Introduction

In the early 1980s, the rise of music videos and increasing technological innovations in the music world helped to spark a distinct transition in the type of sound popular musicians tried to capture in their songs. Drawing on influences from new wave rock, disco, and electronic music, artists scrambled to add a futuristic element to their work through the use of synthesizers, drum machines, and many other innovations. In an attempt to create distance from the seemingly archaic and simplistic sound of previous generation’s popular music, such as rock and roll and blues, New Wave artists marketed themselves as the new standard for popular music, and the unique sound of synthetic beats helped to set the artists of the early 1980s apart. Stemming from its use in, hip-hop artist, Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force’s song ‘Planet Rock’ in 1982, the Roland TR- 808 drum machine demonstrated its unmistakable inorganic timbre, controlled decay, and a room-shaking bass drum that fostered the crossover between hip-hop and electronic influenced music like New Wave into later popular music by artists such as Tiga and Zyntherious, Kayne West, Lil John, David Guetta and more.