Biography
Exclusive for mainland Europe! UK’s New Wave icon live in concert at W-Festival 2024 on Saturday 24 August: Thomas Dolby
His concert at W-Festival 2024 is certainly one not to miss for the fans since this will be his 3rd time in Belgium! Thomas Dolby has only performed live twice in Belgium before in 1984 at Hof Ter Lo and in 2012 at the Ancienne Belgique in Brussels.
The list of breakthrough innovations in Thomas Dolby’s 35 year career is continuous. As an early MTV icon he blazed a trail for electronic music with his imaginative videos. The same year as his own record reached the top of the pop/dance charts, he co-wrote and produced the first ever platinum-selling rap 12” single Magic’s Wand by Whodini. His synth playing and production have graced the recordings of Foreigner, Def Lepperd, George Clinton and Joni Mitchell, earning five Grammy™ nominations. He appeared live with Stevie Wonder and Herbie Hancock, with David Bowie at Live Aid, and with Roger Waters at The Wall in Berlin. And his self-penned ‘She Blinded Me With Science’ became a Top 5 Billboard hit, going on to become an evergreen geek anthem of the 1980s that still pops up in Grand Theft Auto, The Big Bang Theory and Breaking Bad.
Thomas has created original music for features films produced by George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Ken Russell; he has appeared with The Muppets, and on numerous TV shows from Soul Train to The Late Show.
Sought after as a consultant for tech startups and research companies, Dolby seemed to have a hand in every emerging entertainment platform, from laser disks and computer games to interactive TV, virtual reality installations and location-based entertainment. His name is on multiple US patents, and he has worked as an investment advisor for top venture capital firms. During the early Silicon Valley internet explosion, Thomas founded high tech startup Beatnik Inc and co-created the code that drove interactive audio in Java. When mobile phones began to play polyphonic ringtones, it was via his BAE technology, which Beatnik licensed to phone manufacturers to be embedded in over two billion cellular phones and devices.
Between adding music to the mix as in-house Music Director of every TED Conference from 2001-12, Thomas taught himself to be a digital filmmaker; and in 2013 he won multiple awards for his groundbreaking film The Invisible Lighthouse, which chronicles the closure of a 250 year old lighthouse visible from his coastal home in Suffolk, UK.
Since Fall 2014 Thomas has held the post Professor of Music for New Media at Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute in Baltimore, MD. He has recently released his best-selling memoir in 2017 The Speed Of Sound (Macmillan/Flatiron) and plans to release his first novel in Summer 2024.
2024 will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of his album The Flat Earth, which included hits ‘Hyperactive!’ and ‘I Scare Myself’.
40th anniversary of The Flat Earth
Thomas Dolby’s iconic album The Flat Earth, released in February 1984 will celebrate it’s 40th anniversary in 2024! The album is his second studio album and features hit singles “Hyperactive!”, “I Scare Myself” and “Dissidents”.
The Flat Earth peaked at #14 on the UK Albums Chart. The first single from the album was “Hyperactive!”, which peaked at No. 17 in the UK Singles Chart, making it Dolby’s highest-charting single in his home country. Second and third singles, “I Scare Myself” and “Dissidents“, peaked at #46 and #90, respectively. The album charted at #35 in America.
Tracklist original LP release:
1. Dissidents
2. The Flat Earth
3. Screen Kiss
4. White City
5. Mulu The Rain Forest
6. I Scare Myself
7. Hyperactive!
