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

How anyone can dismiss a decade during which Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits, Paul Simon, Steve Winwood, Stevie Ray Vaughan, David Bowie, Rodney Crowell, Lyle Lovett, The Clash, and plenty of others (nice list @tylermunns! I could name a coupla dozen more if I put my mind to it.) were making music is bewildering.

In the mid-80’s I saw/heard The Blasters back Big Joe Turner, live at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd. If you don’t like both of them, your opinion means nothing to me. I also saw Los Lobos open for The Plimsouls in a tiny punk club on Venture Blvd. Both were great, making real fine music in the 1980’s. Everybody knows that. Well, apparently not everyone. I saw Lucinda Williams and her little band a few times in tiny little L.A. joints (once in a pizza parlor) while she was recording her self-titled album that was released on Rough Trade Records in 1988 (her 3rd album, by the way.). Yeah, a real musical wasteland there in the 80’s. Baloney.

Taste has nothing to do with it. There’s lots of music from the 60’s and 70’s (and 80’s and 90’s) I don’t particularly care (or outright dislike), but that’s immaterial. Just as is whether or not Mike "likes" the music that was being made in the 80’s. It’s not his opinion (or anyone else’s, including mine or anyone else) which determines whether or not an entire decade was a musical wasteland. How narcissistic!

@bdp24- I do think taste has a huge amount to do with this. My experience is that people are siloed-- how many people will even listen to outre jazz/free jazz?

I know you like real rock and roll and I do too. I get it. I’m not defending Mike so much as making the point that we are all subject to our own limitations- do you listen to English "prog"? Put another way, are there bodies of music that are not appealing to you? My best experiences have come from getting out of my comfort zone and enjoying a discovery that isn’t my norm. Mike is no exception either. I find that what we know and love is often a limitation. But there it is.

As I was an amateur musician in the late 70s and up through the mid-80s, I can give you my perspective. First off I want to commend a bunch of you for listing some great acts of the 80s. I listened to much of this stuff because I had friends who worked in record stores and told me about new stuff. That leads me to the biggest issue of the 80s. Corporations took over the radio stations and, except for college radio stations, none of these bands were played on the radio in the US. MTV played some of it in the beginning because they didn't have enough videos to fill their rosters but ultimately, they just played the "popular stuff" that was pushed by the labels. They did have some underground shows such as 120 Minutes. The other thing that happened was that music recording and production started to become accessible to anyone. You could have an 4 or 8 track recording studio in your home for not a bunch of money and a lot of bands and musicians became producers and engineers. Music was underground for a long time but those who looked for it could find absolutely great stuff. I know Mike didn't have a complete list but let me add a few (by the way, huge points for knowing The Raincoats -- love that band): Ian Dury and the Blockheads, The Go-Betweens, Ministry, Oingo Boingo, Tom Verlaine, Throwing Muses, Catherine Wheel, Aimee Mann, The Bongos, Thin White Rope, Camper Van Beethoven, China Crisis, The Replacements, Young Fresh Fellows, They Might Be Giants, Howard Devoto (as a solo act), Comateens, Crowded House, Dead Kennedys, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Fugazi, Mission of Burma, Wednesday Week, The Last, The Rain Parade, Romeo Void, Simple Minds, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Gary Numan (Tubeway Army), Ultravox, The Glove (a mix of Robert Smith and Steve Severin), Grace Jones, The Housemartins, Japan, Jonathan Richman, Killing Joke, Nina Hagen, Lene Lovich, Martha and the Muffins, Midnight Oil, The Mutants, My Bloody Valentine, and Robyn Hitchcock to name a few more.

@dz13: Crowded House, good one. How about The Records? And Lene Lovich! I just found an original UK Stiff Records copy of her debut album (of which I am quite fond), which will now sit next to my U.S.A. copy.

Also active in the UK was American singer Pearl Harbour, who had three albums on Stiff Records in the 80’s (Columbia Records in the U.S.A.). She was living in England for a few years, and toured around with Elvis Costello, Rockpile, and The Clash. She ended up married to Clash bassist Paul Simonon for awhile, and I decided it would be best if I kept my opinion of his playing to myself when I was a member of her band in the early-2000’s ;-) . Another swell English gal was/is Rachel Sweet, singer of delicious 3-minute Pop morsels.

@whart: My point about taste being immaterial was said in regard to the dismissal of an entire decade of music, not whether one likes or dislikes that music. Lots of people don’t particularly care for 1950’s Rock ’n’ Roll and Rockabilly, but to therefore characterize that decade as a musical wasteland would be ridiculous. So too is to do the same to the 1980’s.

Though this topic does not I’m sure include the world of Classical music, I gotta mention the albums being recorded and released in the 1980’s by the evolving group of Original Performance musicians, many of them based in the UK. Harmonia Mundi Records (both U.S.A. and French divisions) is a favorite label of mine. Fantastic performances and recorded sound quality, by period/historically-informed specialist musicians and singers. Lots of Baroque music, my favorite period.

Lots of good bands listed here, but one swallow doesn’t make a summer, and I believe that’s the point. My gut is that a combination of technology (synths), corporate investments, MTV elevating sounds based on what the bands looked like, and a generally inability for musicians to fit the new sound (punk) into a promotable box. Ironically, the free access to 4 track recording, mixed with a constant stream of disappointing popular music, kicked off the local music scene, which is where I believe the 80’s get saved. Labels like Discord in DC and Touch and Go in Chicago started releasing unique bands and developing their own sound. Kids were busy making music, not collecting music.  They watched each other play and avoided the arenas. Lo-fi was the 80’s saving grace and informed later ideas - for better or worse maybe. Don’t even get me started on Grunge. 
 

All of this digresses from the point of the post - what happened to album orientated rock. I dunno - cassingles? The Sex Pistols vs Pink Floyd saga? Casio keyboards? Mix tapes? Smooth action cue levers? Duran Duran’s haircuts? Take your pick maybe. In the ebb and flow of musical taste, every new thing is built on the rubble of its predecessor. The concept album had to go - it was just in the way.