Songfacts: I was reading that 'Hyperactive!' was originally written for Michael Jackson.

So yes, that is what I think I'm best at, and I think that is the rarified form in this day and age, because there is a lot of music out there that is really based on a groove, based on the sound textures, and that's fine.

They had verses and choruses and intros and lyrics that told a story and a personality behind the words. However, it would not be the natural place for me to be, making songs using electronics and secretive and so on.īut the big difference between my songs and many of the other sort of electronic records of the day was that you could actually sit down at a piano and do a decent version of one of my songs, because they had fundamental songwriting ingredients to them. It means everybody gets to have a shot at it. And so that was a natural place for me to be, because I wanted to be challenged and stimulated like that.īut over the years, the whole realm of our choices become more democratized, shall we say, to the extent that on your iPhone today for a few bucks you can probably have more powerful synthesizers and samplers than I had in my entire studio back in the early '80s. And when you did, there was still quite a lot of resistance in the mainstream to music made electronically. They were quite hard to get hands on and quite hard to operate. And when I started out writing songs, synthesizers were still quite a rarified luxury. Thomas: Yeah, I've never been one to run with the herd. Songfacts: So would you then say that the technology is really a means to an end, that it's just what helps you get to what is at the kernel of what you want to do, which is create songs and song ideas? And the songs they were talking about were not 'She Blinded Me With Science' or 'Hyperactive!,' they were songs like 'Screen Kiss' and 'Budapest Blimp' and 'I Love You Goodbye.' There was this up-swelling of discussion on the Internet about my music and how I set up the chords and the interpretation of the lyrics, and a whole bunch of tribute covers and things like that. And during the 20 years that I was away, it was really that music people were talking about. But anybody that's listening to the albums or came to see me live realized that there was a much more personal and sort of intimate atmospheric side to my music. I think that the more extroverted side of my songwriting was what made the biggest splash on the commercial mainstream in the '80s. And as for his big hit? For many listeners, that was the way in to the world of Thomas Dolby, which is filled with deep, engaging songs for those who have acquired the taste.ĭan MacIntosh (Songfacts): You recently said, 'What I do best is write songs, tell stories.' I think most people think of you as being into technology, but you see yourself as a songwriter first. We were surprised to learn that Dolby sees his strengths as songwriting and storytelling, and that technology is just a way to get there. Production/Songwriting with Eddie Van Halen, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie Keyboards and production work on Def Leppard's Pyromania album Kick-starting the early rap group Whodini with the song 'Magic's Wand' Playing the synth intro to Foreigner's 'Waiting For A Girl Like You' (thanks to Lange) He's one of those genius-types that talent-spotters like Mutt Lange hone in on, and he's always popping up in unusual collaborations. His debut album contained 'She Blinded Me With Science,' which as Dolby explains, he wrote so he could direct a video about a home for deranged scientists. His friends did him a favor - Dolby is one of those cool names like 'Taurus' or 'Magnum' that you would name a truck or a golf ball after, and it made a perfect stage name befitting his technological prowess. The son of a prominent British archeologist, Thomas Robertson was nicknamed 'Dolby' by his school friends who were impressed by his electronic savvy, the name coming from Dolby Labs, the British company that created the noise-reduction system for audiotapes.

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