Music of the 80s: what did it mean to you?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Grant, May 16, 2009.

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  1. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    Amidst all the synthesizers, there was still plenty of rootsy music in the 80s - X, R.E.M., Jason & the Scorchers, the Blasters, Rank & File, Lone Justice, John Mellencamp, U2's Joshua Tree and Rattle & Hum, even rootsy albums from 60s survivors such as Keith Richards, John Fogerty, Robbie Robertson, etc. And "New Traditionalist" country artists such as Dwight Yoakam and Randy Travis kept the twang alive on the country side.
     
  2. mrt2

    mrt2 Active Member

    Location:
    Milwaukee, WI, USA
    Interesting question. The 80s was incredibly diverse decade for me as I was 14 in 1980, 24 in 1990, so this era covered both high school and college for me.
    It wasn't all hair bands and MTV, there was some great stuff that came out of that decade. Heres just a few that come to mind.

    Some punk and new wave bands were still around and doing great music.
    The Clash
    Blondie
    The Dead Kennedys
    The Pretenders
    Elvis Costello
    Graham Parker
    (and hundreds of other bands that have since been forgotten. For me, the years 86-88 were mostly spent at clubs listening to indie and hardcore bands that mostly didn't make it)

    Also mainstream rock you heard on the radio was still really good in the early 80s
    Warren Zevon
    Dire Straits
    XTC
    Springsteen
    Tom Petty
    The Police
    Roxy Music
    Paul Simon

    Pop had its bright spots
    Michael Jackson
    Prince

    Girl groups like
    Go Gos
    Bangles

    A few notable bands to emerge in the 80s:
    Replacements
    U2
    REM
    Aztec Camera
    The Alarm
    The Flaming Lips (yes, they emerged in the 80s)
    The Red Hot Chili Peppers

    And Finally
    Leonard Cohen
     
  3. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Ah yes, forgot to mention R.E.M. - the one band out of all the bands of that era whose stuff I really truly enjoyed. One of the only 80's acts I'd still spin on vinyl (I only have their first E.P. from when I saw them in Raleigh NC about 1980 or so).

    When I was speaking of the 90's - I was thinking more in terms of the rise of world music as popular music, trip hop, dub, and similar sounds. More 'grown up' stuff. I was listening to current acts again and they seemed relevant to the times and myself. The glee glee / dance dance / big hair / pastel 'n polish of the 80's was essentially gone....:)
     
  4. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me! Thread Starter

    There are some people who prefer it that way, but in the 80s, a lot of R&B was ghettoized back to urban radio. MTV refused to play hardly anything by black artists until Michael Jackson's lawyer/CBS executive threatened to pull off all of the labels' artists off the station. This was even after Rick James complained about not having his "Super Freak" video aired on it. MTV head Bob Pittman at the time, stated that white kids in the suburbs didn't want to see black faces.

    This segregation of the music was far different than in the 60s, 70s, and even the part of the 50s! And, it was all part of that late 70s disco backlash!
     
  5. Roland Stone

    Roland Stone Offending Member

    The way I tell it, disco and punk happened in the latter half of the '70s precisely because mainstream rock had become so godawful boring: L.A. cowboys and twenty versions of Spinal Tap, all demanding you sit down and admire the guitar solo spread out over two sides of their requisite double-live snorefest.

    The punk and disco cracks in the classic rock dam finally burst in the '80s, when the parallel venues of college radio and MTV gave performers entry into the marketplace, with a return to the verities of gimme me a hook and/or a good beat. The no-fun-allowed crowd clung to their Dire Straits records like life preservers, but eveyone else had a good time with the latest Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince video.
     
  6. MikeP5877

    MikeP5877 V/VIII/MCMLXXVII

    Location:
    OH
    I like 80's music more today than I did back in the 80's. I underwent a sort of "80's Renaissance" a couple years ago where I caught up on all the music I glossed over back when I was discovering Led Zeppelin, Bad Company, Yes, and other dinosaurs from the 60's and 70's....
     
  7. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    The decade Rock 'n' Roll died. It was all over by 1985 or so. :thumbsdn:
     
  8. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    :laugh: :laugh:


    I agree there was music that was roots influenced - no doubt at all. But I don't find the sound of, for example, X or REM to be that rootsy (even though I can hear the influence) - just like to me a nice city park, no matter how big, is still not 'rural' or 'country'. X for example - I appreciated 'what' they were doing, and I saw them in concert in their hey day - but there was certain, palpable kitsch mixed with respect or tribute to their music. Good to listen too, but not rockabilly or country by a long shot. Hard to describe. I feel the acts of the 60's & 70's were a crucial step closer to channeling the real stuff. They grew up in another era, the vibe was different, and all that does have an impact.

