Golden Age, indeed.

You know this song. And if you're anything like me, your reaction to it is, "oh, excellent one-hit wonder there, Mr. Dolby." It's difficult to imagine anything like a steady, consistently good artistic output from the creator of "She Blinded Me With Science". And, apparently, you would be wrong. The Golden Age of Wireless (1982) is difficult to categorize - there's a lot of Bowie in there, some Elvis Costello, but what it reminds me of most is Donald Fagen's masterpiece of the same year, The Nightfly. I'm going to justify that comparison eventually.

The Golden Age of Wireless is an album with a bit of a complicated history - it's been through a couple of versions, and the one I have is actually the 1984 CD release (it's what was on iTunes). There's songs missing, songs rearranged, and, most notably, Thomas Dolby's big hit (which came out after the initial release of Wireless) shoehorned into the beginning to boost sales. The dysjunct is very apparent. "She Blinded Me With Science" is unrestrained, bouncy quirkiness - a far cry from the chilly Cold-War-era paranoia of "One of Our Submarines", for instance, or the subtle modulations and almost atonal arpeggios of "Radio Silence". Understand: "She Blinded Me With Science" isn't a radical departure - all the elements are still there: the syncopated synth-drums, the thin melodic lines, the lyrical sensibilities (the ones which aren't just putting more exclamation marks after "Science!") - but here in Wireless, everything's cooler, more anaesthetic, less...one-hit wonder.

Dolby doesn't really engage the viscera that much, targeting instead the intellectual half of the listener - even his hit is a sort of vulgar engaging of the vulgar intellect ("Science!!") - not to knock it or anything - and it is this which most reminds me of The Nightfly. (Well, that and the bass hooks and piano work in "Weightless".) Fagen's work was always cool, never stooped to engaging the viscera - was more groovy, certainly, but not in a grips-you "Feel Good Inc." sort of way. No doubt the retro-futuristic feel both albums have for a listener in 2011 (certainly intentional for Fagen - Dolby seems to have been going for just "futuristic", but time has slapped a "retro-" to the front of that) has something to do with the perceived similarity - it calls to mind Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and the whole pulp genre (thought to expand on later, possibly: "Pulp engages the viscera of the intellect").

Point is, Dolby's lyrics are lined with wires and technical details that enhance rather than distracting from the humanness he's primarily concerned with - most of these songs are poignant ("Europa and the Pirate Twins" is even heartbreaking, and the mention of a hoverport in the final verse does nothing to detract from that, though it does intersect oddly with the old-world-nationalistic refrains of "Oh My Country, Europa" and "Ta République, Europa"). Two further miscellaneous facts: "Commercial Breakup" is very Elvis Costello, and "Brooklyn is crawling/ With famous people" is a fantastic line (from "Airwaves").

In conclusion: The Golden Age of Wireless is an intellectually engaging work, full of both musical and lyrical subtlety. Dolby really does not deserve the one-hit wonder status that's become attached to him.