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

I love the music of the 80's, at least up until 1987. I remember the music being so damn fun, and it seemed every time I got in the car and turned the radio on, I was hearing another great song for the first time. To this day, the main reason I don't like U2, was because they were trying to make all this serious music, while everyone else seemed to just want to have fun. When Madonna started putting out songs like 'Papa Don't Preach', the fun was coming to an end. Even Cyndi Lauper wasn't much fun by 1987.

 

Linn Drums.

Early Digital effects that sucked all the air out of the room.

The sound of empty Doritos bags being wadded up.

The Gloved One.

Ice Cream For Crow.

The Safety Dance.

Mr. Roboto.

 

I didn't buy tons of it, but I bought some. Still, you're take on the down side of 80s music is what kept me away from most of it. I really thought most of it stunk. Sadly, for me anyway, it seems like the 80s have never really ended, musically -- its like we're in the 80s 29th year.

There was good stuff around--I loved some of the bands and singers early MTV plugged...Peter Gabriel has always been a favorite, 80s Tina Turner was very cool...there are others. But it really seemed like for every good one there was 15 or 20 really awful or completely forgettable ones that got heavily plugged.

Dale

 

I followed the top 40 religiously from 1980 to '86. I still love to hear most of that music today. Then the music got a little too synth heavy so I drifted into my metal phase for a time.

 

I have always said that in the '60s, the best songs were on the charts although not always at the top; in the '70s, the best songs were on albums and on FM radio; and in the '80s it was sort of like the '70s but they were harder to find. My list of top '80s tracks is almost as long as that of the '70s, but they're less well-known. Once the "new wave" had been cleared out (too goth for me) and synth-pop came in, I was reasonably happy. Then the Smiths and the "alternative" scene was another, well, alternative. I started buying Melody Maker and the NME in late 1986 and discovered quite a few good tunes in the next couple of years (I wish I had started five years earlier).

 

Second-

80's metal is still fantastic!

 

I was 13 in 1982, when I started listening to music for real. I was discovering classic rock and some of the local Boston bands, and had absolutely no time for the pop music of the time. The reverb, the tinniness, the "shplat" of crappy, Bob Clearmountain drum sounds all gave me a headache. Still does. All the Brit-pop bands sounded alike (except for Squeeze, my one concession to 80s pop). I didn't have MTV. And just looking at a Peter Gabriel album cover made me want to throw up. Alternative music wasn't much better. I thought for years I was the only person I knew that hated R.E.M. and thought they couldn't play. I thought all the L.A. hair metal bands were a bunch of pu$$ies.

I went for the blues revival instead, and taught myself about blues & jazz as a teenager. And although I hated rap at the time, and Public Enemy for their lyrics in particular, I heard "Fear of a Black Planet" in college, and was completely floored by the sounds they got. It was like nothing I'd ever heard in my life. Just incredible!

I'd never heard the underground post-punk stuff in the late 80s unfortunately, so when "Nevermind" came out, I felt like I could breathe again. I'm not nearly as snobby about 80s music as I was, but I still can't take the Top 40 music of that decade. I'd rather rip my hair out strand by strand than listen to that stuff for any length of time.

So glad I married an 80s pop freak who hates jazz...

 

MTV grabbed me by the soul in the early 80's. I liked that music, no matter what genre it fell into. I knew nothing about genres in the early 80's, so what sounded cool was what I liked. I had an old cassette recorder with the punch buttons. It had an internal mic, so I would tape the songs by holding the tape recorder by the TV. As my music tastes changed in the mid 80's I lost interest in a lot of this stuff, and discovered new things. I played my records on my Mom's stereo, and got my first and only boom box in 1984. Then tapes were the next phase. I like it when they show those one hit wonder episodes on VH1. Even though the music didn't stick with me, it still brings back good memories. The early 80's was the best of this decade imo. As the mid 80's hit I really started disliking music during that time. This continued on until the end of the decade. I'm not putting the 80's down as there was a lot of good music, but things change and so did my taste in music.

