The Golden Age of Wireless

The music of "Europa and the Pirate Twins" is a deliberate merging of past and present, combining modern synthesizers with blues harmonica playing and electronic percussion with handclaps.[5] The central character in "Radio Silence" is a personification of Radio Caroline, a 1960s British pirate radio station.[5]

Preceding the album, Dolby allowed a demo of "Airwaves" to be included on a collection titled From Brussels with Love, published in December 1980 by Belgian label Les Disques Du Crépuscule. In response to friends urging him to put out a single, Dolby released his first 45 rpm 7-inch single – "Urges" backed by "Leipzig" – on 18 February 1981.[2] The single was co-produced by Andy Partridge of XTC through Armageddon Records. Partridge also played percussion. Sounds magazine reviewed "Urges" positively, calling Dolby a "new romantic... A Futurist Rundgren perhaps?"[1] None of these songs were announced as singles for an upcoming album, but later they appeared on certain formats of Golden Age of Wireless.

While working on Golden Age of Wireless, Dolby was involved in side projects. He wrote the song "New Toy" for Lene Lovich, about his new Fairlight CMI synthesizer.[6] In May 1981, Dolby produced the single "Dream Soldiers" by the Fallout Club, a band in which Dolby sang and played synthesizers. The Fallout Club was signed to Happy Birthday Records.[7] In August, Dolby released the single "The Jungle Line" under the artist name Low Noise, his own project on Happy Birthday Records. He was inspired to write "The Jungle Line" after hearing Joni Mitchell's song of the same name on her 1975 album The Hissing of Summer Lawns.[8] The Fallout Club disbanded toward the end of 1981.[9] Dolby played live shows in London, including dates at the Heaven and the Albany Empire in April 1982.[10]

Three more of Dolby's songs appeared in late '81 and early '82. "Europa and the Pirate Twins" came out on 15 September 1981 as another independent Dolby single,[11] "Airwaves" hit on 30 January 1982, and "Radio Silence" was released on 25 March accompanied by the announcement of the upcoming album.[2] Finally, The Golden Age of Wireless album was released on 13 May 1982.[2] EMI Records manufactured and distributed these singles and the album, supporting Dolby's own Venice in Peril (VIP) label. VIP was named for the steady process of Venice sinking under water. Dolby said he would donate part of the label profits to stop the flooding of Venice.[6]

Golden Age of Wireless was released five times, in different formats and layouts. All five releases appeared on vinyl, but only the third and fifth versions appeared on CD, with each changing the order of the songs, replacing the album mixes with extended or single mixes and even adding and removing entire songs. In the case of "Radio Silence", a completely different recording with prominent guitars was the version used on the early US incarnations.

The first US version, issued by Capitol-EMI's Harvest imprint, excised the instrumental "The Wreck of the Fairchild" and added the two sides of Dolby's first single, "Leipzig" and "Urges". Additionally, Capitol swapped the original synthpop version of "Radio Silence" for a more rock-oriented version that had previously only been available as a single B-side in the UK.[12] Capitol also opted for the single edit of "Airwaves" and abandoned the original UK "comic book" cover in favour of a shot of Dolby on a stage during the production of Bertholt Brecht's "Galileo". This image had previously been used as the cover of the "Europa and the Pirate Twins" single in the UK.

When Dolby released the single "She Blinded Me with Science" backed by "One of our Submarines" on 23 October 1982[2] – complete with a music video for the A-side – Capitol removed "Urges" and "Leipzig", added the extended version of "Science" (also known as the "U.S. Mix") and "Submarines", and changed the album's cover art back to its original "comic book" design. Capitol also swapped the full-length version of "Windpower" for the single version (with an edited intro and outro). The Golden Age of Wireless sold very well in the US and "She Blinded Me with Science" became a major hit, with constant radio and MTV airplay.

In 1983, Dolby's UK record label, Venice in Peril, followed suit and reissued the album with a similar track listing to the second US version. They opted for the short single version of "Science" but retained the full-length versions of "Airwaves" and "Windpower" and the original synthesizer-driven version of "Radio Silence", just as all three had appeared on the first UK edition. This is the edition that is widely available on CD to this day, on both sides of the Atlantic.

A remastered "Collector's Edition" of The Golden Age of Wireless was released on 13 July 2009, complete with bonus tracks, personal sleeve notes and a DVD of the Live Wireless music video.