Thomas Dolby

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Thomas Dolby 2006

Thomas Dolby (actually: Thomas Morgan Robertson ; born October 14, 1958 in Hammersmith ) is a British musician . Although he had only a few hits, he is still considered one of the most famous representatives of the synthesizer and new wave music of the 1980s. The reasons for this include his skilful self-portrayal as a “Funky Mad Scientist” of electropop, but also his music videos, which were groundbreaking for the time.

biography

Thomas Dolby at TEDGLOBAL 2005 in Oxford

Contrary to what some biographies say, Dolby was not born in Cairo , but in Hammersmith, a district of London . Rumor has it the error of EMI - PR agent, see back in his biography that survived remarkably long. Thomas Dolby himself clears up this misunderstanding on his website.

His father Martin was a classical archaeologist , so that he spent the first fifteen years of his life in different places in Europe. During this time he taught himself to play the piano and the guitar. His original career aspiration was to study meteorology . He made his first experiences as a musician in front of an audience at the age of 16 as a street musician in the underground stations of Paris and London, later also as a restaurant and bar pianist .

His passion for electronic music started listening to records from Kraftwerk , Brian Eno and Van der Graaf Generator . At 18, he began to build his first synthesizer - at that time he received from schoolmates because of his experiments with synthesizers and tape decks his nickname "Dolby", which extends from the noise reduction process of Dolby Laboratories derived and which he maintained as a stage name eventually.

In the late 1970s, Dolby worked as a sound engineer for various bands, including The Fall , The Passions and The Members, using self-constructed PA technology. In 1979 he founded the band Camera Club with Bruce Woolley , Trevor Horn , Geoff Downes and Matthew Seligman , but after a year he left the group and joined Lene Lovich's backing band .

1980 his first single Urges appeared on the British independent label Armageddon. A year later he signed his record deal with Parlophone and released the autobiographical single Europa and the Pirate Twins, which narrowly missed the UK Top 40.

From 1982 Dolby worked as a session musician and appeared on a number of albums by his musician colleagues (see below), in the same year his first solo album The Golden Age of Wireless was released, which reached number 13 in the English LP charts , but was not noticed in America . The first single from the album, Windpower, became his first Top 40 hit in the UK .

In 1983 Dolby released the EP Blinded by Science, which contained the catchy tune She Blinded Me with Science , whose voice samples came from the eccentric British scientist Magnus Pyke. Not a huge hit in England, the single and EP became Thomas Dolby's first major hit in the United States , not least because of the video that was frequently seen on MTV at the time. The song made it to number 5 on the US singles chart, and the remixed album The Golden Age of Wireless , which was supplemented by the single , reached number 13 on the LP charts.

In 1984 his best album, The Flat Earth, was released. The single, Hyperactive , which was released from it, was his greatest success at home at number 17 in the British charts. In America it reached number 35 on the LP charts, but none of the singles from the album were spotted in the top 40. In addition to his solo activity, Dolby continued to work as a session keyboardist (see below).

On July 13, 1985 Thomas Dolby played at the Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium in London as keyboard player in David Bowie's band.

Dolby released two more solo albums: Aliens Ate My Buick in 1988 , which sold only moderately and received equally poor reviews, and Astronauts and Heretics in 1992 , which was released on its own Giant label and flopped completely. In 1988 he married the actress Kathleen Beller , with whom he now has three children: Lillian (born 1991), Talia Claire (born 1993) and Graham (born 1995).

His best-of album Retrospectacle was released in 1994, and the live album Forty in 2003 , which contained material from two gigs he played for friends on the occasion of his fortieth birthday in 1998.

At the end of the 80s, Thomas Dolby shifted his interests: he composed film music, worked as a producer and began to develop hardware and software. In 1993 he founded the software company Headspace , based in San Mateo, California , whose first product was the Virtual String Quartet . In 1996, Headspace was renamed Beatnik Inc. , the main business area is the development of audio formats and composition software for mobile phone ring tones .

In July 1998, Thomas Dolby received the Lifetime Achievement in Internet Music Award from Yahoo! magazine. Internet life. She Blinded Me with Science is still the signature piece of the Los Angeles Giants, Thomas Dolby's favorite baseball team.

In spring 2006, Thomas Dolby returned to the stage: as part of the Sole Inhabitant Tour 2006 , he played 40 club concerts in North America and released a live CD and DVD of the same name. In December 2006 he went on a joint dual headlining tour with Brian Transeau .

