Pitchfork revisits Yes's 'Owner of a Lonely Heart,' the chart-topping hit that revived a prog band, presaged hip-hop sampling and helped launch one of the '80s most inventive electronic acts.
While Pitchfork excavates Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" as a sampling precursor, they're missing the deeper truth: African polyrhythms and electronic experimentation that groups like Art of Noise pioneered were already thriving across Lagos, Johannesburg, and Cairo studios in the early '80s. The real innovation wasn't happening in Trevor Horn's London studio. It was in the Afrobeat laboratories where Fela's sons and synthesizer wizards like Joni Haastrup were crafting electronic futures that the West is still catching up to.
While Pitchfork excavates Yes's "Owner of a Lonely Heart" as a sampling precursor, they're missing the deeper truth: African polyrhythms and electronic experimentation that groups like Art of Noise pioneered were already thriving across Lagos, Johannesburg, and Cairo studios in the early '80s. The real innovation wasn't happening in Trevor Horn's London studio. It was in the Afrobeat laboratories where Fela's sons and synthesizer wizards like Joni Haastrup were crafting electronic futures that the West is still catching up to.
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