I have to say 80s music has been vastly underappreciated - overshadowed by Gen X grunge rock in the 90s, hip hop and boy bands after that.
What makes it great?
It’s not about anything other than rocking out. partying, and having sex with white women. Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Van Halen, Poison, Warrent, Whitesnake - they didn’t make any political statements.
It’s fun and catchy - lets face it, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were great but their music doesn’t exactly fire up a party. Gangsta rap and hip hop are great for parties but if you are a white kid from the suburbs, too much makes people think you are trying to be black. I
80s rocker chicks are hot - sure the look is somewhat of an anacronism now, but who doesn’t think a good looking girl with wild porn-star hair and tight jeans is hot?
Chicks dig it - It’s nostalgic for any woman in her 30s and retro for any woman in her 20s. Actual conversation coming back from my friends party:
Girlfriend “So your friend has these ‘80s parties’ a lot?”
Me “Sorta - usually it’s just a line to get them to his appartment. The ‘80s party’ is him throwing on some Bon-Jovi and drinking a bottle of vodka while trying to make out with them”.
Girlfriend “And this works?”
Me “Sometimes…usually”
[Now getting into a cab in Hoboken, NJ which we are sharing with two other girls, about 24, who we don’t know]
Girlfriend “I can’t believe that actually works”
Me [turns to all three in the back seat] “Hey who want’s to go to an 80s party?”
80s music was fun. Most of the bands didn’t take themselves too seriously. They weren’t whining about how much their childhoods sucked, their general disillusionment with the world. It’s as if the cynicism of the Nixon era was flushed away and we were back to a new age of innocence.
There also seems to have been a greater tolerance for non-hard-edged stuff. In the early 80s, at least, MTV rarely played heavy metal or rap (these days that’s ALL they play). More emphasis on catchiness, less on shock value. Rebellion is always cool with kids, but rebellion in the 80s was having big hair and doing a lot of partying. Nowadays rebellion means being antisocial, apathetic, or violent.
The fact that music videos were just coming to age as an art form had a lot to do with it, too. Nobody really knew what made a “great” video, and so there was a lot of low-budget experimentation. None of the slick, pre-packaged crap that you get these days. Granted, going back and watching a lot of 80s video that seemed awfully cool back in the day can be a painful experience. My God, I thought that was cool? It’s so…STUPID! But I’d rather cringe through 50 viewings of Video Killed the Radio Star than watch five minutes of Britney Spears.
Everuthing pulykamell said and of course, New Order.
This thread seems to have turned from praising the hair metal of the eighties into to praising the alternative music of the period. Not that I’m complaining…
Throwing Muses, Cocteau Twins, X, Bad Brains, Talk Talk, Feelies, Dinosaur Jr, Aztec Camera, Orange Juice, Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Galaxie 500, Pogues, Richard Thompson, Meat Puppets, Jesus and Mary Chain…
If you have a few minutes to kill, one of my favorite music sites; Pitchfork Media, has a pretty good ‘Top 100 Albums of the 80’s’ list. (They also have a 70’s, 90’s and Top 50 for each year of the aughts).
Click the link and compare away…See how many you don’t have…Scratch your head and ask yourself, who???
A Small preview: #100 is Minor Threat’s ‘Out of Step’ #50 is Spacemen 3’s ‘The Perfect Prescription’
and #1 isn’t ‘No Jacket Required’ by Phil Collins or the Culture Club’s ‘From Luxury To Hearache’
Let’s see…I graduated from highschool in 1980. So anybody wanna pop off w/ some bs about who was jamming then…y’all be telling me about how bad ass Boy George was back then. What about it…no Billy Idol fans? No real head-bangers in the bunch.
any Scorpions fans
How bout Stevie Ray he was still alive back then and kicking ass pretty good.
AC/DC busted outta the 70’s and right into the 80’s w/out slowing down a bit.
Actually the 80’s probably beats the shit outta any decade you can name because the variety of music. 70’s was cool but the last few years disco took over and while I’ll admit I was there with everybody else shakin my groove thang… I was playin Zeppelin and Ozzy at home.
I guess I could go through my tunes and make a list of who was kickin ass in the 80’s. Hell I dj’d a party last night for several hours. That’s what we wound up playing most of the night. Floated a couple of kegs…killed a half gallon of tequila myself. BBQ’d a few briskets and several racks of ribs…man the place was fuckin jammin. On a wednesday night:smack: got home today around noon…gotta recover and try it again friday and saturday. (today is thursday right?)
Yeah, them 80’s type parties kinda suck…ya really had to be there.
Your point being what, exactly? They made a lot of music in the 80s too. Hell, what many people consider to be their best album is one that helped kick start the decade.
Smiths. Sonic Youth, Aztec Camera etc. etc. Most of that was self-absorbed nonsense listened to by pretentious losers who, in order to protect themselves from the fact that nobody liked them, got off on pretending they were more intellectual than most.
The hairbands may have been harmless fluff but it was mostly good fun and it didn’t take itself so seriously as most of the aforementioned bands did. Put another way, people who drank more, took better drugs and had better sex (with more attractive people) listened to the hairbands and their ilk. When I was 16 I know which group I wanted to be part of. I can be introspective at 35, I wanted beer and chicks in 1988.
