So much nonsense in this thread, esp from people who think 80s was a waste. They clearly have heard one or two Best Of 80s CDs, the pop crap that's consistent across decades (except 70s, when pop was in fact excellent music) and made their ill-informed conclusion. The 80s had fabulous music, but what a Spotify or Tidal now would call "indie".
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.
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@bdp24 - being a power-pop fan, I saw The Beat several times - great stuff! I liked The Beat from England, too! |
Did either of you get to see The Beat? The American/Paul Collins Beat, of course. I saw them twice at The Whiskey in late-'79/early-'80, and they were fan-f*cking-tastic! They created as much kinetic energy as The Who, but had (imo) better songs and singing (I don't at all care for Roger Daltry's voice.). |
In the late Seventies and early Eighties, I did my best to find and listen to any band that didn't have hair down to their feet and that played endless blues solos. Short hair became as rebellious as long hair was just a few years before, and I truly reveled in the energy the short-haired bands wrought. My long-haired buddies thought I'd turned Republican when, to paraphrase David Crosby, I didn't "almost cut my hair." Then I saw a photo of the long-haired Ramones...uh, er, uh... |
@simonmoon and @edcyn: Which Moby Disc? I lived a few blocks from the one on Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks. In the mid-80’s Lucinda Williams worked there for awhile. I’d go in and there she was, standing behind the register, staring off into space. She was already playing around L.A. with her little 3-pc band: Gurf Morlix on Telecaster, David Lindley on drums, and Dr. John (a different one ;-) on bass. I saw them a few times, once in a little pizza parlor, playing to an audience of a half-dozen. The stage was so small Lindley had to play washboard instead of a drumset. The Moby Disc store manager---a very pleasant (and cute) young fella named Kip Brown---was in the Punk band Shock. I knew the band’s bass player (he worked at Licorice Pizza Records on Topanga Canyon Blvd. in Canoga Park) , and when Kip found out I was a Brian Wilson fanatic we developed a nice little friendship. Kip eventually left MD and opened his own shop, Ear Candy, still in Sherman Oaks. He’s been working on a book about James Dean since the late-90’s! |
@simonmoon -- Hey, I was a regular at Moby's. Excellent selection and interesting stuff played on the store's hi-fi. I may be imagining things, too, but do I remember a very interesting if small selection of classical? |
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. |
I think the claim that the 80's were fueled by the need to move away from prog, was vastly overstated. I think it was more to do with bands like Journey, Boston, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, etc. Prog bands like Van Der Graaf Generator, Peter Hammill, Magma, Henry Cow had a pretty big following among the musicians of the more experimental side of the 80's (PiL, Random Hold, This Heat, etc.). Also, prog is a lot more than what is depicted by ELP, Rick Wakeman wearing capes. So, tagging all prog with the words like: pomp, noodling, self-absorbed, etc., is not very accurate. Unless of course, one's only valid definition of "rock", is a stripped down, 3 chord, 4/4, musical form that requires extensive youthful energy, anger, alienation to convey. I was equally not a fan of most of the mainstream rock of the 70's, as I as of the rock of the 80's. Because, once the surface "style" is stripped away, structurally, it was all, 3 chord, 4/4, verse>chorus>bridge>repeat song structure. And that bores me, whether it is in the 'style' of: punk, the Stones, New Wave, Eagles, Journey, etc, I want: a very high level of musicianship, complexity, deep and broad range of emotional and intellectual content, avoidance of verse>chorus>bridge song structure. When the punk/New Wave vs 70's rock fray happened, I was working at a well known record store here in LA called, Moby Disc. They totally embraced punk and New Wave, specializing in importing obscure and rare releases from all over the world. The store was a major destination for punks and others to buy their hard to find records. And I certainly remember the (usually friendly) arguments between punks, New Wavers, SKA, Rockabilly fans about the superiority of their preferred genres. But I was a complete outsider to these discussions, because to me, they were all arguing over kind of small differences between genres, that, at their core, were really more similar than different. There are plenty of punk covers of 70's rock songs (Journey and the Eagles have plenty), but could one imagine a punk cover of the complexities of "Larks' Tongues in Aspic", "Dreams Wide Awake" by National Health, "Köhntarkösz" by Magma, or "Inca Roads" by Zappa?
