BY L. JEANETTE STROLE
There are bands that recycle their sound, and bands that reinvent their sound, but most importantly there are bands that continue to refine their sound until it is in its purest form. Since their first album in 1994, Joy Electric has consistently fine-tuned their pursuits, with a self-imposed and almost military rigidity, the end-result being starkly beautiful and eclectic synth pop. With this kind of continued motivation, Joy Electric is more than deserving of a retrospective look. The year 2002 sees this idea realized by way of a new double-disc collection of old and new songs. Titled "The Art and Craft of Popular Music," it ardently affirms that Joy Electric is far from disappearing. The man behind this one-man show is Ronnie Martin, who muses about the nature of musical collections of this kind. "I have often felt like Greatest Hits albums are put out for bands that are on their way out. And I don't feel like we're on the way out." Joy Electric is certainly not going the way of the dinosaur. If anything, Joy Electric is proving to be more prolific and tenacious than most bands.
As early as his teen years Martin was already recording music with his brother, Jason, under the moniker Dance House Children. When the two parted ways musically, Ronnie created Joy Electric, a labor of love that has consistently produced eight years worth of music, built up painstakingly, layer by layer on old-fashioned analog synthesizers. "The Art and Craft of Popular Music" culls some of the most memorable tracks from his musical career, including tracks from EP's like "Land of the Misfits" and full-length LP's such as "Robot Rock", and provides an entire disc of shimmering brand new tracks, as well as old demos that have been re-recorded. "I picked my favorites which probably coincided with other people's. The new songs are much more simplistic. They definitely fall in line with older JE stuff like 'Melody' or 'Old Wives Tales'. It's more like everyone will be getting a new album along with the older material. That was important to me, because I at least wanted people to hear the stuff they had never heard before."
The enigmatic and unique styling of Joy Electric may escape the understanding of the casual music fans, but behind the specific working technique that Joy Electric employs is the fundamental understanding that gadgetry and gimmicky sounds do not make up the backbone of a song. Just a few repeated listens clearly reveals that what Martin is aiming to create are perfect pop songs with a classic song structure. Even in his youth, his song-writing manifesto was reiterated in his mind by hearing the consistent strengths of bands like The Smiths, New Order and the Pet Shop Boys. Joy Electric uses the analog instrumentation as a means of delivery, but maintains that the songs would stand on their own, regardless of what instruments that they are played on. "I don't really mess with the synths until I have the song written out. That is kind of the rule. I make sure I have the song first. That always stays in focus."
Furthermore, the technique to his musical wizardry almost guarantees that nobody else will be able to replicate the same sound. "I can't stand the thought of doing something that just would put me in a group that could be compared to anyone else. I'm not saying that I hold the chord on originality, but the limitations just help me define what I want to do to an even greater extreme." Furthermore, Martin makes the valid point that electronic synthpop never really sounds dated, because it has such a timeless feel. While rock-n-roll bands come and go, Martin envisions creating music as long as he is capable of doing so. "I never see myself as not doing albums. there's no reason to not do them, unless God visibly appears in the room and says, 'You're not going to do records anymore,' in which case I'll have to go along with that."
Given that diehard attitude, and passion for beautiful and unusual music, it seems that Joy Electric is probably now going to have to do a string of "Greatest Hits" albums in the future, because they are most certainly not on their way out.