I think your perception largely depends like Legomancer said on when you “came of age”. I was in high school during the seventies when classic rock ruled and, therefore, I though music of the eighties largely blew chunks.
There were a few good bands like U2, the Clash, Van Halen, etc but the good stuff had largely wound down. I was even at the time very depressed by the way music was heading and in retrospect have no reason to feel any differently.
Thank goodness for the resurrection Nirvana, the Chili Peppers, Beck, the Pumpkins and others finally pulled off.
Ponder if you will why the eighties are now known as the period when “Classic Rock” ended.
Monstre, I think astorian was pairing good and bad there, not saying that U2 was bad.
Of course, you may be implying that Tiffany was good and I’m getting whooshed.
Good thing I used the “find” function; I almost chided gex gex for omitting the Pixies in the list of bands. Quite wily of you to hide them at the very top of the list.
Another good part about the 80s was the rise of independent labels, which helped enable bands with smaller followings to make music even if they couldn’t get a major record deal.
Like Lieu said, I love classic rock, Zep, Floyd, Dillan, Morrison, ect…etc… but I also found room in my heart for Guns & Roses, Metallica, and Rush. But now that we have almost completely belched the rock and roll out of society music isn’t quite what it used to be.
I think the 80’s had quite a bit of good music, and this may be because I came of age during the 80’s (high school years 1984-88). Some critics’ complaints about the decade had to do with the rise of the music video, and MTV, which shifted some of the emphasis from acts that sounded good to acts that looked good. Many artists such as Joe Jackson complained about “having” to make videos to compete in the pop music biz (let’s face it, Joe’s not much to look at!)
I have to add my voice to those who say, some good, some bad. Cindy Lauper, Men at Work, Talking Heads, good. Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, whatstheirname…“Life in a Northern Town,” bad.
I agree with featherlou. Sometime in the nineties, popular music seems to have become fragmented into subgenres aimed at niche audiences, and the joy, fun, and creativity has leaked out. Music, to my ears anyway, was more musical in the 80’s, and less mindless, angry, or vulgar. In the 80’s, a music fan could sit and listen to the radio or watch videos on TV and be treated to the whole Rock/Pop/R&B music world, and stand a reasonable chance of liking much of what he/she heard. Nowadays, I don’t even recognize all the songs Weird Al parodies.
My problem with the '80s was that the bands I liked such as XTC, My Bloody Valentine, Sonic Youth, Jane Siberry and The Smiths were never played on the radio. Strangely, I hear these groups more today than I did then. If you look at the album charts from back in the '80s you would see lots of Foreigner, Motley Crue, Men at Work, Bon Jovi and so on. There is very little interest in these artists today beyond nostalgia.
Today is no different though. Will Blink 182, R Kelly, Celine Dion and Brittney Spears have any lasting impact on music?
Being of a more ‘pop’ sentiment, I’ll put in a good word for John Cougar Mellencamp (whose Scarecrow and Lonesome Jubilee albums are still great listening), Paul Simon’s Graceland album (which was perhaps the best thing he ever did, and that’s saying a lot), a hefty chunk of Billy Joel’s career, ditto Tom Petty, the Cars, the Police, the B-52s, and the Go-Gos’ only album of note.
I have to go with lieu. The 80’s marked the end of an era of good music. I was in high school during the 80’s and hated most of what was on the radio pop charts. Just listening to “Flashback” (a syndicated radio program showcasing classic rock) reminded me of how good things once were in the realm of popular music. I listened to a lot of the heavy metal (a.k.a. “hair bands”) of the 80s, but I also had a lot of 70s material in my collection including Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Boston, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, etc. (many of which I have on CD now). I still listen to the hard rock of today and I am glad to see there are plenty of bands out there producing it, but what counts for “pop” today (boy bands, Britany Spears, etc.) is just utter crap in my opinion. I know the 70s had plenty of crap as well, as all decades do, but the 80s seemed to be the most significant turning point in the history of popular music.
umm…no. I´m talking eighties here. In the 70ies I was too young for anything else than my mom´s self-knitted jumpers etc, but in the 80ies I voluntarily and after long discussions with mom wore white jeans, off-the-shoulder sweaters, those weird kneelong dresses I don´t know the technical term for, neon colour waistbands, and far too much blue eyeshadow and pink lipstick - you get the picture. So I wore them, but I still think this was a particularly bad decade for fashion.
The voluntary wearing of bell-bottomed trousers and vast amounts of flowers everywhere came later (early 90ies), with my hippie phase, which, however, only lasted for a year or so
Anyway, I´m starting to feel like a thread hijacker, so I´d better put in something about music, as well…
First, there´s a lot of stuff I thought was cool then, like the Bangles, Cyndi Lauper, A-HA, which I still sometimes listen to for reasons of nostalgia. (Dancing with tears in my eyes…sigh) Plus, some of the new wave and electropop songs are really great.
Second, there´s a lot of good bands I don´t associate with the 80ies in particular (because when someone says “80ies music” I think of Wave) but who started or went on making good music during that decade, like Neil Young, David Bowie (ok, he was distinctly new wave then), Nick Cave, Red Hot Chilli Peppers…
And then there´s the bands I didn´t know then, but who are definitely great - Kraftwerk, New Model Army, Bad Religion, The Cure… the list goes on!
Excellent post, and I completely agree. I graduated in 1983, and music started getting interesting around 81/82. Unfortunately, it started going downhill in the very early 90s, and hasn’t bounced back at all.
I just got Sirius installed in my car, and can’t get enough of the 80s and New Wave stations.
Respectfully, I don’t think that it happened that way, no matter how it seemed on the radio.
It seemed to me that Nirvana was an ok band that just happened to release a popular album right after the RIAA changed how they measured record sales and began to include sales at independent record stores. Correct me if I’m wrong, but bands on SST, Alternative Tentacles, SubPop (etc., etc.) would have had major hits throughout the Eighties, except that Sound Warehouse and Tower Records didn’t sell their music.
Quite frankly, Nirvana never sounded that original to me at the time. They sounded like a distillation of half of the American alternative bands that came before them.
Beyond that (and to save space), ditto featherlou.
Here’s my two cents: Too much good music to mention. A smattering would be: Fleetwood Mac, The Police (although severely overplayed), Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Chrissy H. and the Pretenders, Hall and Oates, and Chicago. I still love Steely Dan, (Donald Fagen’s, The Nightfly album) and the Doobie Brothers (all albums). And who could forget Yes’ 90125 (My favorite is still ‘Fragile’ (1972).
I never really did like the Headpins… ha!
Excepting the Moody Blues, I think Thomas Dolby was quite a pioneer with the Synth with his “She Blinded me with Science”.
I was born in 1980, ten years too late for my liking. While I look back fondly on what I remember of the 80s, it’s a shame I wasn’t old enough at the time to fully appreciate the era and its music.
Nowadays, I’m absolutely wild about 80s music. Perhaps not what one would expect to hear from a 22 year old, but I like what I like, not what everyone else happens to be into because it’s the “in” thing. Sometimes I feel that all the fun has been taken out of today’s music and replaced with a hefty dose of attitude; a bit of 80s fluff provides much needed relief from that :).
If I had to pick an all-time favourite band, it would be Madness. Some of their songs were fluff, others had meaning. But they all had one thing in common; excellent lyrics and memorable tunes. Even the stuff they’ve come up with in recent years has been fantastic IMHO.
That’s an excellent point; music in the 80’s did seem to be funner than it is now. (If funner isn’t a word, it should be.) Besides, how is anyone going to take you seriously in a neon orange and green skirt over your bike shorts and jelly shoes?