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Unfortunately, change is the only constant in life. Like it or not, neither time nor the culture stands still. Just read that Facebook is "out" with the younger generation...soon another thing will be popular, just like any fad or "thing" that changes with each generation. As for music, my parents did NOT understand my complete fascination with Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show that night, or why I watched Bandstand to see the performers, who were hard to see in those days unless you went to a live show. This is the beauty of recorded music; we can choose to enjoy whatever we like. In the classic car hobby, it is well known by sellers that people tend to buy the car they loved when they were younger and could not afford. As a great teen/parent newspaper comic strip bubble once printed, "The malt shop closed a long time ago, Archie." Bubbles break all the time... |
One factor in the change between 1970’s music and 1980’s music comes down to a change in generational priorities of the listeners. A teacher-councillor that I knew said to me, in the 1980’s, “You don’t understand. They aren’t like your generation; that’s all gone. They don’t have that spirit of individualism or free thinking or rebellion. They come to me for advice and ask, ‘What’s the job that’ll make me the most money?’” |
@itissteve ++++1 |
@itissteve + 1 |
I read this entire thread and didn't see what I saw as the transition so I will offer this: - By the mid-to-late 70s rock became ponderous. Longer songs full of exposition and solos that were just indulgent, not necessarily a critical part of the work. - The rise of new recording techniques (including digital) and electronic versions of instruments (sythesizers, keytars, etc) created new sounds that weren't adopted readily by the old guard rock bands - MTV was a huge game changer. Their need tor content drove them to pick up bands which saw value in telling visual stories with their music. Video was already a bigger thing in Britain and Europe than it was in the U.S. so a lot of bands from those countries were picked up when otherwise they might have languished, unheard by Americans. - Bands on MTV challenged the assumptions of many listeners. Much more danceable music than your average AOR band deep cut. Musicians who weren't afraid to incorporate outside influences, like The Selecter and Joe Jackson. Think what you will of the appearance of the musicians in Adam Ant's band or in Culture Club or Flock of Seagulls but they made great danceable music despite their "non-standard" appearance and ambiguous genders. The Bangles and Go-Gos proved women could rock without having to all wear the same dresses and hairstyles. To me, the music of the 80s was a breath of cold fresh air in an airless landscape stifled by AOR album cuts and disco's 80 Hz bass thump. Certainly there were hits which were not to be taken seriously ("Shiny Shiny" anyone?). But every "decade" had those. 80s music brought back forgotten elements of rock like danceability and predecessor genres like skiffle and rockabilly. I was a serious student of popular music in the 70s but the 80s made me sit up and take notice. |
Thanks for the tip. Will check them out tomorrow. I really do appreciate it since I'm just diving into it. Always loved the power in music starting with hard rock like Sabbath. Now thought of as precursors to metal. Yello has some of that power with incredible electronic sounds. Also enjoying the Israeli duo infected mushroom, killer beats. |
been a metal head pretty much since I was 12-13 also listened to my parents records, beach boys, John winter, Donovan, etc etc ,my old friend “Asit” RIP, my brother! We were roomies at military school, I would play mercyful fate, Sodom, Motörhead,…..he played mostly ambient, industrial stuff, wild stuff, when he passed, I ended up with all his LPs, mostly some rap and very early club dance music. way back, we DJ’d cricket hill in Chicago for pot fest, played his ambient, industrial, with a few metal songs thrown in, Bathory, pestilence, loudness. For 1 day, the police were cool, they would light joints for whoever needed it. Good times. anyway, if you haven’t heard, you MUST check out CHROME AND HELIOS CREED. amazing stuff
greatmweekend |
I always thought of the eighties as the big hair band era. And it completely turned me off. However, since I now listen to a lot of electronic music, I have discovered an absolute genius of the genre which makes me now think the 80s were one of the best decade in new music you can find. His name is Boris Blank. He is from Switzerland and his band is YELLO. Absolutely fantastic music starting in 1980 and has lasted over 40 years. If you truly have an audiophile system that can go DEEP, I assure you that you will never hear better sound on it than Boris Blank and Yello. |
Maybe we will get lucky and some of the truly talented, like Ed Sheeran, will get together with some other talented people and form a band. One can always hope. He is one of the bright lights.
