What about "Joy Electric"?

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[Hi I'm new and my name is Pip]

Anybody know Joy Electric? I got their album, "The White Songbook" and its greatness has become apparent to me recently. It's almost like electronic emo... Anybody know any other bands like them?

Pip, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And please don't rip me up for describing it as electronic emo.

Pip, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I won't rip you up, that would be rude. Welcome. :-) I know of the band but I've not heard them, alas, so I'm afraid I can't readily compare. I might suggest the Faint, but friend Chaki would get mad. ;-)

Ned Raggett, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

dude i invented electronic emo.

chaki, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There are no other bands like Joy Electric. For starters, they're an underground Christian synthpop group who is actually remarkably inventive and masterful in their songwriting and programming. The album you picked up, "The White Songbook" is almost prog in its ambitions, but definitely pop in its hooks, and made entirely on one analog synthesizer system ... with no drum machines, computers, or samplers employed. Joy E's been around for nearly ten years, and the purity of their sound is comparable to Kraftwerk's "Man Machine" and "Computerworld" as well as the work of Jean Michel Jarre, some Tangerine Dream, and a new French synthpop band called Celluloide. Celluloide themselves seem to only exist as an extention of the work of Kraftwerk, however. I've been lurking here for awhile and I am ecstatic that the name "Joy Electric" has actually been mentioned.

Sorrow's native son, Saturday, 15 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And... no. They are not electronic emo. The differences abound. First of all, Ronnie of Joy E doesn't sing like a Getup Kid. He sings like a British fairy-tale pixie. Second, their chord changes are interesting and their melodies unexpected (very un-emo). Third, while the mood may be melancholy, and perhaps a bit self-centered, Joy Electric has more style than to sing trite, maudlin lyrics about "one dream until December" and breaking up with a girl in Austin, Texas. His lyrics recall The Legend of Zelda. And he makes an outright anti-emo statement with the closing line of "The White Songbook": "Heavy metal shirts aren't funny. Come here, boy, I'll show you funny." I hate emo.

Sorrow's native son, Sunday, 16 June 2002 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)


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