80s hits that don't sound like they were produced in the 80s

Maybe I'm being Captain Obvious but you know that IS Joe Walsh right?

 

Graham Parker-Get Started, Start A Fire

Melissa Etheridge- Like The Way I Do (So timeless it was re-released in 1994)

 

Amy Grant's single "Lead Me On" which peaked at #96 on the Hot 100 but topped the CCM charts (and the rest of the album), is a timeless recording that to me does not sound like it came out in 1988, While "Find a Way" and everything else from Unguarded for that matter does sound like it came out in 1985, no doubt about it. The whole "Age To Age" album could have came out at any time.

 

The Proclaimers- I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)

 

New Order - Blue Monday
Killing Joke - Love is like Blood
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Christine
Fairground Attraction - Perfect
The Cure - Why Can't I be Yours, Lullaby, Lets go to Bed
the Bureau - Only For Sheep
Fischer Z - So Long

plenty of others

 

I can't think of any decade those could have been recorded in other than the 80's.

 

Really.
These were not typical of popular over produced 80's commercial music. These were certainly new and leading edge in the 80's and never been heard before. Unlike a lot of the over produced American stuff, this does not sound dated. This sound has inspired many similar in the 90's and onwards

 

"Why Can't I Be You" featured the Roland JX-8P, a quintessential 80's synth. "Blue Monday" featured the Linn-LM-1, a quintessential 80's drum machine.

 

Most R.E.M. and Smiths hits don't sound very 80's to me.

 

Not "Rock This Town", the snare drum production on that is totally 80s. I'll bet it's gated.

 

I know it was 1990, but The Replacements' "All Shook Down".

 

I remember reading that R.E.M. purposely avoided the 80s drum sound, at least on the first couple albums.

 

i can only think of one:

"Don't Worry, Be Happy" - Bobby McFerrin

all vocals. barely any effects on the mix. nothing to give away the era in which it was produced. and it qualifies...it was a HUGE hit.

i think most of what was happening in the underground sounds pretty timeless...the Minutemen, Husker Du, etc.
it's easy to bemoan the production on that nascent American indie stuff, until you realize how pure it sounds next to the ridiculous sheen of everything that was on the radio during the decade. if you want an example of this within the same band, listen to the first Bangles EP, then listen to "Manic Monday."

 

go figure that it would blow up in the '90s. it was recorded in 1988, right. at least as far as the U.S. was concerned, this was a big '90s tune from "Benny and Joon."

 

As I mentioned, that and Melissa Etheridge's "Like The Way I Do" were big hits in the 90's despite being released in 1988.

I'd like to add The Primitives "Crash".

 

(Just Like) Starting Over by John Lennon. Music would never be the same again

 

"I Don't Want a Lover" by Texas (#8 UK)
"Nothing Ever Happens" by Del Amitri (#11 UK)

 

i actually am very fond indeed of the "80's Sound" now do feel quite free to ban my non-Audiophile ass clean off, y'all...

 

Yep, the keyboards are the rub. The Billy Joel is a good call.

 

Definitely The Longest Time and Uptown Girl hit me as sounding like old records at the time. I think I thought Uptown Girl was an old Four Seasons record first time I heard it. Probably on AM radio.

Now we are all more educated about sound and retro has been done successfully and unsuccessfully in so many ways it is easier to pick the sonic signatures on how, where and when something was recorded.

It sure is fun when you get fooled, though.

 

I think that's the only Petty hit in the 1980s that sounded of its time, but thank Dave Stewart for that.

 

I hated the stereotypical 1980s production sound back in the 1980s. (I graduated high school in 1985.) I remember bemoaning it to my friends when having to listen to it driving in a car with them. I cited many of the elements mentioned in this thread, although I probably didn't articulate them that well.

The usual response:

"What are you talking about?"

Today, I like a little retro 80s stuff, in a "guilty pleasure" kind of way. But at the time, that hollow, hypnotic, gated drum sound drove me up the wall and I got beyond sick of it real fast.

 

Didn't list it because most Americans never heard it.

 

What?? I liked that album when it came out, but man, the entirety of Love Stinks just announces itself as a product that could only have come out that decade. In fact, the drums that open the title track of that album, are pretty much the first time I ever heard that big, whooshing, cavernous sound on a hit record. I don't remember that sound on any 1970's recording. Am I right?

 

some of the late 80's singer-songwriter female hits like Suzanne Vega's "Luka" or Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" could've been released in 1993 and still felt at home, despite the radical shift in tastes during the years since those songs hit