We probably need a new business model to drive real change @moonwatcher |
@theaudiomaniac I just wonder if and when the current infatuation with singer-centric pop music will fade? I listen to some of it (it’s unavoidable), but have moved on to jazz, electronica, jamband, Americana, classical and other genres of music. At some point I’ve heard enough "ooh baby I love you" songs to last a lifetime. We used to deride that stuff as "bubble gum pop". |
@moonwatcher , I would say rock has evolved. 21 Pilots, One Republic, even Imagine Dragons and Billie Eilish are essentially a modern version of rock for their popular songs. What I see the issue with modern music media (many younger writers) is their definition of rock is often more what I would call "rock noise" than rock. Look at the Billboard top 20 of the late 60's, early 70's. The majority of the songs are not what we would really call rock. |
@bdp24 - Yep, speed would appear to be the GD's choice back in those days - just listen to the first GD studio album! Might also have been literal speed as they had to get it done fast! |
@theaudiomaniac yes, New Wave was a neat off-shoot genre. I loved those sounds. I still love legitimate rock and roll and even a little Metal. Many YouTube channels out there say you CAN find rock music still being made today, but you'll have to go looking for it. It won't be found on FM radio. |
@moonwatcher , for all the popularity of Michael Jackson in the 80's, and all the New Wave bands, that certainly drove the buying habits of youth, the top selling artists were mostly identifiable with rock. Not exclusively, but mostly, and certainly up to about 87/88. Things really shifted after that. |
MTV did change what younger people wanted in "music" on August 1st, 1981, creating an outlet for bands that LOOKED (and sounded) good on TV. But as others note, rock music started becoming pompous and self-important in the 1973-1977 years. And a lot of the founding bands of rock from the 1960s were getting long in the tooth. A lot of 15 to 22 year olds don’t particularly care about listening to what 40 year old guys want to say or sing about. |
I am not sure the posts definition of AOR is correct: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Album-oriented_rock |
Am glad to see somebody finally mentioned Roxy Music (Bryan Ferry as a solo act got mentioned early in the thread). A few others that have slipped under the radar include: Art of Noise, The Beautiful South, Bow Wow Wow, Jim Carroll, House of Freaks, It's Immaterial, Pixies, The Stranglers, Talk Talk, Teardrop Explodes, Throwing Muses and the Violent Femmes. |
edcyn - One of my favorite quotes is from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients." A big reason why I liked the music of the late 70's thru the 80's was that I thought those bands were taking their influences and creating a new and interesting take on what had influenced them. Bands influenced by the Beatles included: The Bongos, Grapes of Wrath, The Smiths and XTC. Bands influenced by the Rolling Stones included: The Del Fuegos and The Replacements. And, there were a ton of bands that were influenced by the garage/psychedelic bands of the 60's such as: Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, Hoodoo Gurus, XTC (+ alter ego The Dukes of Stratosphere), along with the Paisley Underground scene in LA (Bangles, Green on Red, Plimsouls, etc). But, to me, I think Be Bop Deluxe had the craziest and probably most inspired idea to attempt fusing prog rock (Yes) with glam (Bowie & T-Rex).When it worked it was brilliant and when it didn't, it was a train wreck! |
Top recording artists of the 80’s: Micheal Jackson, Prince, Madonna, U2, Springsteen, Van Halen, Billy Joel, Police, Phil Collins, Def Leopard, George Michael, Janet Jackson, Whipme Houston, Dire Straights, Rush, Lionel Richie, Talking Heads, Genesis, REM, Duran Duran, Motley Crue, Cure, Journey, REO, Tina Turner, Queen, Bryan Adams, Pat Benetar, Peter Gabriel, INXS, Tom Petty, Eurythmics, Cars, Aerosmith, ZZTOP, Billy Idol, Heart, Bowie, Elton John, Rod Stewart, Foreigner, Toto, Bob Seger, Fleetwood Mac, Gogos, Pet Shop Boys, Cyndie Lauper, Depeche Mode, Culture Club, Thompson Twins, Robert Palmer, Billy Ocean, Steve Winwood,
Crummy decade for music? Tell that to anyone who grew up in the 80’s. Unlike later generations, almost all will say the 80’s was the best decade for music ever. It had everything and anything from pop, to disco, to dance to hard rock and everything in between. It was probably the last decade to not be totally ruined by platform/genre radio. |
mitchagain -- Thanks for bringing up Be Bop Deluxe. I might have mentioned all this in a long-ago thread, but I enjoyed the heck out of them. Bill Nelson remains one of my favorite guitar players. Virtuosity to spare but decidedly un-serious. Another of the fret-flyers that got me into shopping for an electric guitar. Saw the band at the Santa Monica Civic. As the concert wound down, Bill Nelson promised to play until we asked them to stop. I hate to say it, but in the middle of one more endless waddly-widdly guitar solo my feet decided to to wander back to my car.. One too many hot licks for this poor guy to take. |
