My career in five songs

The cerebral musical futurist traces his path from pioneering synth-rock to solo piano meditations

The accessibility, affordability and portability of synthesizers in the late 70s had a profound effect on popular music, particularly in the UK, where the likes of Ultravox!, Gary Numan and OMD reshap

John & Yoko/ Plastic Ono Band Power ...

Fifty years ago, Heart ’s Ann and Nancy Wilson gatecrashed a male-dominated, payola-fuelled rock scene with with Dreamboat Annie , a platinum debut album powered by passionate vocals, guitar heroics and unshakeable self-belief. “We were young people on fire!”

A manifeste of musical and spiritual freedom, Axis: Bold As Love was JIMI HENDRIX ar his most exploratory, utopian. But as a new box set explores, notes of unease and psycho-autobiography cut through the Aquarian haze and freaky, proto-stereo FX, as the Summer of Love entered its more conflicted autumn. "It was all vivid colour," peers and Fhu tell MARK PAYTRESS, "with Jimi at the height of his powers."

D uring the first half of the 80s, OMD were a regular presence in the upper reaches of the UK charts. Enola Gay, Souvenir, Joan Of Arc and Maid Of Orleans (The Waltz Joan Of Arc) made the Top 10, whil