What is an 808?
It’s the 1980s that most readily come to mind with a certain sound in the popular impression.
To a fault. There’s often a surface carousel of retro signifiers that reduce the decade’s musical landscape to a terrain of hairspray, shoulder pads, and glossy pop that sweeps aside the volume of fantastic music that scored the era. Never mind the underground. Even in the mainstream, new wave power pop reigned supreme early on, Two-tone captured the UK’s political mood, indie was enjoying its foundational bloom, the alternative world was garnering major label attention before the later Seattle explosion, and rap entered its new school golden age in earnest.
Plenty was going on, but such sonic prompts across the 1980s aren’t unfounded. The technology and hardware that flooded the music industry were unprecedented. Every few years, some new toy clamoured for by the days artists and producers eager to stay ahead of the game.
Synclaviers and Fairlights heralded a whole new realm of aural sculpt, impossible arrangements and layering were now realised with MIDI, Akai MPC60 revolutionised sampling in the hip-hop community, and the Yamaha DX-7’s ‘E PIANO 1’ preset could be heard on over 60% of the Billboard’s pop, country, and R&B charts number ones in 1986 alone.
As ever, such a saturation of gear eventually outstayed its welcome, rendering much of the era’s pop seriously dated and going some way in fuelling the explosion of grunge’s ‘authentic’ guitar attack for the 1990s, but one much-loved piece of kit seemed to avoid the sudden drop in fashion over much of the tech competition after its 1980s heyday.
So, what is an 808?
Throughout the early 1980s, drum machines were similarly undergoing seismic evolutions, the Linn LM-1 Drum Computer and Oberheim DMX being key hardware in the decade’s emerging programmable percussion gear.
But it was the Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer that truly changed the game. A foundational machine in the hip-hop and electro world, the 808’s uniquely analogue synthesis of its various drum sounds brought a distinct sound beloved by the day’s bedroom beat makers and rap producers. Electronically replicating its 12 percussion voices rather than acoustic recordings, new editing options were now possible for any 808 owner, offering tuning, decay, and level alterations across its famed toms, claps, and snares.
The 808 would find a presence in pop, with Yellow Magic Orchestra being an early adopter and Marvin Gaye deploying the drum machine for his ‘Sexual Healing’ swansong, but hip-hop is where Roland’s most famous hardware found its real home. Following Afrika Bambaataa and the Soulsonic Force’s 1982 ‘Planet Rock’ electro-funk example, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and the Beastie Boys all began to deploy the 808’s booming bass and plinky cowbell, setting the sonic language acid house would take notes on by the decade’s end.
The 808’s stature in production continues to command fascination, despite its underwhelming commercial numbers when first manufactured 1980-’83. Manchester electronic group 808 State took inspiration for their name, and Kanye West namechecked the Roland drum machine when titling 2008’s electro-minimalist 808s & Heartbreak album.
