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It would be interesting to make a Venn diagram marking the
overlap of musical artists who are considered both “cult favorites” and “one-hit
wonders”. It might be even more interesting to hear how those performers feel
about these labels. Even when it's applied accurately, the latter carries an
undertone of dismissive-ness, while the former can be seen as devaluing the
successes that they've achieved. Superficial considerations aside, one such
artist for whom neither label seems quite appropriate is Thomas Dolby.
This was readily apparent from Dolby's appearance at the recent
Intervention7 convention in Maryland. Taking place not far from Johns Hopkins
University in Baltimore, where he’s currently a member of the faculty,
Intervention is an annual
celebration of the creative arts with a tangible lean towards technology and
science-fiction media. Dolby fit the event perfectly - and not just because of
his acumen with synthesizers and having watched Doctor Who as far back as
1964. His presentation, which was followed by an enjoyable Q&A and
punctuated by a trio of musical performances, was equal parts autobiography and
case study in adapting one's talents to a changing cultural environment.
Though he directed the audience to his upcoming memoir The
Speed of Sound for anecdotes such as his performance with David Bowie at
Live-Aid, Dolby offered plenty of background about his early days in the music
business. The stories about working with late-70s and early-80s synthesizer
technology were particularly entertaining for anyone whose musical tastes were
informed by that era's pop music. Many of his later endeavors have been
somewhat removed from that world, but this phase clearly informed much of what
came after. Understanding that he developed the visual concept for the hit “She
Blinded Me with Science” before coming up with a song that fit it so perfectly
makes it clear that he's not enslaved to conventional approaches.
The same commitment to following his own path led him to step
back from music and start his own Silicon Valley tech company, Beatnik, in the
early-90s. Not surprisingly, they focused on the technical challenges of
delivering music online as the "dot-com era" took shape. The work
with Beatnik in turn led to him working with Nokia in the early 2000s where he
worked on one of contemporary life's most ubiquitous examples of digital
technology, the mobile phone ring-tone.
Not one to outstay his welcome in any endeavor, a move to
England's East Anglia region several years ago dovetailed with a return to
making music, albeit with a different mindset than his 1980s work. Dolby
had arguably been among the first to understand that the music business as it
had been when he started out was fading in both relevance and substance. At the
very least, he understood the shift better than those within the industry who,
as he described it, couldn't understand why so many consumers were reluctant to
pay $0.99 for an actual song but willing to spend double that for a low-quality
excerpt in the form of a ring-tone. Rather than just releasing a traditional
album, he decided on an approach to presenting new music that was a more
natural fit for a media environment dominated by social networking and gaming.
Set in a post-apocalyptic alternate history, the game A Map of
the Floating City unfolded over three months in 2011. While the effectiveness
of its resolution was apparently undercut by a technical mistake on Dolby's
part, he seemed genuinely proud of both the game, which fostered significant
player interaction within the narrative, and the music that accompanied it.
Recorded on his boat-based studio (names the Nutmeg of Consolation. the varied
collection of songs makes it plain that his musical curiosity is
undiminished. Among the highlights is “Spice Train”, a song characterized by a
slinky groove and some nice use of found sound that he performed at
Intervention.
The through-line for Dolby's public life has been that each step
is very different while still connecting to what's come before. This holds true
for his entry into what he calls “the family business”. Both the son and
grandson of Cambridge professors, he was appointed Johns Hopkins University’s'
first Homewood Professor of the Arts in 2014. Since then, he's taught classes
about sound in film and generally worked to make the university's film program
more focused on the practical aspects of film-making. To his credit, he's also
pushed for more outreach to local schools in Baltimore whose students often
don't have access to arts instruction due to funding constraints.
For anyone wondering - yes, he played both “She Blinded Me with
Science” and “Hyperactive”. If Dolby has any ambivalence about the likelihood
that he'll be remembered for these pleasingly off-beat favorites, it didn't
show in his performance. Self-deprecating at times and incisive at others,
though never lacking for wry observations, Professor Thomas Dolby is a
forward-looking artist who doesn't mind a bit of looking back.