Anthony

 

That's exactly what I planned to post. Funnily enough, I got all three of the Steve-mastered Razor and Tie 80s collections, and these remind me EXACTLY how much the decade combined great music and awful stuff.


I've often defended the 80s from ignorant attacks here, and I'll continue to do so - way too much great music from the era to let it be buried beneath the dreck.

The different is that too many forum members sport rose-colored glasses for their perfect, beloved 60s and 70s. All the praise for the dreck of THOSE periods makes me sick since the same people then condemn virtually everything from the 80s...

 

being a teenager in the 80's, that's the music I grew up on. We just threw a 40th birthday party for my wife and I tracked down some of Steve's Razor and Tie compilations for the soundtrack. there's great music from the 80's but most of what I now like isn't on any of the comps. The Replacements, REM, Husker Du, The Long Ryders, XTC, the Clash, and even stalwarts like the Who and the Stones had great 80's releases that stand the test of time.

But what the music means to me is my youth, my virginity (VH), slow dances at high school dances (True), and house parties when the parents were away (ZZ Top, Def Leppard).

That PJ stain never came out of the rug either.

 

I am with you on this Colin.

I love the 60s and 70s as much as anyone, but I also remember the 80s as a time when there was something for everyone, and even mega popular stuff, like Michael Jackson's Thriller, was still pretty good.

I supposed the only thing that was not good (and hence a sticking point for some on this forum) as the 80s progressed was classic rock, as the aging bands from the 60s, except for the Rolling Stones, fell off the map.

 

I started discovering music in 1977, so by 1980 I was still pretty much a clear canvas for influences and the 1980-1985 period is my time, I go back to the music of that era so much. I love all the mod revival, two tone and new romantic stuff. When the house music thing started, I lost touch a little with current music and started investigating groups like Pink Floyd and The Doors among others and it wasn't until the ascendency of Brit Pop in the mid 90s that I got into modern music again (ironically, I started to also like Acid House too).

However, 80s music always equates to my teen years and is music that was fun, pretentious as hell, but fun with it.

 

Definitely, every decade had its' Birdy Song and its' Agadoo.

 

I grew up in the '60 and '70s (born in 1954) so my earliest musical influences came from those eras. I grew up loving the Beatles and everything that came along with them. It seemed like every small town had a bunch of garage bands and music seemed like it was everywhere. Radio was fun, DJs were live and I lived in an area where college radio was great, especially in the early '70s. But when the Beatles split up, I felt like I had lost my best friends. I really struggled to find something else to love THAT much as we moved into the '70s.

There is a very narrow window of time when you allow music to really get into your soul. That window opened for me in the early '60s with The Beatles and remained open throughout the '60s. However, for some odd reason, that window of opportunity closed again for me in the '70s as I got busy with college and trying to figure out what to do with my life. With a few exceptions (Steely Dan, for instance), the '70s were a blur as i prayed that disco would go away. I probably could have enjoyed disco if I wanted to dance but my two left feet kept me out of sequins and spandex! I never quit listening to music during the '70s. In fact, it was the decade where I really ramped up my music buying. I began to listen to other things as I waited for disco to go away. I have Mobile Fidelity and Nautilus to thank (blame?) for giving me a way to ease into jazz, too. Granted, it was today's equivalent of Smooth Jazz (John Klemmer's "Touch", Joe Sample's "Carmel", for example) but I figured that if MFSL thought enough of these albums to put out limited edition pressings of them, I'd be willing to experiment a little. Those labels cost me a lot of money!

Skip ahead to the end of the '70s and something interesting was starting to happen. I had heard of Punk but it seemed SO angry that I couldn't relate to it. But then I heard about "phony Beatlemania" in "London Calling" by The Clash, discovered Elvis Costello and saw Devo's first experimental music videos.....and I was hooked! Something was changing in music and in my life. I felt like I was waking up from the enforced slumber of the '70s and watching a whole new game. Music videos were popping up on late-night TV everywhere and my brand new VCR was saving every one of them. I truly felt like that "window of opportunity" was opening again. I know it's very corny to say it this way, but my life was really changing during the '80s (I'm a bit of a late bloomer, I guess). I met my first wife and music punctuated every aspect of our lives together. My career was taking off, my life felt like it was really getting started and the '80s provided the soundtrack. It truly was the happiest decade of my life.

