ABSTRACT
A paradigm, as philosopher and popular music studies scholar Theodore Gracyk explains, is “an exemplary case or body of work around which a community organizes its practices and beliefs.” At the time of its greatest popularity in the early 1980s, few paradigms rivaled the growing use of synthesizers associated with the rise of important new wave groups like Depeche Mode and Soft Cell, both of whom had jettisoned guitars and drums entirely in favor of the new technology. When Devo first sputtered onto the scene in 1978 they were fond of announcing in interviews that eventually they would give up guitars and switch over to synthesizers exclusively. Small, cheap synthesizers used by a beginning band are invariably more mobile than the guitars and cumbersome amplifiers necessary for even the most rudimentary rock bands. The search for alternative means of expression may eventually lure synth bands into trying out guitars. Depeche Mode has already considered such a move.