    Recently I was at a music store and we were talking about the history of country rock or alt-country, then I remembered: Rank & File! ...and explaining how I recall it being sort of country/new wave/punkish for its time, they dug out a copy (can't remember the title but it was their most popular LP) and put it on. Now...I liked Rank & File at the time, and played their albums with some regularity. Fast forward twenty years...haven't heard them since, and I'm in this record shop, the diverse clientele is mostly late teens to 40's. When that album came on I couldn't believe how bouncy and silly (and 80's) it sounded. There was a small chorus of 'geez.....take it off'. And here I'd been using them as an example of what roots music still existed in the 80's. Kind of a shock to say the least.
     
  9. John B Good

    John B Good Forum Hall Of Fame

    Location:
    NS, Canada
    I liked New Wave - bright, poppy stuff - but mostly I turned to the past, started buying some vintage 60s pop and soul as issued on Charley, Ace, etc

    Oh, yes, Video was killing the radio stars...
     
  10. zen

    zen Senior Member

    Too much reverb.
     
  11. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Contemporary Christian was also starting to become a huge industry in the 1980s with Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Twila Paris, Gary Chapman, Sandi Patty (as Patti), David Meece, Steve and Annie Chapman, Steven Curtis Chapman in the late 1980s, Debby Boone, Pat Boone, B.J. Thomas, Dan Peek, Kathy Troccoli, DeGarmo & Key, Phil Keaggy, Andrae Crouch continued to be huge, Randy Stonehill's "Love Beyond Reason" album, Scott Wesley Brown, Bryan Duncan as a solo artist, Benny Hester, Dallas Holm, Chris Christian, and others being the stars.
     
  12. Dinsdale

    Dinsdale Dixie Fried

    Location:
    South Carolina
    It wasn’t all synth pop, it wasn’t all any one thing. That’s a myth.

    From

    Dukes of Stratosphear’s “Vanishing Girl” to
    Stray Cats’ “Too Hip Gotta Go” to
    The Church’s “The Unguarded Moment” to
    REM’s “Driver 8” to
    U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” to
    Prince’s “Alphabet Street” to
    SRV’s “Couldn’t Stand the Weather” to
    Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” to
    Tracey Ullman’s “They Don’t Know” to
    Paul Young’s “Come Back and Stay” to
    Susanna Hoffs singing the opening to “If She Knew What She Wants” to
    Squeeze’s “Tempted” to
    Adam Ant’s “Goody Two Shoes” to
    The Go-Go’s “Our Lips Are Sealed” to
    Dream Academy’s “Life in a Northern Town” to
    Violent Femmes’ “Blister in the Sun” to
    Plimsouls’ “A Million Miles Away” to
    Stone Roses’ “I Am the Resurrection”

    I thought it was kewl.
     
  13. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    That is my short answer as well. I was 26 to 36 during that decade, and I worked in music retail for most of it. My best memories reside there. I'll mull it over and be more specific later, but Dave nailed it for me in his response, short as it was.
    Way too many people think of 80's music in terms of "Best of the 80's" comps which I distain! There was SO much more!
    Example: Modern English "I Melt With You". I hate that song now, it's so overplayed. But that band has a very rich catalogue to discover. A-Ha is another one - "Take On Me". Much more to them than that one song, which is all you'll ever hear on a comp cd or the radio. Sad.
    Guess you had to have been there, deep in the action.
     
  14. bldg blok

    bldg blok Forum Resident

    Location:
    Elmira, NY
    Not in my opinion.

    The Call
    The Smiths
    Echo and the Bunnymen
    Kate Bush
    REM
    Talking Heads
    The Bangles
    Richard, and sometimes Linda, Thompson
    Lone Justice
    The Church
    INXS
    Joe Jackson
    Talk Talk
    Squeeze
    The Cars
    Prince
    The Clash
    Sugarcubes
    The Mighty Lemon Drops
    The Del Fuegos
    The Lyres
    Los Lobos
    ...I could go on, but when I think of the 90s it's Nirvana and a hand full of other bands. Yeah, I like a good deal of 80s music. There is no flawless Musical Decade despite what some think. I just happen to embrace the 80s more than the 90s.
     
  15. Driver 8

    Driver 8 Senior Member

    But by Brothers in Arms, Dire Straits, like Springsteen with Born in the U.S.A., had jumped on the synth-heavy, 80s production bandwagon themselves. :shh:
     
  16. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    Also Russ Taff was a huge CCM star in the 1980s.
     
