Synth Single Review: “Computer Love” by UFO1982 & Rogue FX

by Karl Magi

UFO1982 & Rogue FX’s “Computer Love” delves into a fixation on digital worlds and virtual relationships. A pumping underlayer is joined by orbiting melodic motion, while chimes add a blurring shimmer to start the song. Rogue FX captures the computerized, technologically based melody with precision as Oswaldo Gonzalez plays a blues-inflected lick which gives off a sapphire feeling.

Rogue FX’s vocal presence is full of confident sharpness as UFO1982 creates explosive energy, her synth lines crisp and clean. Oswaldo Gonzalez’s melodic line is graceful, and the chorus calls out with precise strength. The rhythm beats with steady insistence as twisting tones wander like an unsettling screensaver and the bass growls.

I enjoy the way in which UFO1982’s luscious background mixes with Rogue FX’s unique vocals and Oswaldo Gonzalez’s skillful playing to create enjoyable engagement. A rebounding rhythm drives forward as the guitar solo unfurls with noble muscle and sunset effulgence weaves through the music. The guitar flies with uplifting strength one more time before sailing into silence.

Mingled emotions flow through the narrator “as the virtual insanity takes shape.” The silicon chips in his head blur every moment, mashing together reality and fantasy in his “computer love.” As the systems take control and “real love’s getting old,” he loses his own self-control and feels “like it’s swallowing me whole.”

Now our storyteller has “computer love running through my veins, artificial love, different and the same.” He asks for the doctor to help him because “I’m burning up from the perfect motion.” His addiction is cursed and blessed as he has to get his “kicks online, in my private time.” He’s too weak to keep control, and he just wants to “hear your voice and how you say my name.”

There’s nothing physical; everything is artificial, and as the narrator boots up the program, “it’s removing all intelligence of thought.” However, he feels deep shame as, over and over again, computer love takes hold, and it is “systematically resuscitating me” with an electrical jolt. He points out that “this weird science has put the virus in me,” to the point that he’s become the virus, “and now the drama is real.”

As the song concludes, he says, “no more physics, physical love.”