I love that when in France during the 1965-6 world tour with The Hawks, Dylan hung a giant American flag on the wall behind the stage. The war in Vietnam was gaining in unpopularity in the USA by then, but was already very unpopular in the rest of the western world. Dylan was letting the frogs know he was playing American music, and was proud of it. "Play Loud" (what Dylan told Hawks drummer Mickey Jones) is how Bob responded to the booing of those who disapproved of him abandoning purely solo acoustic guitar and singing. |
@edcyn Art pursuant of intellectual and emotional honesty and truth, rendered with intelligence, artistic bravery, and sensitivity is “fun as heck.” Art that induces pleasure without insulting my intelligence is “fun as heck.” Are these ideas the defining criteria of “good” for most studio heads? Is their definition of “good” not at least a little influenced by a product’s viability as a commodity? After watching what studios provide funding for, I have a sneaking suspicion that studio heads and I have very different definitions of “good.”
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I’ve probably said this a half-dozen times before on various threads, but sometimes you just have to rely on your subjective impulse and ignore the intellectual folderol we so often use to bolster our arguments on art & music. When I worked in the movie biz reading & evaluating movie scripts and other literary material for possible filming, the head of the studio would sometimes phone me up and simply ask, "Is it good?"
By the same token, though, it can definitely be fun as heck to dutifully count the angels on the head of that pin. |
@bdp24 ”Authoritarians hate intelligence.” Ain’t it the truth. Authoritarianism, in practice, has obviously yielded bad results throughout history. But an individual adopting authoritarian thinking, while perhaps not actually making laws or issuing tangible punishment to dissenters, is also destructive. This type of thinking is immune to political ideology. An artist like the Velvet Underground who says, “we don’t cotton to this trendy hippy nonsense. We are going to do our own thing,” is reviled because of their distinct break with the prevailing trend. The authoritarian thinking here is, “we don’t wear all-black, leather and shades. We don’t do that around here. We wear paisley, tie dye, bell-bottoms, and denim. We don’t sing honest depictions of S&M, heroin and amphetamine use, sodomy, transgenderism, and violence. We sing songs about being anti-war, pro-peace/love, and pro-hallucinogen and pot use. We do make exceptions for Northerners and Californians appropriating rural southern/Appalachian sounds à la The Band and Sweetheart of the Rodeo. We also make exceptions for Brits appropriating southern rural American blues sounds à la The Yardbirds, Cream, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and John Mayall and the Blues Breakers.” Wouldn’t ya know it…50 years later, those VU albums are considered pop music milestones and no one today gives a hoot ‘n heck about Country Joe and the Fish and the Flying Burrito Brothers. Dylan, of all people, had to deal with virulent opposition to his artistic choices. For the egregious crime of having electric guitars, organ/piano, bass and drums in lieu of a solitary acoustic guitar and braying harmonica, and choosing to sing lyrics that were not explicit, pointed critiques of injustice and social ills, he was charged with being a sell-out, a heretic, and a traitor. Wouldn’t ya know it…the majority of people today will listen to Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde 20 times before giving a solitary spin to The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan or The Times They Are a-Changin’. The group-think that typifies an all-too-consequential contingent of today’s population is very similar to these things from the ‘60s. Any artist who deviates from the established dogma and orthodoxy of speech and ideation is branded as a conservative, a bigot, and a social problem. Any question posed to these precepts, regardless of its validity, is deemed an act tantamount to tacit endorsement of bigotry, hatred, and modern conservative ideology.
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I was also very much into Television. That is the band that made me want to pick up a guitar and start playing. I really like both guitarists but appreciate Richard Lloyd's playing the best. I also like XTC although I initially didn't go beyond Drums and Wires much. I've picked up several of there albums since then and really enjoyed them. Todd Rundgren was sort of right about them making their records too complicated for normal listeners because they weren't having to play the songs live when he produced Skylarking but I still like all of their stuff including the stuff with a lot of details.
