Futuromania

Electronic Dreams, Desiring Machines and Tomorrow’s Music Today

By: Simon Reynolds

Narrated by: Rich Keeble

Pre-order Simon Reynold's forthcoming Still in a Dream: Shoegaze, Slackers, and the Reinvention of Rock, 1984-1994, publishing June 2026.

Simon Reynolds's first book in eight years is a celebration of music that feels like a taste of tomorrow. Sounds that prefigure pop music's future - the vanguard genres and heroic innovators whose discoveries eventually get accepted by the wider mass audience. But it's also about the way music can stir anticipation for a thrillingly transformed world just around the corner: a future that might be utopian or dystopian, but at least will be radically changed and exhilaratingly other.

Starting with an extraordinary chapter on Giorgio Moroder and Donna Summer, taking in illuminating profiles of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Boards of Canada, Burial, and Daft Punk, and arguing for Auto-Tune as the defining sound of 21st century pop, Futuromania shapes over two-dozen essays and interviews into a chronological narrative of machine-music from the 1970s to now. Reynolds explores the interface between pop music and science fiction's utopian dreams and nightmare visions, always emphasising the quirky human individuals abusing the technology as much as the era-defining advances in electronic hardware and digital software.

A tapestry of the scenes and subcultures that have proliferated in that febrile, sexy and contested space where man meets machine, Futuromania is an enthused listening guide that will propel readers towards adventures in sound. There is a lifetime of electronic listening here.©2024 Simon Reynolds

Critic reviews

A captivating celebration of the music that pushes us forward

Should be guaranteed a place on the bookshelf of everyone who claims to be a music lover

Read it and you will believe he believes in life after love

The deeper he digs, the better it gets - his explanation of Auto-tune is fascinating

Futuromania is a testament to our ever-changing imagination of what the future holds and whether radical sounds equate to radical politics

Beautiful, combining irresistible period detail with astute critical insight