In 2010 the EP Americana was released, which can be purchased exclusively for the members of the Flat Earth Society as a download from Thomas Dolby's homepage . In 2011 the EP Oceanea was released, initially also as an exclusive download from the homepage. Since March 28, the EP can also be purchased on Amazon. Both EPs contain songs from the new album A Map of the Floating City , which has been available since October 2011.

Discography

Studio albums

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
UK UK US US
1982 The Golden Age of Wireless UK65 (10 weeks)
UK 		US13 (28 weeks)
US
1984 The Flat Earth UK14th
silver
silver

(14 weeks)UK 		US35 (18 weeks)
US
1988 Aliens Ate My Buick UK30 (3 weeks)
UK 		US70 (19 weeks)
US
1992 Astronauts & Heretics UK35 (2 weeks)
UK 		-

More studio albums

  • 2011: A Map of the Floating City

Compilations

  • 1994: Retrospectacle (best of compilation)
  • 1997: Premium Gold Collection
  • 1999: 12x12 (remix compilation)
  • 2003: Forty (live concert recording from October 20, 1998)
  • 2003: One of Our Submarines (collection of remixed versions of the original 1981 song)
  • 2006: The Sole Inhabitant (live recording, recorded May 16-17, 2006 in Chicago )

EPs

year title Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
UK UK US US
1982 Blinded by Science - US20 (31 weeks)
US

More EPs

  • 2010: Amerikana
  • 2011: Oceanea

Singles

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE UK UK US US
as Thomas Dolby
1981 Europa and the Pirate Twins
The Golden Age of Wireless 		- UK48 (3 weeks)
UK 		US67 (5 weeks)
US
Chart entry in US only in 1983
1982 Windpower
The Golden Age of Wireless 		- UK31 (8 weeks)
UK 		-
She Blinded Me with Science
 DE52 (6 weeks)
DE 		UK49 (4 weeks)
UK 		US5 (22 weeks)
US
1984 Hyperactive!
The Flat Earth 		- UK17 (10 weeks)
UK 		US62 (7 weeks)
US
I Scare Myself
The Flat Earth 		- UK46 (5 weeks)
UK 		-
Dissidents
The Flat Earth 		- UK90 (3 weeks)
UK 		-
1988 Airhead
Aliens Ate My Buick 		- UK53 (4 weeks)
UK 		-
1989 Hot Sauce
Aliens Ate My Buick 		- UK80 (3 weeks)
UK 		-
1992 Close but No Cigar
Astronauts & Heretics 		DE88 (5 weeks)
DE 		UK22 (5 weeks)
UK 		-
I Love You Goodbye
Astronauts & Heretics 		- UK36 (4 weeks)
UK 		-
Silk Pajamas
Astronauts & Heretics 		- UK62 (2 weeks)
UK 		-
1994 Hyperactive!
Retrospectacle 		- UK23 (4 weeks)
UK 		-
Re-release
as Dolby's Cube
1982 Get Out of My Mix
 - UK80 (2 weeks)
UK 		-
1985 May the Cube Be with You
 - UK82 (3 weeks)
UK 		-

More singles

  • 1981: Urges / Leipzig
  • 1982: Airwaves
  • 1982: One of our Submarines
  • 1986: Howard the Duck (Dolby's Cube feat. Cherry Bomb)
  • 1989: My Brain Is Like a Sieve
  • 2011: Oceanea
  • 2011: Spice Train

Guest Posts

year Title
album 		Top ranking, total weeks, awardChart placementsChart placements
(Year, title, album , rankings, weeks, awards, notes) 		Remarks
DE DE UK UK US US
1986 Field Work
Illustrated Musical Encyclopedia 		- UK98 (3 weeks)
UK 		-

Soundtracks

Video albums

  • 1994: The Gate to the Mind's Eye (US:platinumplatinum)
  • 2006: The Sole Inhabitant (live recording, recorded on September 28, 2006 at the Berklee Performance Center in Boston )

Collaboration with other musicians

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d chart sources:
  2. ↑ Music Sales Awards: UK US
personal data
SURNAME Dolby, Thomas
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Robertson, Thomas Morgan (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British musician-keyboardist
DATE OF BIRTH October 14, 1958
PLACE OF BIRTH Hammersmith