There are way too many great 80s underground bands and I keep thinking of more like The Only Ones, Wire (both started in the 70s along with Gang of Four), someone else caught The the, Bahaus, The Cramps, Psychedelic Furs, PiL, Visage, Prefab Sprout, OMD, Bill Nelson, The Sugarcubes, The Jack Rubies, Yello, Wreckless Eric, Stiff Little Fingers, Jane's Addiction, Let's Active, The Primitives, Madness, and The Residents. |
@larsman: "Who’s to say it was wrong"? It was Clapton! Of course many of his then peers didn’t agree with Eric, and continued down the path Clapton decided to veer off of. Jimmie Page certainly didn’t agree, and his new band after The Yardbirds ended (a band whose original guitarist was of course Clapton, followed by Jeff Beck!) pretty much set the course and created the template for the future of Rock bands. Ironically, Robert Plant is now making music much more like that of The Band than that of Led Zeppelin. He finally "grew up" ;-) . You’re right, there was a lot of Country-Rock going on in 1968. Dylan with his John Wesley Harding album, The Byrds with their Sweetheart Of The Rodeo, and then The Flying Burritos after Chris Hillman and Gram Parsons left the former. After the breakup of Buffalo Springfield, Richie Furay started Poco. But all those bands were far more Country than Rock. On the other hand, The Band was not at all a Country group. They were equal parts R & B, Blues, Gospel, Brill Building Pop, 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll, Hillbilly, Jazz, and just about every other strain of American music. That’s why they are credited with creating the genre now referred to as Americana. By the way, Elton John and Bernie Taupin have stated that in their Tumbleweed Connection album they were trying to sound like The Band's brown album. Neil Young said the same about his Harvest album, and he was obviously thrilled to death to be on stage with The Band in the Last Waltz concert. I saw The Dead live only once, on a flatbed truck in the panhandle in Golden Gate Park in the Summer Of Love (1967). Also performing that day were Jefferson Airplane (hot!) and Country Joe And The Fish (cold). At that time The Dead still sounded like their drug of choice was speed, kind of a biker band. Pig Pen was singing,and playing a Farfisa organ, so they had that Garage Band sound heard on their debut album.
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@bdp24 - I also really liked Television, and got to see both them and XTC (before Andy Partridge quit touring because of stage fright). Captain Beefheart, too.... But I'm wondering what you meant by Clapton 'realizing he and his peers had been heading down the wrong path'? What path had they been on, and who's to say it was wrong? If it was wrong for Clapton, that wouldn't necessarily apply to his peers. The Dead did indeed put out 'Workingman's Dead' and 'American Beauty', but there was a lot of country-rock going on at the time, so not surprising. I always found those albums pointless, but I regard all Grateful Dead studio albums to be pointless! 😁 But I know a lot of people like them. They're all about playing live gigs and those songs are still great! |
@tylermunns: One somewhat-artsy New York band I love is Television; their debut album is stunning. On the other hand, I have known a lot of musicians (and civilians) who love XTC, whom, try as I might, I just couldn’t cozy up to. Music is SO subjective and personal. Which is fine, nothing wrong with that. I had Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica album for a while (it’s no longer in my music library), and even went to see him at The Roxy Theater in ’78. It’s hard to believe he and Ry Cooder were in a band together ;-) . It was when I heard J.S. Bach’s Concerto For 4 Harpsichords And Orchestra that I learned the music I deeply hungered for was not the Stravinsky and Penderecki I thought it was---you know, "weird" music---but rather that composed by a deeply religious/spiritual man. And though his music sounds more "formal’" that that of S & P, it is actually more radical. Subversive on a deeper level. Authoritarians hate intelligence ;-) . In much the same way, it was Eric Clapton hearing Music From Big Pink that made him realize he and his peers had been heading down the wrong path. As he has said, hearing that album was for him an epiphany; it’s not about you man, it’s about the song. It put the lie to Jagger & Richards "The Singer Not The Song". Just as Bach is more radical and revolutionary (on the deepest level, not the surface) than any of the 20th Century composers, The Band were more so than any of the late-60’s psychedelic bands, no matter how "out there" the latter sounded. Even The Grateful Dead temporarily wised up (if you don't think Workingman's Dead is a reaction to the first two Band albums, you aren't listening close enough). At least that’s how "good" musicians see it ;-) . |
@bdp24 Regarding why only the most popular stuff is used to generalize an entire era; people are lazy. It’s easier to point to the very surface and say, “well, that’s that THAT was all about.” It’s easier to regurgitate media-bred mythology and calcified narratives than engage in actual research and actual learning. So you hear the same oversimplified, clichéd media mythologies over and over: “rock became too wanky so punk came along and…blah, blah, blah…” “rock became too corporate and misogynistic so grunge came along…blah, blah, blah.” Apart from a few arty ‘60s New Yorkers, the Velvet Underground were HATED. Now they are considered one of the very best bands of the era. For my money, their music is so much better, and holds up so much better than the likes of…well, I could go on and on and on and on with late-‘60s artists who enjoyed far, far more success (any way one could define success) than the Velvet Underground. I sometimes worry I may be missing out on the Velvet Underground of this era.
