''Synchro System'' is a 1983 album by

Nigeria Nigeria, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a country in West Africa. It is situated between the Sahel to the north and the Gulf of Guinea in the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It covers an area of . With Demographics of Nigeria, ...

n jùjú band King Sunny Adé and His African Beats. It was the second of

King Sunny Adé Chief Sunday Adeniyi Adegeye (born 22 September 1946), known professionally as King Sunny Adé, is a Nigerian jùjú singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist. He is regarded as one of the first African pop musicians to gain internationa ...

's three releases for

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...

, following on the heels of 1982's crossover success ''

Juju Music ''Juju Music'' is the 1982 major label debut of Nigerian jùjú band King Sunny Adé and His African Beats. It was produced by keyboard player Martin Meissonnier, who introduced synthesizers and Linn drums into Adé's established juju sound. ...

''. The title track is a re-recording of Adé's 1974 Nigerian hit of the same name. The album peaked at #91 on

Billboard's ''Billboard'' (stylized in lowercase since 2013) is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events and styles related to the ...

Pop Albums The ''Billboard'' 200 is a record chart ranking the 200 most popular music albums and EPs in the United States. It is published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine to convey the popularity of an artist or groups of artists. Sometimes, a recordi ...

" chart. It garnered Adé a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards, stylized as GRAMMY, and often referred to as The Grammys, are awards presented by The Recording Academy of the United States to recognize outstanding achievements in music. They are regarded by many as the most prestigious ...

nomination, a first for a Nigerian artist. It was re-released in 1990.

Recording

The album was Adé's first to be recorded in London. It was produced by

Martin Meissonnier Martin Meissonnier is a French musician, producer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is known for his work with African pop musicians such as Fela Kuti and King Sunny Adé and Khaled among other diverse artists. His producing and film directing credi ...

, who worked to taper Adé's sound to Western listeners by clearly distinguishing each element in the mix, including guitar riffs, "simmering" percussion, and vocals, which were then "thickened" with keyboard additions. The album features fewer

steel guitar A steel guitar () is any guitar played while moving a steel bar or similar hard object against plucked strings. The bar itself is called a "steel" and is the source of the name "steel guitar". The instrument differs from a conventional guitar i ...

contributions from Ademola Adepoju than its predecessor,Rolling Stone review
/ref> but like Adé's other early 1980s recordings, it employs

synthesizer A synthesizer (also synthesiser or synth) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

s and

drum machine A drum machine is an electronic musical instrument that creates percussion sounds, drum beats, and patterns. Drum machines may imitate drum kits or other percussion instruments, or produce unique sounds, such as synthesized electronic tones. A d ...

s. The album features more synthesizer lines and more distinctive "songs" with shorter track lengths than ''

'' (1982).

Critical reception

''Syncro System'' charted higher than the crossover success ''Juju Music''.Watrous, Peter. (September 13, 1990
Into Juju's ecstatic heart
''The New York Times''. Retrieved 29-01-08. Critic

Robert Christgau Robert Thomas Christgau ( ; born April 18, 1942) is an American music journalist and essayist. Among the most influential music critics, he began his career in the late 1960s as one of the earliest professional rock critics and later became a ...

credited Meissonnier with improving Adé's production for Western reception by “emphasizing discrete melodies and heating up the mix," calling the album "more conventionally unified" than its predecessor. Jonathan Gregg of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' opined that while this album held many of the same features as the former, it "does not quite match the excitement or subtlety" and did demonstrate limitations within the emerging genre.Gregg, Jonathan. (September 1, 1983
Synchro System
''

''. Retrieved 2008-06-17. In their 1990 book ''African Rock'', authors Chris Stapleton and Chris May call the album "the most satisfying of Ade's albums for

Island An island or isle is a piece of land, distinct from a continent, completely surrounded by water. There are continental islands, which were formed by being split from a continent by plate tectonics, and oceanic islands, which have never been ...

