Synthpop (also known as
electropop and
technopop) is a genre of popular music that first became prominent
in the 1980s and features the
synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s and early 1970s by the use of synthesizers in
progressive rock, electronic art rock,
disco and particularly the "
Krautrock" of bands like
Kraftwerk. It arose as a distinct genre in Japan and the United Kingdom in the
post-punk era as part of the
new wave movement of the late-1970s to the mid-1980s.