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Say, am I alone in noticing the contradiction in Mike’s argument? First he cites the decline of album-orientated artists/bands in the 1980’s as the reason for that decade being a musical wasteland, then predicts that the decade will be forgotten because of it’s lack of classic singles that will be played on the radio. Schizophrenia, anyone? ;-) So his yardstick for determining the quality of any music made is by whether or not it gets played on the radio?! There was a lot of great music made in the 1970’s which never received any airplay (the 60’s too), music now considered classic. The same with the 1980’s (just look at all the names posted above). Geez, what a weak, weak argument. Unless of course one’s only source of music is the radio. But that would make one pathetic, right? No one here like that, right? A lot of the "best" music made in the 70’s and 80’s (as well as other decades) was known and appreciated only by cult-sized audiences. Pet Sounds was a flop when it was released in 1966 (I didn’t buy it), and is now considered one of the greatest albums of all time (Paul McCartney cites it as his favorite). The same is true of the audiences for Jazz and Classical. Why is the popularity of only Rock bands being used to examine any question about a given decades musical quality? |
Seems like a lot of fancy talk here when it seems pretty simple to me. The ‘80s we’re just kind of weird, trend-wise. Garish, ostentatious, tacky, with arguably the most pungent visual and aural signifiers of any era. Like any era, it’s not necessarily defined by its worst stuff. Popular-wise, the late-90s early ‘00s were dreadful. But there was some great stuff from that time also that holds up extremely well. |
I'd agree with some of the posters mentioning stoner burnout. For boomers early 70's beginning of drug usage years, still lots of energy in youth culture, early 70's rock reflected this. By mid to late 70's, years of drug use was beginning to show it's toll, less energy and vitality in youth culture, again reflected in the music.
This state of affairs led to many rebelling against the same old, same old, we turned to new genres like disco, punk to provide energy, vitality. This morphed into more genres like modern rock, hard core in the 80's.
Think about correlation between drugs and music, more depressant oriented drugs in 70's, stimulant oriented in 80's, very much reflected in music. |
The new bands of the late 70's and early 80's had much to rebel against, whether it was disco, bombastic prog rock (ELP, etc) or what was being labeled as corporate rock (Boston, REO, etc). Many will argue that rebellion of some kind is essential for good rock music. Here's some more late 70's and early 80's bands that I don't think have been mentioned yet: Be-bop Deluxe, Billy Bragg, The Blue Nile, The Bongos, The Church, Concrete Blonde, The Connels, The DB's, The Divinyls, Don Dixon, Thomas Dolby, Echo and the Bunnymen, Everything But The Girl, Fetchin' Bones, Grapes of Wrath, Hoodoo Gurus, House of Love, Hunters & Collectors, Icehouse, Joe Jackson, Robin Lane & the Chartbusters, Midnight Oil, The Pretenders, The Railway Children, The Replacements, The Shoes, The Silencers, The Smithereens, The Spoons (Canadian band), The The (my vote for the greatest band name), Translator, The Waterboys and Was Not Was.
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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.
[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 |
@dz13 - great selection!! You've listed a lot of my faves.... |
Not just disco, though was plenty of fine disco. There was also something called punk rock that happened towards the mid- to late- 70's, and that had quite a bit of influence and caused more than a few changes in the culture. And hip-hop came along and really turned things around and became the dominant genre. And I'm not quite sure that the 60's was all about 'love, peace, and understanding'.... |