Thomas Dolby

Though best known for his 1983 semi-novelty hit "She Blinded Me With Science," Thomas Dolby should be remembered for expanding synth pop into something more musically and emotionally complex than Gary Numan's ice-cold futurism. The son of a noted archeologist (early PR fancifully claimed he was born in Cairo while his father was on a dig), the former Thomas Morgan Robertson acquired the school nickname "Dolby" in his teens, due to his obsession with tape recorders. A career as a studio musician (working with cult figures Bruce Woolley, Robyn Hitchcock and Lene Lovich alongside higher-profile projects like Foreigner's 4 and Def Leppard's Pyromania) bankrolled his superlative 1982 debut The Golden Age Of Wireless. After the somewhat rushed follow-up The Flat Earth, Dolby moved primarily into soundtrack work and production jobs ranging from George Clinton and Whodini to Prefab Sprout and Joni Mitchell. Andy Partridge (who co-produced Dolby's 1981 debut single "Urges" b/w "Leipzig") claims Dolby was briefly considered to take the touring-averse Partridge's place onstage for XTC in the mid-1980s. In the 1990s, Dolby founded a company that created an improved file format for mobile phone ringtones, and has focused primarily on technology rather than music since.