Progressive 80’s pop / sophisti-pop

Many of the bands mentioned, are already listed at PA.
 

Not necessarily from the 1980’s, but “80’s” conveys the heavy use of digital synthesiser and programmed sequences that I’d personally like to hear.

you're right, maybe ask Keishiro for help. 

This was lost almost immediately after I posted it. I know you checked out, and enjoyed The Opium Cartel. Did you give Laughing Stock a listen? No worries if you did, and it didn’t do it for you. I know they don’t quite fit the bill. 😄

Laughing Stock’s ‘The Island’ wasn’t as interesting to me, sorry to say. The most interesting tracks were those which jammed different genres together, e.g. “That Face.” But Laughing Stock indulged too much in the tendency to extend tracks unnecessarily, without compensatory musical development or introduction of material. Most distracting were the lyrics, which were (I think) self-consciously silly. Vis a vis this thread, on the whole I didn’t hear as much of an 80’s influence on this album. I’ll give it another listen, as these are obviously fine musicians who crafted a technically accomplished album with plenty of advanced ideas.

Haven't heard that one but their album "The Last Broadcast" has prog elements, even a bit of King Crimson's Moonchild.

I recently started going through the top 5000 albums on the rate your music site(the all time list) and writing down the ones that I have heard of or that I haven't heard of but look interesting to me(based on genre and description)and the Divine Comedy were one that  popped up(I don't remember what number or which album(s) though). The Doves might have popped up too I'm not sure. 

I'm not actually a rater on there but I do use the site a lot to check out ratings. I also use allmusic sometimes. I wonder how many younger music fans discovered close to the edge because of rym or prog in general. Anyway, I will keep those divine comedy albums in mind. Baroque pop seems like an interesting genre to me. 

My fav album by Donald Fagen!