Thomas Dolby on his 10 favourite albums
By the early 1980s, rock and roll was getting familiar with the world of art rock. While there had been artists like The Velvet Underground and David Bowie slowly breaking down barriers for the artistic side of the genre, the rise of new wave saw various artists using the studio more like an instrument than any of their musical counterparts, experimenting with different techniques to create the sounds they were looking for. While Thomas Dolby would later create various technical innovations in his music career and beyond, he wouldn’t be here if not for the music that came before him.
When he first started to discover music, Dolby gravitated towards the sounds of early singer-songwriters, remembering Elton John’s Honky Chateau as the first album he ever bought. John wouldn’t be the only singer-songwriter who sparked Dolby’s creativity, becoming fascinated by the sonic textures Joni Mitchell put into For the Roses, featuring her different alternate tunings and gripping poetry.
At the same time, Dolby had an ear for musicianship, which meant listening to many different jazz records. Considering his penchant for crafting strange-sounding pieces, Dolby would later talk about his love for Time Out by the Dave Brubeck Quartet, known for being a landmark jazz record because of how many odd time signatures into songs like the title track and ‘Blue Rondo a la Turk’.
While the artistic side of Dolby’s record collection didn’t usually clash with rock and roll, he remembered a turning point in his upbringing when hearing David Bowie’s Low for the first time. Outside of the sonic oddities like ‘Be My Wife’, the album would be heralded as one of the first post-rock releases, as Bowie and Brian Eno make gripping instrumental pieces out of different synthesisers.
This change was revolutionary for Dolby, telling Goldmine, “I had always loved Bowie as a pop icon, but when he teamed with Eno and went off to the Berlin Wall to make records with primitive synthesisers, I was completely gaga. And Side 2 was all electronic instumentals. By a rock artist, that was simply unheard of!”.
While this marked the start of art rock dominating the mainstream, Dolby would still find merit in the sounds of bombastic rock. Despite being created with the help of Bowie, Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life would become a fixture of Dolby’s record collection, thinking that the album had some of the best arrangements of any band from the time.
Once the 1970s faded and rock approached a new decade, though, Dolby got inspired to take his music seriously when hearing Talking Heads for the first time. While they had been birthed from the same punk squats that gave the world artists like Ramones and Blondie, David Byrne’s strained voice and unusual song structures on Talking Heads: 77 hit a nerve with Dolby.
When discussing the album, Dolby got the push to get his music off the ground, saying, “The Heads seemed otherworldly, with David Byrne’s neurological contortions set against a rocking rhythm section. I dutifully headed to New York, to CBGBs and The Mudd Club, to soak it all in. During that era, I was quietly cooking up my own contribution to the rapidly morphing world of ’80s music.”
While Dolby would dominate the rock landscape in the studio behind synthesisers, each album from his upbringing has shaped him into the musician he is today. From the soft sounds of singer-songwriters to the most complex jazz pieces ever created, Dolby’s eclectic music taste made him realise that anything can be done as long as it’s in service to improve a track.
Thomas Dolby’s 10 favourite albums:
- Honky Chateau – Elton John
- For the Roses – Joni Mitchell
- Time Out – Dave Brubeck Quartet
- Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks – Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks
- The Man Machine – Kraftwerk
- Low – David Bowie
- Astral Weeks – Van Morrison
- Soft Machine Third – Soft Machine
- Lust for Life – Iggy Pop
- Talking Heads ’77 – Talking Heads