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How did 70s rock music transition into 80s music?

80s music appeared to be a re-visitation of the beginning of Rock — when "singles" ruled the AM radio. In those early days, in the event that a craftsman had a hit, he/she could get to record an "collection" (when those modern LP records appeared). A LP could have two hits and 10 tunes of forgettable filler melodies. Most craftsmen were characterized by their hit singles.

The 60s and 70s saw an ascent in FM radio and AOR (Album Oriented Rock) which gave numerous specialists the opportunity to make bigger works, or gatherings of melodies which frequently remained all in all work, and empowered a more extended tuning in/focus time. Beside funk and disco dance hits, the 70s inclined towards Album Oriented Rock.

The 80s saw a swing away from longer works and AOR, and back towards snappy singles. I'd say MTV had a great deal to do with the progress to 80s music. ("Video killed the radio star"):

MTV presented many gatherings who had fantastic singles, yet probably won't have accomplished acknowledgment without MTV video openness: Squeeze, The Vapors, Duran, Adam and the Ants, the B-52s, The Cars — to give some examples. (Note, I said "may" — yet that is my hypothesis.)
MTV constrained many long settled stars — David Bowie, Rod Stewart, even The Rolling Stones — to make video-commendable tunes. (That is — SINGLES.)
Peter Gabriel is a story regardless of anyone else's opinion. He was genuinely known from his Genesis Days — yet those astonishing recordings of "For sure" and "Demolition hammer" certainly kicked him into the super frightening.
MTV — after a ton of asking, cajoling, and dangers — at last changed their bigoted whites-just strategy, and began broadcasting recordings by people like Michael Jackson and Prince — presenting various dark craftsman to a lot bigger crowd.
In outline, I think MTV during the 80s — and later the Internet and YouTube — abbreviated individuals' capacity to focus, made a market weighty on short snappy singles, and made it progressively hard for craftsman to make "collections" which would allow them an opportunity to introduce their bigger vision.

davidjohan

Showing 2 responses by cd318

cd318
2,636 posts
 

My take is that the 70s were merely a fallout from the 60s until the Sex Pistols appeared to give rock a back to basics skiffle type shakeup.

The introduction of multi-track recording (plus the increasing use of synths) had done a lot to drain the music of a sense of urgency which punk/new wave restored.

Like the Velvet Underground before them, countless bands said they had been inspired by watching the Pistols live.


You could argue that bands like the Velvets, MC5 and the New York Dolls were all years ahead of their contemporaries, but it didn’t do them much good if they were seeking chart success, their music didn’t translate to what was happening elsewhere.

[The 1973 OPEC oil crisis would soon fix all of that].

This ’new wave’ culminated with the music of the Smiths during the 1980s. Of all the 80s bands, none pushed the musical and lyrical envelope in the same way Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce did.

After that, it’s difficult to say whether anything new, outside rap, which arguably took getting back to basics even further than punk did, happened.

 

 

https://openculture.com/2015/06/the-sex-pistols-1976-manchester-gig-that-changed-the-world.html

cd318
2,636 posts
 

@prndlus

One factor in the change between 1970’s music and 1980’s music comes down to a change in generational priorities of the listeners.

 

Elusive qualities such as the so called 'spirit of the age' are extremely difficult to pin down and they often get deleted from the history books.

One of those 'you had to be there' things.

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