Why slag the 80's?

[notdave]

Originally Posted by Crawfish

Just a few great 80s bands I love, off the top of my head:

Pylon
REM
The Smiths
Guadalcanal Diary
not a band, but the 80s also brought us Billy Bragg.

-Kevin

Bloody hell, you've just confirmed why I hated 80s music.

Can I throw in Def Leppard, Bon Jovi and Iron Maiden?

[TC6969]

For some reason, when I think about the 80's, all I can think about is Flock of seagulls/pet shop boys/men without hats MTV force fed drivel.

[Skully]

Originally Posted by TC6969

For some reason, when I think about the 80's, all I can think about is Flock of seagulls/pet shop boys/men without hats MTV force fed drivel.

Three bands that put out some great stuff.

[garyd5158]

The 80's music got me all over the place, from the Cure to the Beastie Boys to Black Flag to Husker Du. My old Pontiac and $5.00 was gas and a pack of cigs to get me all over town from friday night to sunday afternoon.

The 80's get slagged cause it was the point of saturation. MTV took over, FM got huge, movie soudtracks were prolific and arena rock flourished.

[Jack FFR1846]

The 80's were a time of huge, new things starting, hitting, resurfacing. Disco had really only just died (thank God)..... I was a college radio DJ and played new wave and some punk, punkish...

Very early Police (think the song "Landlord", if you can find it)
Billy Idol
Waitresses
Howard Jones
Eurithmics
Black Flag
Human League
the Cars
Berlin Airlift (or Luna...their prior name)

U2 was just starting to hit, The Clash were huge, the Squeeze were still in existance, B52's, Cindy Lauper..

I was also still a big Van Halen fan from their first album and an Iron Butterfly/Black Sabbath veteren....

The local rock station in Worcester, MA went to a new wave format for about a month and then changed back to rock with a harder edge, more metal, more old metal focus.

Music was literally all over the place. Think Devo (when it was pronounced DEEvo)

It wasn't a bad time at all for music. Anything went.

[studio1087]

You can love or hate MIDI and all the electronic integration that the 80's celebrated but it was all new. I used to unpack technology at the music store and think..."this is new; this sound and stuff and it's potential is new".

I'm very glad that I was a part of it.

Things were different in the 80's. The 90's were like a bad movie that I had seen before that wouldn't end.

Andy Partridge is brilliant. I had never heard anyone who wrote the way Andy wrote. I still think that Andy is unique. I can't name many unique players now.

[burtonfan]

This may have already been posted, but don't forget the blues revival of the 80's. Robert Cray, Stevie Ray, Fab T-Birds, Jeff Healy to mention a few, and a lot of 'old' careers resurrected.

I still have a blues hangover from the 80's....eccchh!

[Mid Life Crisis]

There sure was some great stuff in that decade. Most of it was bubbling just under the surface although some made it through to compete in the general public's consciousness alongside the plastic pap. I'll list a few.

Echo & The Bunnymen
The Smiths
REM
The Long Ryders
Green On Red
Let's Active
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians
ABC
Heaven 17
The Icicle Works
Hoodoo Gurus
Dinosaur Jr
Husker Du
Orange Juice
Big Country
Bauhaus
Killing Joke
Psychedelic Furs
XTC
Camper Van Beethoven
The Stone Roses
The Pixies
Buffalo Tom
Jesus & Mary Chain
PiL

[Justinvs]

Originally Posted by TC6969

For some reason, when I think about the 80's, all I can think about is Flock of seagulls/pet shop boys/men without hats MTV force fed drivel.

One thing you have to give credit to MTV, though, was that it finally put an end to the death-grip the 60's held over popular music. Even as a kid I got so tired of hearing critics knock the music I liked because it either A: didn't have it's roots in the 60's, or B: was simply deriviative of something that had been done sooo much better in the Summer of Love, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, MTV was more about visuals and T&A than music, but it provided the needed kick in the ass that so much of the 70's lacked. I still think Punk was as much in protest of sneering critics and their out-dated darlings than it ever was about Disco and Arena rock.

[Brad Pittiful]

Originally Posted by Justinvs

One thing you have to give credit to MTV, though, was that it finally put an end to the death-grip the 60's held over popular music. Even as a kid I got so tired of hearing critics knock the music I liked because it either A: didn't have it's roots in the 60's, or B: was simply deriviative of something that had been done sooo much better in the Summer of Love, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, MTV was more about visuals and T&A than music, but it provided the needed kick in the ass that so much of the 70's lacked. I still think Punk was as much in protest of sneering critics and their out-dated darlings than it ever was about Disco and Arena rock.

i want to subscribe to your news letter

[AM866]

Originally Posted by Skully

There was some great pop music in the '80s. There was great rock music in the '80s. If Willie Nelson, Van Morrison and some other oldsters lost their way during this time, what does it matter?

