Some folks (or one) will flag this as usual as they see no added value or have inner hate - hmm, esta la vida as we say in "German".
My love for electronic sounds started with some of these acts
Starting above with a killer project early 1980ies - Visage was linked to the Depeche Mode scene as people know (I could repeat what i wrote years ago but guys such as @steevc or @slobberchops will remember and obviously know more about them) - other cool project (I still have my red 45er vinyl at home) was Yazoo (also the keyboard guy was linked, even member of Depeche Mode, singer became more famous even after Yazoo).
But these Brits had even more cool stuff that enriched our music world - Anne Clark was even part of my school lesson as we used her tracks to learn English as a language (probably as our English teacher had a special favour) - I was no huge fan but after the years I liked it more and more.
I will not bother to write a lot more about her and my experience as simply adding YT links to a post seems to trigger my special friend lol.
Just saying this track "Sleeper in Metropolis" is to me a key track that paved the way for Techno, similar to the old Kraftwek sounds from Berlin.
I am still thrilled by the typical German English speaking - you realize directly they are no native speakers, but fine i think, an issue people also have on the chain, they are not perfect in English.
More old stuff - Italian sounds bei Giorgio Moroder
Think i did not post about him yet hence allow me two sentences - he is from Tirol, North of Italy, they speak German and Italian, Giorgio created a lot anthemns for Hollywood movies (and was called a first good father of electronic music end of the 1970ies.
He played in similar genre like Jean Michel Jarre (France, awesome synthi anthems - check at the end).
My main remembering sound was the one from the official album for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles (became a mainstream chartbreaker) - the first Olympics I was watching 2-3 weeks any event.
Some French synthi sounds
As announced a bit from Jean-Michel Jarre, a true pioneer for electronic anthems - I could do posts about him - but will stay away as some might flag me down to zero again - he was a role model of my first synthi experience as a schhol kid - and this still sounds like it could have been produced today or in the future.