  17. ManFromCouv

    ManFromCouv Employee #3541

    I didn't like all the modern sound applications to the sound of '80's music. The music itself was probably decent, but so much is hidden behind all the sonic crap. I like pianos, not synthesizers. I like guitars, not guitar synths. I like drums, not drum machines. I recently picked up a CD that came out in 1988 of a combo I really like that I didn't have in my collection. Well, I played it for about 10 minutes and tossed it into the pile of soon-to-be trade-ins. The production SCREAMED 1988, and I felt like I needed a shower.

    It's tough to actually get to the music when the make-up of the sound is just something I really can't stand. But when all is said and done, the Talking Heads were the only band of that period who pulled it off perfectly, IMO.
     
  18. coot

    coot Forum Resident

    Asia was a nice soundtrack to the eighties also...:thumbsup:

    "Only Time Will Tell"

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6GhodMhcik.
     
  19. Grant

    Grant Life is a rock, but the radio rolled me! Thread Starter

    I really hated the country flavor of pop in the early 80s, as I did anything by Journey and REO Speedwagon. I can tolerate Journey today, but I would get angry if I had to sit through any of it back then. And, I think "Bette Davis' Eyes" is one of the worst songs in history, right along with Charlene's insipid "I've Never Been To Me".

    A lot of my hatred of it was associated with the identity that the pop music shared with the white blue-collar audience, and that connected with the type of people I had to work with at that time. But, I kind of dug John Cougar's "American Fool", so Much so that I bought the album. I also gave in to pop just enough to buy the Go-Go's "Beauty And The Beat" on a whim, and fell in love with every note of it. 1983 was my turning point of accepting pop music again. I started listening to Casey Kasem's AT 40 again too.

    I also got interested in jazz music again in the early 80s. Well, not exactly jazz, but that urban stuff from artists like Pieces Of A Dream and Tom Browne. But, me feet were still firmly planted in R&B...and RAP! Back in the early 80s, rap music was great! This was before RUN DMC mixed it up with Aerosmith, and the Beastie Boys were still doing 12" obscure singles on Def Jam.
     
  20. LeftOfTheDial

    LeftOfTheDial Active Member

    Location:
    rhode island
    haven't really read thro' the thread, but i must say that being someone who was born just as the decade was ending, i was (very fortunately) able to look back at it all twenty years later and research to find out what was the best and most innovative music of the era, rather than have it force-fed to me via crappy pop radio and television.

    having done so, i find the '80s to be just as good as any other decade for music. if you feel differently, you have not researched enough into it. there's something very worthwhile for any fan of any genre buried within.
     
  21. rhkwon

    rhkwon Forum Resident

    Location:
    Houston, TX USA
    Great stuff! Just saw the movie a couple of months ago for the first time.
     
  22. BradOlson

    BradOlson Country/Christian Music Maven

    My memories of music from the 1980s was mostly in country and CCM for most contemporary stuff but I have caught on to knowing more stuff over time.
     
  23. Brian81

    Brian81 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Ohio
    For the worse. 80s and early 90s were great for metal and even rap, then by the time the mid 90s came around, these two things were mixed together and it was like mixing pickles and milk.
     
  24. Dinsdale

    Dinsdale Dixie Fried

    Location:
    South Carolina
    This is a valid point. Judging any era by Top 40 radio (and TV videos) can lead to shockingly ignorant statements. Top 40 is only a gauge of the general public's tastes or lack thereof.
     
  25. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    As with any other decade, the '80s for me was loaded with crap, getting in the way of stuff I really wanted to hear. The decade was a great era of discovery for me, having just graduated and starting a radio career. I learned there are plenty of people who were (ARE) sick of what all the radio stations gave them, but didn't have any outlet to retaliate. I learned radio (and pop trends in general) don't want to cater to these individualistic seekers, because it's better business to embrace the triviality of junk culture, and drag the sheep along behind you.

    I also learned that radio people who were in it for the business, or for the stylistic high, didn't really know a heckuva lot about music beyond what their bosses told them was hip. That was the saddest part, when you meet a "Music Director", and you know his record collection at home had less breadth than the Columbia Music Club ad inserts!

    Thanks to magazine sources like Trouser Press and Option, I could see what lay beyond the horizon, and pursue forms of music I always thought might be out there. I also did a lot of traveling in the '80s, and hounded record/CD stores from coast to coast. Seeing the same thing all across the country helped me recognize it when something really stuck out.
     
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