this guy Greg on the internet is. Nonetheless, those four brief spans seem to me to be time when the most interesting, innovative, and beautiful music was being made. The fact that I only know of the first span retrospectively makes me think my opinion is based more on the music itself and less on my own experiences in tandem with it, because I have no first-hand experience with music made between 1977 and 1980.

Fad Gadget falls into the tail end of that time span. Though it sounds like the name of a band, Fad Gadget was the stage name of the late Francis John Tovey, who was a one-man act. He was part of the avant-garde, post-punk explosion of musicians who were inspired by the Sex Pistols, and realized that one need not know how to sing, or play an instrument, or do anything particularly musical at all, really, in order to be in a band. Tovey reconfigured a tape recorder to allow him to manipulate what he recorded, and used a combination of synths, drum machines, and found sounds to create his dark, socially-conscious music, and along the way laid something of a blueprint for the new wave and industrial music that was to come.

Personally, I love the dark and ominous sound of his music, especially today’s track, and how it chugs along as if propelled by some unseen hand, never relenting, and never changing. Fad Gadget took the concept Kraftwerk had pioneered and pushed it to a whole new level, and created songs that sound like they could have been recorded and performed by robots.

Other Favorite Tracks by This Band