, carefully balancing Western and Nigerian elements," and called it "the first juju album to generate easy dancing on British floors." In 2007, ''The Mojo Collection'' refers to the album as "an abstract, a frozen picture of what the African Beats were like" which "still sounds intensely vivid." The album was ranked at number 10 among the "Albums of the Year" for 1983 by ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming and culture website, bimonthly magazine, and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a "Rock music, rock inkie", the ''NME'' would be ...

''.

Track listing

''All tracks composed by King Sunny Adé.'' #"Synchro Feelings - Ilako" – 5:36 #"Mo Ti Mo" – 5:31 #"Penkele" – 4:00 #"Maajo" – 4:10 #"Synchro System" – 6:27 #"E Saiye Re" – 3:29 #"Tolongo" – 3:19 #"E Wele" – 5:03 #"Synchro (Reprise)" – 1:27

Personnel

Performance

*Fatoke Abiodun –

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

agogô An agogô ( Yoruba: ''agogo'', meaning bell) is a single or a multiple bell now used throughout the world but with origins in traditional Yoruba and Edo music and also in the samba '' baterias'' (percussion ensembles). The agogô may be the olde ...

*Shina Abiodun –

conga The conga, also known as tumbadora, is a tall, narrow, single-headed drum from Cuba. Congas are staved like barrels and classified into three types: quinto (lead drum, highest), tres dos or tres golpes (middle), and tumba or salidor (lowest ...

–

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

, keyboards,

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

*Ademola Adepoju –

*Jacob Ajakaye – vocals *Moses Akanbi –

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

*John Akpan – guitar,

rhythm guitar In music performances, rhythm guitar is a guitar technique and role that performs a combination of two functions: to provide all or part of the rhythmic pulse (music), pulse in conjunction with other instruments from the rhythm section (e.g., d ...

*Rasaki Aladokun –

African drum Sub-Saharan African music is characterised by a "strong rhythmic interest" that exhibits common characteristics in all regions of this vast territory, so that Arthur Morris Jones (1889–1980) has described the many local approaches as constit ...

talking drum The talking drum is an hourglass-shaped drum from West Africa, which can be used as a form of speech surrogacy by regulating its pitch and rhythm to mimic the tone and prosody of human speech. It has two drumheads connected by leather t ...

*Gani Alashe – percussion,

shekere The shekere (from Yoruba Ṣẹ̀kẹ̀rẹ̀) is a percussion instrument consisting of a dried gourd with beads or cowries woven into a net covering the gourd. There are multiple ways to produce sounds with the instrument. It can be shaken or ...

*Michael Babalola –

maracas A maraca ( , , ), sometimes called shaker or chac-chac, is a rattle which appears in many genres of Caribbean and Latin music. It is shaken by a handle and usually played as part of a pair. Maracas, also known as tamaracas, were rattles of d ...

*Elder Osei Bonsu – guitar, percussion, motimo *Jonah Bonsu – keyboards *Tunde Demiola – vocals *Niyi Falaye – vocals *Segun Hori – guitar *Jelili Lawal –

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

– keyboards *Bob Ohiri – guitar *Alhaji Timmy Olaitan – drums, African drum, talking drum *Matthew Olojede – vocals *Femi Owomoyela – vocals

Production

Lynn Goldsmith Lynn Goldsmith (born 1948) is an American recording artist, film director, celebrity portrait photographer, and rock and roll photographer. She has also made fine art photography with conceptual images and her paintings. Taschen, Rizzoli, an ...

–

photography Photography is the visual arts, art, application, and practice of creating images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is empl ...

, cover photo *Godwin Logie –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

, mixing *

– producer, coordination *

Stephen Street Stephen Brian Street (born 29 March 1960 in Hackney, London) is an English record producer best known for his work with the Smiths, the Cranberries and Blur. Street collaborated with Morrissey on his debut album '' Viva Hate'' following the ...

– assistant engineer, mixing

References

{{Authority control King Sunny Adé albums 1983 albums