The Golden Age of Wireless
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| The Golden Age of Wireless | ||
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| Studio album by Thomas Dolby | ||
| Released | March 1982 | |
| Recorded | 1981 | |
| Genre | New Wave | |
| Length | 42:29 | |
| Label | Capitol Records | |
| Producer(s) | Thomas Dolby | |
| Professional reviews | ||
|---|---|---|
| Thomas Dolby chronology | ||
| The Golden Age of Wireless (1982) |
The Flat Earth (1984) |
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The Golden Age of Wireless is a 1982 album by Synthpop pioneer Thomas Dolby. The album is notable for containing the pop hit "She Blinded Me with Science" in its later resequencings (see below). Following the album's overall theme of radio are the songs "Airwaves", "Commercial Breakup", and "Radio Silence," along with songs about the modern world ("Windpower", "Flying North", "Europa and the Pirate Twins"). At the time of the original US release, the moody and cinematic tone, a major departure for synthesizer-driven records, prompted Musician magazine's reviewer to declare it "The best damned synth-pop record ever, period." [citation needed]
[edit] The multiple versions
Notable about this album is the fact that it was released a total of 5 times (all 5 appeared on vinyl and cassette [though the cassette release for the 5th version is unconfirmed], but only the 3rd and 5th resequencings appeared on CD), with each reshuffling changing the order of the songs, replacing the album mixes with extended or single mixes (in the case of "Radio Silence", a completely different recording with more prominent guitars was the version used on the earlier US albums, but available only as the B-side of the original "Radio Silence" single in the UK), and even adding and removing entire songs. The reason for this is that when the album was initially released, it was mildly successful, but when Thomas Dolby released the single "She Blinded Me with Science" backed by "One of Our Submarines" in late 1982, complete with a music video for the A-side, Dolby's record label, EMI, saw a golden opportunity. They bumped an instrumental called "The Wreck of the Fairchild" (about the 1972 Uruguayan plane crash) off the album and added the single and its B-side, and changed the cover art completely in an attempt to start fresh in the eyes of the public with the new tracklist. It worked; the album sold better and "She Blinded Me With Science" became a major hit, with constant radio and MTV airplay. Dolby is now largely considered a one-hit wonder because of the major success of the song.
The successive resequencings occurred simply because different territories preferred different mixes of songs to others; for example, the extended mix of "Science" was the version that became a hit in America, not the album version, and so the American cut of the album was swiftly resequenced to accommodate the tastes of that particular territory. The American re-release also included the complete version of "Airwaves" which had been released on the "Blinded by Science" EP. The album cover was also reverted to its original design by the third version. Also, Dolby's first two tracks as a solo artist, "Urges" and "Leipzig" were included on the first US cut of the album, but were later scrapped in favor of "Science" and "Submarines".
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