Fans of electronic music will recognize ‘Popcorn‘ -- written by Gershon Kingsley (that’s right, not by Jean Michelle Jarre and/or Hot Butter) -- this is actually the first ever electronic pop instrumental music piece ever written.
I listened to various versions of this tune while reading Neuromancer and other ‘cyberpunk’ fiction in my teens, so it has a strong pull towards that sort of nostalgia -- but has been covered by a different band for every five years of it’s existence.
And you can, as always, thank Moog for this. Bet you’ve never heard the original, and until 10 seconds ago, neither had I. The things you never knew about the music that shaped your early life.
I’ve seen club smashing trance hits with less remixes than this. I don’t want to say he single handedly kicked off the instrumental pop electronic music phenomenon but he definitely had a hand in such things. It’s always strange listening to older electronic music like this due to the timing issues inherent in older gear -- if you effed up somewhere in your programming, or found out you had the wrong timing, you had to go back and re-do EVERYthing. Because that was the name of the game back in the 60s and 70s. Much love and respect to our electronic pioneers, they had more to overcome than we can imagine from our cushy living rooms.
Tags: gershon kingsley, hot butter, jean michelle jarre, popcorn