Prince wasn’t just an artist; he was a technicolor explosion in a black-and-white world. With his audacious genius, he blurred every line—genre, gender, rules of decorum—and rewrote the book of cool. Emerging from Minneapolis with a sound that fused funk, rock, R&B, and soul, Prince didn’t break moulds; he obliterated them. His 1984 masterpiece Purple Rain wasn’t just an album; it was a seismic cultural shift. Songs like “When Doves Cry” and “Let’s Go Crazy” challenged you to dance, cry with joy, and transcend. Prince’s stage presence was electric—a fusion of Hendrix, James Brown, and a thunderstorm in heels. He wielded his guitar like a weapon of mass seduction, bending notes and hearts in equal measure. A meticulous perfectionist, he recorded vaults of music, each track dripping with unfiltered creativity. Prince didn’t just live outside the box—he redesigned it in paisley. Icon, innovator, enigma. Forever funky, forever purple.
Listen: Art Official Age, Purple Rain, 1999.
The Midnight feels like a time machine straight into the neon heart of the 1980s, except this journey comes with modern beats and deeper emotional resonance. They’ve mastered the art of retrowave—a genre that’s as much about nostalgia as it is reinvention. Their sound is a love letter to synth-laden soundscapes, where saxophones cry, synthesisers shimmer, and every track feels like the soundtrack to a movie that never existed. Songs like “Crystalline” and “Days of Thunder” evoke late-night drives down endless highways, while “Shadows” wraps you in the glow of a city’s bittersweet dreams. Each song is a pristine synth-pop masterpiece. There’s a wistful longing woven into their lyrics, a reflection on youth, disconnection and connection, lost love and time slipping through our fingers. With The Midnight, it’s not just music—it’s a cinematic experience that invites you to don your shades, fire up the DeLorean, and dream in technicolor.
Evocative Synthwave for the discerning musicologist. Perfectly pairs with The Midnight as peers and partners. Lively and lush.
Listen: Atlas.
Cinematic ambient retro-future stylings. Their sound inspired Synthwave and could easily be mistaken for it. The origin.
Listen: Dream Sequence.
Possessed rider of a sentient red sports car. Forever on the road, evading the fuzz to computer game sounds and tyre rubber squeals.
Listen: Nightcall, Outrun.
When you’re immersed in the music of the 1980s from birth, it makes you realise–they don’t make ’em like they will do. He already has.
Listen: Night Drive.
Echoes by Stealth Tactic
Harking back to a decade when hope reigned supreme and the promise of a bright future was overshadowed with the looming ever-present threat of nuclear obliteration. The tension was high but they were simpler times with digital technology not yet ubiquitous in every home. It was slowly creeping in though and the pace was quickening as each year passed. Our visions were futuristic, yet there was still some of the old world left before the machines came.