In My System


The electronic sound that came to typify eighties soul was slowly introduced but came to be the dominant sound of the era. Stevie Wonder had pioneered the synth in black music in the sixties and seventies, as had Parliament funkadelic. There was always an emphasis on real instruments to compliment the synthesised sounds.
When Evelyn King dropped the ‘Champagne’ she came out with I’m in Love which was the first big dancefloor hit of the new sound.


Jam & Lewis, The System and Prelude records all came out with the new crisp sound along with established acts like Shalamar, The Whispers, O’Jays and Change.
On an imported 33 1/3 12inch the precision of the new groove was remarkable.
Shannon’s Let the music play, D-Train’s you’re the One for Me and Angela Bofil’s Can’t slow down were some of the essential electronic tunes on the club scene.
Purists may argue against it and in fact the backlash resulted in the emergence of rare groove, but the development of this sound bridged the gap between Kraftwerk and Soul. It also appealed to an aspirational audience and led to improvements in production and kick started many a career.

To some it’s dated but for myself and others who remember those days it was an exhilarating development that was just another step in the progression of black music

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