Mid-1980's albums from 60's/70's bands. Any love for them?

When it comes to 60's and 70's bands (usually rock or pop), the general view on their albums from 1983 to 1987 seems to be average, but forgetable at best to downright disasters at worst. Even the artists themselves don't think highly of their mid-80's albums. I've noticed that many greatest hits comps from rock bands tend to ignore this era. This also goes for live performances. Santana is a good example. The only plays material released between 1977 to 1998 sporadically, while the mid-80's stuff is never played anymore. I'm assuming much of the hatred towards this era is due to the the polished production and "cheesy" synthesizers that tend to turn many people off. But what if you actually don't mind these things or, gasp, actually enjoy them. Here's where I come in. Since I generally like the era's production values ("cheesy" synths and drum pads included ), I find that many 60's and 70's artists' "dreaded" mid-80's albums are easier for me to digest. Hell, many of these albums are actually among my favorites from the particular artist. Some of my favorites include:

Rush - Power Windows, Hold Your Fire
The Isley Brothers - Between the Sheets
Kansas - Power, Drastic Measures
Van Halen - 5150
ZZ Top - Afterburner
Carly Simon - Spolied Girl
Santana - Beyond Appearances, Freedom, (I've never seen any postive comments for these albums outside of Amazon and 1 or 2 people on this forum. They're NOT the giant trainwrecks that many reviewers make them out to be.)
Yes - Big Generator
Kiss - Lick It Up
Ted Nugent - Penetrator, If You Can't Lick 'Em, Lick 'Em
UFO - Misdemeanor, (Once again, I've never seen any postive comments for this one outside of Amazon)
Toto - Fahrenheit
Olivia Newton-John - Soul Kiss
Heart - Passionworks, Heart, Bad Animals
Jon Anderson - In the City of Angels
Miles Davis - You're Under Arrest, Tutu
Genesis - Genesis, Invisible Touch
Triumph - Surveillance, Thunder Seven, The Sport of Kings
Queen - A Kind of Magic
Aerosmith - Done With Mirrors
Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time
Journey - Frontiers, Raised on Radio
Robert Plant - Shaken 'n Stirred, The Principle of Moments
David Bowie - Let's Dance, Tonight, Never Let Me Down
America - Your Move

 

Iron Maiden is more of an 80s band since their first album was in 1980 (though they formed 5 years prior). Every album they did in the '80s was fantastic.

I enjoy the mid-'80s Aerosmith albums quite a bit, apparently Done With Mirrors gets a lot of hate. Not sure why!

Thin Lizzy released Thunder and Lightning in 1983 and I think it's fantastic.

Same for ZZ Top's Eliminator

I might be one of 2 and a half people that enjoy Judas Priest's Turbo.

 

King Crimson's Three of a Perfect Pair is a fairly strong effort.

 

Kinks-State of Confusion

 

I liked a few of the "song doctor" albums that many acts that hit it big in the 1970s released to revive flagging 1980s careers. My favorites:

Chicago 17 (1984)

Heart (1985)

Aerosmith: Permanent Vacation (1987)

 

Van Morrison didn't get absorbed in all the drum machines and synthesizers and, well, he's Van Morrison, I don't think he is physically capable of making a bad album. Numerous people have put his 1986 album No Method No Guru No Teacher (or whatever order the words go in) very high in their rankings of his work. So I'll nominate Van Morrison.

Besides that... uh... well, I don't think Dirty Work is exactly terrible...

 

Elvis Costello made several highly regarded album (King of America, Blood & Chocolate, and Spike) in the mid-80s, his other ones had their moments and their fans. These have been widely sussed, discussed, and cussed in other forums here in the past. No need to rehash those older forums discussing these all over again, but, very subjectively speaking, KOA is one of my favorite EC albums.

 

Donovan did an album called Lady of the Stars in 1983. It's not a bad album and it did sound like more traditional Donovan rather than try to imitate then new 80s bands.

Scott

 

Judas Priest - Defenders of the Faith from'84. Their best album until Painkiller in '90.

 

Lou Reed: Legendary Hearts (1983), New Sensations (1984)
Richard Thompson: Hand of Kindness (1983), Across a Crowded Room (1985), Daring Adventures (1986)
Bruce Cockburn: The Trouble With Normal (1983), Stealing Fire (1984), World of Wonders (1986)

No cheese.

 

ZZ Top's Eliminator and 90125 by Yes should count. Both released in 1983.
Don't forget Born in the USA.
Next Position Please by Cheap Trick was also pretty good.

On the other hand, BOC's 1983, 1986 and 1987 albums prove the stereotype correct, as do Standing on the Edge and The Doctor by Cheap Trick.

 

A lot of wreckage there, many of the bands should have just dug in their heels, found the essence of what they did and rocked harder instead of getting lost in lots of reverb and synth sounds.

 

I would included The Searchers album on Sire records, and both of Badfinger's Airwaves and Say No More (Tony Kaye YES) albums.

 

I totally agree with the OP's basic premise, but would include the early 80s stuff as well. Sure a lot of these bands laid the foundation with great classic albums in the 70s, but for most of them it was adapt or die going into the 80s. Recycling the same sounds would've gotten stale very quickly.

Take Foreigner for example...I thought they were already starting to sound stale by "Headgames", but really freshened up both their sound and songwriting chops on their 80s records, starting with "4".

Rush, Yes and Robert Plant are other great examples. And Santana indeed put out some great, melodic material in the 80s.

I didn't even mind when the oldsters cut their hair to look new wave...loved the scene in the recent Chicago documentary with Peter Cetera sporting punky hair (and a Bauhaus t-shirt?!).

 

Power Windows is one of Rushs best albums and quite a few songs were played off it on their 2013 tour. This come from a guy who would rate Hemispheres as my favorite. I stopped reading the list after that.

 

All of King Crimson's 80s albums I enjoy...Beat I like most.

Kiss' Lick It Up and Animalize are two of my favourites by them.

And Queen's The Works and A Kind of Magic are underrated (especially the latter).

 

I like the one that The Animals made called "Ark" but the production is dated and not in a good way.

 

Many Rush fans that I've met don't seem to like anything between Signals and Vapor Trails, but Power Windows and Hold Your Fire seemed to get the most criticism from them. That's why I put them on my list.

 

I forgot to mention this one:

The Rolling Stones - Undercover

 

Bob Dylan's Infidels rocks.

 

When I first got Turbo, I'll admit that I liked it, but I stopped once I found out how much my mom's boyfriend loved it. I simply cannot listen to it anymore without negative thoughts flowing through my head, but that's a story for another day. Funnily enough, I happen to like Ram It Down.

 

Well that may be the case, but you also mentioned that the artists themselves don't play that material, when clearly some of them do anyway.

 

One of my favorite Trower discs:

 

Okay, then my mistake.

 

Rain Dogs by Tom Waits and Graceland by Paul Simon are top tier. But I agree -- many albums from the dad rock artists during that period were fairly dreadful attempts to bandwagon popular trends at the time like synthpop and hair metal.