I'd remove my myspace link before I spoke about music that didn't matter.

[peaveycaster]

These debates drive me nuts sometimes. The 80s are no different from any other decade, music-wise. Tons of gems, and tons of crap. If you're a "skinny tie" guy, then the hair bands were crap. If you're a "can of AquaNet before you leave the house" guy, you slag the synthpop stuff. Every decade has something for everybody, and no decade is really any better or worse than the previous one.

The 50s gave us Elvis, but it also gave us "Purple People Eater". The 60s gave us the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but also Blue Cheer and Napoleon the IV ("They're Coming To Take Me Away"). The 70s gave us Led Zeppelin and Van Halen, but along the way we got the Bee Gees and the DeFranco Family. Detecting a pattern here?

Let the flame wars begin...

[Brad Pittiful]

Originally Posted by peaveycaster

These debates drive me nuts sometimes. The 80s are no different from any other decade, music-wise. Tons of gems, and tons of crap. If you're a "skinny tie" guy, then the hair bands were crap. If you're a "can of AquaNet before you leave the house" guy, you slag the synthpop stuff. Every decade has something for everybody, and no decade is really any better or worse than the previous one.

The 50s gave us Elvis, but it also gave us "Purple People Eater". The 60s gave us the Beatles and the Beach Boys, but also Blue Cheer and Napoleon the IV ("They're Coming To Take Me Away"). The 70s gave us Led Zeppelin and Van Halen, but along the way we got the Bee Gees and the DeFranco Family. Detecting a pattern here?

Let the flame wars begin...

the 60s bee gees > the 70s bee gees

[Slow Reflexes]

I found a lot more to like about the '80s than I can find to like about the current state of popular music.

[gpar7]

the 70's and 90's....not so much[/QUOTE]

todd rundgren , yes , deep purple ,elp, tull , zep oh the 70's rocked ...

[daveandshelle]

I have fond memories of the eighties...I was eight years old in 1980 and had alot of fun as a kid..and some of the music from back then brings back some memories..

[bradpdx]

Originally Posted by peaveycaster

These debates drive me nuts sometimes. The 80s are no different from any other decade, music-wise. Tons of gems, and tons of crap... Every decade has something for everybody, and no decade is really any better or worse than the previous one.

Let the flame wars begin...

+1

Every decade is great and sucky for music, the best and the worst. Every damn one.

I think that for decades one has lived through, the impressions are far more personal than those of the distant past. I can romanticize music of the 1930s more easily because I wasn't there to see it for real.

Likewise, whatever you did live through is colored with your own experience. For me, the '80s were a time when I was busy "discovering" a lot of music from earlier times, and I found what was on the radio irrelevant to what I was doing as a musician and a listener. I was in my 20s but simply didn't care about punk or new wave much at all. As a result, I have little affinity for the popular music of that decade, but that has nothing to do with how others experienced it.

There is great music happening right now, and godawful music happening right now. The quantity has increased by orders of magnitude, and so if I am aware of 5% I'm doing pretty well. Whatever it is, I am sure it is the best and worst we have ever heard.

[Tele Fan]

The 80's brought us skinny jeans. They've come back and it may take me some time to forgive the 80's despite of any good or bad music.

[ac15]

Originally Posted by fretbuzzard

People seem to forget how much music produced in the 50s and 60s - those golden days of rock, pop, soul, and country - was absolutely terrible. I mean embarrassingly bad. But the 50s and 60s were long enough ago that our cultural memory has culled out the tripe and left us with the good stuff. The same thing will happen ( is already happening) with the 80s. Revisionist music history FTW!

Yes, there was lame stuff in every decade (as I mentioned earlier), but those decades (50's and 60's) were better for the simple reason that there was waaaay more innovation (rock n roll started in the 50's, and the 60's produced some of the most innovative pop acts ever, such as Hendrix, the Beatles, Dylan). The 80's - not so much.

For those reasons, the 80's could never be as important (or good) as the 50-'s and 60's, no matter how much lame stuff was around then (imo).

[imsilly]

Every decade had good music if you looked hard enough. Though in some decades you had to look harder then others.

I was young in the 80s and I don't remember much. I certainly don't remember much good music. Looking back objectively and listening to less popular stuff I find a lot to like. I'm not nostalgic about the 80s music wise.

Indie, dance and hip-hop were strong in the 80s, but I guess that is off the radar of most Telecaster players.

Also how can you hate a decade that gave us this GG Allin Gem!