Posing was bad in the 80’s? Have you heard of KISS? And 20-minute guitar solos? Every genre of music has posers. The 80’s were no worse than any other decade.
Kiss were made up and breathing fire. It was their stage show. Yes they posed for LP photos. You are citing one band to refute the fact that the 80s as a decade was rotten with posing? New Wave, hard core, The New Romantics, Hair metal, goth, Duran Duran, Rock Discos, Thrash, death, black metal, MTV!!! MTV was a network specifically designed so that rock stars could…POSE… if you hadn’t noticed. That was it’s prime function, even if you had a good song. I guess none of that matters.
Oh you’re just having me on. I’m tired.
I’m not going to list every poser band from the 70’s, no. I’m just pointing out that posing was just as big well before the 80’s. The Ramones started the punk-rock movement as part of the reaction to guitar-solo posing. The Beatles had poser movies while David Bowie had Ziggy Stardust. Who was a bigger poser than Elvis Presley? The Bee Gees?
You don’t like 80’s music. Fine. But stop telling the rest of us to get off your lawn. 
OMG! You were serious.
I spray my lawn with DDT now. You can hang out if you want to.
An 80s list without Wham!?
U2?
80’s were awesome.
Checking November of 1985, no reason.
-Stevie Wonder
-Glenn Frey
-Starship
-A-ha (oh come on, you gotta love that one)
-Mr. Mister
-Heart
-Aretha Franklin
-Sting
-Thompson Twins
-Tina Turner
-The Hooters
-ZZ top
-OMD
-Simple Minds
-Bruce Springsteen
-Don Henley
-Eurythmics
-Dire Straits
-Prince
-Rush
And that’s just the tip. Not that every single one of those artists is solid gold, but they were all influential.
Hm what songs would those be?
Looks like a lot of little milk cartons past their expiration date to me. And the rest one hit wonders. Did I miss one?
I guess that’ts the sound of my case getting rested.
I listen mainly to two stations in town, one is Adult Album Alternative format and the other is Americana. Here’s a couple of songs I sing to myself with definite hip-hop influence:
Josh Ritter’s “Gettin’ Ready to Get Down”
James McMurtry “How’m I Gonna Find You Now”
That’s a couple off the top of my head.
I graduated high school in 1979. I tired of disco pretty quickly. I still listened to top 40 because then you had easy listening, country, or top 40 rock stations. That was pretty much it in my neck of the woods.
My college roommate favored Dan Fogelberg and Dionne Warwick and Loggins & Messina. Drove me batty. Finally, she started dating a guy in 82 that brought over an album by an Austin group called The Skunks. Roomie didn’t like it much, but I LOVED “Cheap Girl”
I can’t speak to what makes music technically great or has cultural significance. My bar is much lower. What do I want to listen to? Sing along with? Work to? Have as background music? What doesn’t set my teeth on edge (I’m eyeballing you Ms. Dion)? For me, the 80’s are among my better decades. And I’ve found that by switching from Top 40, the ‘teens are becoming another great decade for me.
Heh, your examples of excellence include such things that became Jefferson Starship and eventually, the excerable Starship (and were pretty much a two hit wonder at their height). If your case is rested, it is in its own grave; and it is buried by your own opportunistic metrics.
Starship is on the list two posts back. Registration expired. As is yours. You are tying yourself up in contradictions and illogic. Try again Blofeld.
I mentioned the airplane as one example that there were a lot of great bands just in the SF bay area in the late 60s, (Not starship of the mid 80s…sheesh!) to demonstrate the absurdity of saying that the 50s-60s were merely so so. I could have said Memphis in the mid 50s, LA in the mid 60s, London in the 60s, etc.
But that exactly exhibits how flaccid your claim is. You could have mentioned Austin in the 80’s, Athens in the 80’s, DC in the 80’s, or even SF in the 80’s (lots of lusciousness there in the 80’s). Good music is being produced somewhere, somehow, right fuckng now! Pretending that it happened at some point in the past is simply to ignore a fundamental part of humanity, to me.