I never forgot the musical influences of my childhood, but now I had a whole new group of bands to become familiar with. Sure, some of it was dreck and I felt like a lot of mediocre bands made it big simply because they could make good videos. But, it was another stage in my life where I was open to listening again.....and that's what it's all about, isn't it?

 

+1

I agree, wholeheartedly. The 90's, with few exceptions, was one of the more fallow periods of music, and it saw the rise of "artists" and "bands" with "a manufactured image, with no philosophy!"

The 80's were cool because it seemed like anything was possible musically. The whole idea that a bunch of unknown UK bands could become popular because of their videos on MTV, before they had radio airplay was wonderfully disruptive to the status quo of the music industry, for a time anyway. By 1986, the industry figured out how to co-opt MTV, and it started morphing into boring crap.

It was also last great period of Top 40 radio, where you could hear just about any genre on a single station.

I worked in small market radio from 93-96, and despite having more direct access to new music on a consistent basis, it was more and more difficult to find something that gave me joy.

For me, the 80's were a continuation of the 70's - still a plethora of interesting new music to be heard and discovered. And while the 90's were a period of general unhappiness in my life, it would have been a better time for me I think, if the quality of the music available was more like that of the 70's and 80's.

 

video killed the radio star-internet killed the video star

Great decade for fun (nudge nudge)
the music was pretty good also.

 

The 90's were the most fertile, creative, and diverse period of rock and related music since the mid-late 60's. Very arguably, even moreso.

 

I was born in 1973, so I really started listening to music in the 80s.
Music of the past didn't mean anything to me then. Groups or artists like Simple Minds, INXS, Dire Straits, FGTH, Billy Idol, Springsteen, etc. and their current releases were everything for me. I discovered the Stones through "She Was Hot" and "Undercover Of the Night" - had no idea that they had some past behind them .

 

Most 80's music are too commercial. Concept albums were rare.

 

Interesting. That album didn't come out until about 1990.

 

Well, guys, while waiting for the laundry to finish, I just compiled a (hopefully) complete tracklist for my proposed 1983 comp. It's gonna be a big series, with almost no album cuts!

 

What is interesting to me is the charts in 1983 and 1984 are full of fantastic pop music but by '86 and '87 is was largely awful. Escape Club, Dick Marx, that Baby, I Love Your Way/Freebird Medley, Robbie Nevil, et al. I think you could make a fair case for '83 and '84 as two of the better years ever for the charts.

It should go without saying that there was amazing stuff going on that wasn't reflected on the charts.

 

You just nailed it, Chris. That's one reason I dislike the "choose yer faves from the top 10 from this year" polls. All the interesting and challenging stuff never got near the top 10 charts. Those charts just reflect what all the "drones" were buying/listening to. Ho-hum. Those boring folks are why radio got so bad and all those "Best Of The 80's" cds were major snooze-fests. Jeez, don't get me started....I may have to revive my "best of the top 80 - 90 of the top 100" polls. All the good stuff is down there, if it even charted!

 

Oh well, I guess I am a drone then cos I thought in the 80-85 period there was a lot of really great stuff that got in the charts.

Edit, of course, I am talking the UK charts here.

 

I don't mean "in the charts" per se... just that the usual "top 10" 80's hits are usually the "safer" songs that got hammered into our skulls ad nauseum via MTV and radio, while oceans of really good music went unheard by the casual masses. I don't mean to insult anyone who loves "Do You Really Want To Hurt Me" or "Safety Dance", but those songs are not even a blip on my radar screen when considering "80's" music, myself. There's SO much more....

Unless you were lucky enough to have access to "college radio" back then. No playlists, just folks spinning good tunes. Oh yeah....