Now on 6 Music: Top 10 Synth Riffs

7. Gary Numan - Metal

INFIDELS!!!

Well, if only synthpop counts that is OK. "Jump" is still better than "The Final Countdown" as far as "rock" synth riffs go though.

Other obvious contenders missing seem to be "Take On Me", "I Just Can't Get Enough", "Everything Counts", "Enola Gay", "Souvenir" and "Love Action".

ftp://ftp.scene.org/pub/music/groups/8bitpeoples/8bp029-05-nullsleep-depeche_mode_minimix.mp3

really? christ's teeth, i said that should win but nobody would vote for it. wow.

i taped this and haven't listened to it yet. expect more gibberish from me here when i get round to it.

If not then Idioteque.

8. ?

this, shockingly, was "la femme" by naked lunch, which i think was on the some bizzare compilation. haven't heard it in years.

what a strange and skewed list that was. no human league! no depeche mode! no soft cell! they should have just let AM play his own favourite tracks for an hour.

i really can't say i've ever shared the love for john foxx's solo stuff: a couple of the tracks are good, but "underpass" sounds almost like a parody. and that duran duran song is fucking honking.

"On the road with Britain's edgiest band, Franz Ferdinand"

'Just Can't Get enough' does spring to mind all too quickly tho. But my favourite Vince Clarke hook is probably 'Situation'.

Erm, it doesn't? What about the one that runs the entire way through the song?

I don't know which bit you mean. There's the synth bassline (plus Hooky's Bond-esque bass) but no specific part to act as equivalent melodic 'whistle this' element except the bit after Sumner's second line which re-occurs extended further on but is no more standout than numerous other elements of the track (the more famous/recognised bits of 'Blue Monday' are the bassdrum pattern and the bassline/bass guitar surely).

the godlike mccluskey did say - several times - "this is to find the best synth riff OR SONG" but i think that was a bit of an afterthought: i feel the silly wording confused everybody.

i mean: "enola gay", for instance, isn't what most people would call a riff. it's a melody or hook or whatever, but not a riff. same goes for a lot of DM stuff - "sequences", there's a good word for it. "dare" positively drips with hooklines, but riffs? nah.

by this basic definition:

a short repeated phrase, frequently played over changing chords or harmonies or used as a background to a solo improvisation

almost everything counts (see what i did there?), but "riff" to most people equals crunch, power, weight, and that's not something you'd associate with most legendary synth lines.

i'm on shaky ground, though - i don't know shit about musical theory - so i'll shut up.

as for blue monday: could someone possibly post a clip of this mystical synth hook that runs through the whole song? because i'd love to hear it. it's obviously out of my frequency range :p

i'm on shaky ground, though - i don't know shit about musical theory - so i'll shut up.

A riff is just any repeated melodic motif. You can't get much more riffy than the Just Can't Get Enough riff. A hook on the other hand isn't necessarily musical. The hook can be a sound effect, a lyric, the singer's peculiar voice: anything that "hooks" the listener.

A riff also doesn't need to run through the entire song and it certainly doesn't even in the most famous guitar riff songs. I think it's fair to call the first synth line in Blue Monday that enters after the kick drum a riff. And then later in the song the synth bass is nearly playing the same line. I think it's safe to say that you could play that sequence of notes on a piano and anyone familiar with the song would recognize it as the Blue Monday riff.

Soft Cell - Say Hello Wave Goodbye
Lipps Inc - Funky Town
Orbital - Chime
Kraftwerk - Trans Europe Express
808 State - Cubik (like 'Da Funk' synth riff made to sound a bit like guitar)
Inner City - Big Fun
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Behind The Mask
Bronski Beat - Smalltown Boy
Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five - The Message (is this riffy enough?)
New Order - Thieves Like Us

otm, this one sticks out like the proverbial. and opens the door to 303 riffs. is a 303 a 'synthesizer'?

i can't remember how 'new gold dream' goes but 'theme for great cities' may warrant mentioning.

ech, but they aren't always. and synth/guitar riffs sometimes are ('robot rock'). kernkraft 3000 (sp) to thread.

ech, but they aren't always.

gimme some examples of when they're not.

i do actually feel a bit like Geir now...

Oh for god's sake there's no synth hook running all the way throughout every second of Da Funk either. You know what I'm talking about.

(Sorry, I hadn't realised this was the thread for talking about pointless minutiae but maybe I shouldn't have been so naive)

Baba O'Riley?

That's actually Jamie Principal. I don't know the story how or why it became "Frankie Knuckles Presents", but Principal wrote/produced/sung it.

808 State 'In Yer Face' (or 'Olympic'). 'Cobra Bora' also had a similarly great, bombastic synth riff.

(=synth?)

that's the bassline, isn't it?

i've not heard the 88 mix in years and i can't remember the first thing about it. genuinely, matt: if someone said to me "sing the riff from Blue Monday" i'd plump for either the (synth) bassline, the (peter hook) bassline or, er, the lyrical melody, none of which is i think what you mean.

or maybe you do mean the bassline. hmm. geniunely, i'm at a total loss here.

Sorry, I hadn't realised this was the thread for talking about pointless minutiae but maybe I shouldn't have been so naive

IT'S ILM, DUDE :)

no it's the 'grindey' looped 'hit same note twice, first one on the offbeat, second one on the beat' synth bit with slight reverb - if that makes sense. def not the bassline.

you'd think, for a song that i've heard probably 1000 times, i'd have "blue monday" perfectly mapped out in my mind. but now i can't actually remember how the fucking thing begins at all. i shall listen later :)

A great hook, but somewhat atypical of his style. Sounded very much like a typical Alison Moyet thing that hook.