Who are you arguing with, and about what?
You could mention helsinki in the 40s, montreal in the 90s, and Nice in the 70s. Your reference will stand or fall on more than a few groups, though.
How is it “pretending” to make note of the scenes I referred to in response to the question put?
You mean that “there is no good music other than that.” Who said that?
It could very well be that the members of all the scenes you mentioned worshipped the music that came out of the scenes I mentioned. That’s the way it works dude.
But nobody guaranteed your generation equal talent or opportunity. It’s not a zero sum game. It’s not supposed to be fair. It’s art my man. It’s luck and fate. No guarantees if that’s what you’re implying.
Heh, no. You’re the one who seems to imply that success=good, or something. This is a 80’s vs the rest of time: lost music decade or not thread. Listing and defending the lost causes of a certain scene from 3-4 years of the 60’s isn’t going to convince everyone else they are wrong in liking the decade. I’d do better if I attacked the 30’s (a smaller crop of defenders), and I’d still be rightfully defeated. Good music is produced now, and will be made long after your cyborg body ceases to be eligible for replacement parts.
So it works to just stop making any human sense?
When did I mention 'success"?
I am participating in the thread, right on point with the OP. More specifically: If it is lost it it got that way on merits.
It was the most superficial and oppressive decade of all. The posers had taken over the business. And the names I have seen cited do not inspire. They were narrowly talented. It didn’t go that deep, even with most of the best.
How many hardcore bands got bored and moved on after the gimmick wore off? How many classic LPs by 80s bands were there? How many names in the list above were basically from a whole other era and making another record just cause that’s what you do ( When youre an ex-eagle, or you’re heart or …)
You realize that Aerosmith was not only not an eighties band: they were an **early **70s band. It was all over but the co-writing after that.
Ditto: Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Aretha, and on and on… Those are not your arguments to go with. Tina Turner: Have you ever heard **Ike and Tina **Turner, dude?
Van Halen, Just no no.
Was Guns and roses good? If so, They sold out so fast you felt the sucking sound from across the country.
REM were great, like until 1984. That leaves a lot of eighties to go. Sonic Youth? Small doses.
Husker Du? OK but hard to take a lot of too. Didn’t breathe all that well.
Pray give me the story of your favorite 80s scenes with examples so I know just what you’re talking about. Because most people who were there were disappointed. That’s my generation too you know.
You seem to be engaged in a longstanding tantrum about how all music is equal, and it always is and will be. If you put your fingers in your ears and go “wahhwahhwahh” you can complete the picture.
The 80’s gave us a fine fellow named Alfred Yankovic, thus cementing it’s place in history as the greatest decade musically for all time.
Dude, you aren’t that special.
You have some interesting things to say. Thanks for being part of a discussion. You are welcome to say you don’t like stuff, but dismissing bands wholesale makes you seem really immature.
You are so diplomatic. 
(I mean that sincerely.)
If you think Kate Bush and Peter Gabriel are narrowly talented then i don’t know what to say…if you’re saying the decade didn’t “produce” much talent (as in Bush and Gabriel and Talking Heads are 70’s creations.) well…ok…I might be more hard pressed to come up with performers created in the 80’s. Do soundtracks count?
edit: And i was there. Yes, I had to shun mainstream for the most part to get what i wanted. And admittedly REM and college rock killed what i wanted. Also, Bush and Gabriel went on hiatus. Genesis and Collins imploded. Wall of Voodoo lost Ridgway and then broke up after having a fine replacement. At least Ridgway put out good work for most of the decade. The Police broke up. Copeland’s Rumblefish soundtrack is great though…I think that covers my faves.
ARGH and i forgot The Cars. Fantastic band.
I thought it made me seem over ripened. Thanks for the complement.
Just making the thread is all. You don’t want an amen corner all the time do you?