Why were the eighties so damn good? (not 1880, fyi)

Cafe Society
21

My theory is that bad politics = good music. I noticed music seems to be getting better now - although it still seems more of the same, at least we’ve finally ditched that whiny introspective 90s bullshit. And 80s love isn’t all nostalgic; I am 24 and listen to new wave from the early 80s. Stuff from highschool? Uh, Green Day is about the only one I still listen to. I suffer from severe Nirvana burnout.

People always look at me cockeyed when I talk about how good the music in the 80s was. C’mon! Adam Ant, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, The Smiths plus some of my more “gothic” loves like Bauhaus (admittedly they are very early 80s - the broke up when I was 2), Siouxsie and the Banshees, etc. Not to mention the great albums that came out in the late 80s - like Master of Puppets (Metallica), Disintegration (The Cure - although not my favorite, I prefer their earlier works). . .

REM was already on the scene as well as many other bands that came to full fruition in the early 90s. I’m not even touching on the punk scene, which would be quite important to anyone with an interest in modern music history.

So yeah, other people out there like 80s music too. :cool:

22

I think that the 80s were good in relationship to the horrid 70s when the country was still recovering from 'Nam and suffered through the “malaise” that hung over everything … the sky-high interest rates, the gas shortages, the Iran hostages, very trying times all around.

I actually liked the 80s because it had a lot of lasting positive family memories for me.

23

This is a very good point.

:eek: You may have just hit the nail on the head, as to why the 50s, 60s, and the 7os all have almost obiquous (sp?) appeal. Everyone can agree that they have music they either love from those decades, or know. ( the beatles, the doors, and thing considered hippy, and “Staying alive”) However, while many like the music, it seems permissable to mock those who admit to it, possibly because each and every song Ithat comes to mind was so catchy, that they are also somehow considered earworms, and are thus cheesy, or cliched. No one will punch you in the arm for a long, funny joke, but they will for a pun. Maybe…

24

Scott Plaid, I’m not sure I understand you. I got the feeling that you were asking about why things from the 80’s are coming back. I’m in my early-20’s and it seems to me like that is what is happening. I think there is far more nostalgia for the 80’s than there is for the 90’s right now. Doesn’t anyone else see more similarities between now and the 80’s than now and the 90’s? 80’s styles have come back in clothing and hair (?). 80’s music seems to be pretty popular right now too. Are you suggesting that there isn’t enough 80’s nostalgia?

The stock 80’s character is big hair, and certain clothing styles like ringer t-shirts.

Maybe the 80’s invasion I’m noticing isn’t related to nostalgia from the 80’s (though I think it exists), but a derivative of 80’s styles and influence on today’s pop culture. Remember, VH1 started their “I Love the (Decade)” series with the 80’s.

25

Look at it this way, from a musicological point of view.

The 80’s, like the late 50’s and mid to late 60’s, was marked by a great expansion in musical forms. Technically, many of these forms were invented in the late 70’s but where do we draw the line? I choose to date a musical form from when it comes into the “mainstream”.

The 80’s saw the rise of Rap, New Wave, Punk, Trash, Death Metal, Black Metal, Hip Hop, Ska, Gothic, and many other musical forms that haven’t changed much today. This was a major fragmentation of popular music that was not seen to the same degree in the 70’s which went from Hard Rock to Disco (an oversimplification I know but a handy one). The 90’s were also similar. Grunge is not really a major break from hard rock and punk to me.

New instruments came to be popularized during the 80’s. Synthensiers and sampling came into prominence as legimate medium for expression. The music video became popular as force in popular culture that was more frenetic. Many of the bands today take their cues from the 80’s and there seems to be more an appeal to the post modern avant-garde aspect of the 80’s.

26

Side track alert: Just about every single day in the 9os, I thought to myself "I know the style of prepackaged pop stars was better a few years ago. Why are they having all these white kids trying to rap. It might still be crappy, but at least the producers know how to deal with it. "

Don’t get me wrong, I see some nostalgia, but I see no actual evidence of an effect on the pop culture of today. Back in the mid 9os, I say a rise in interest in ring collar shirts. Then it weant away. A few years latter, they tried to revisit the G.I. Joe toys. A horrible faulure. Around the year 2000, or show, fox had a few episodes of a show called “That 80s show.” I see the current interest as being part of a pattern, that while it is acceptable for the 50s to come back every once in a while, and the same goes for disco, it seems much more limited with the decade I loved. I comes up occasionally, but never as much as other decades do, or as with as much of an impact. When hippy fashions roll around, I see stores adveratizing clothes, tv shows, books, and music. However, all I see advertised for the 80s is music, and tv related items and not much variety. No popular books of the time, no real interest in clothing besides logo t-shirts, an d I simply do not see a rise in anything else I would associate with the times. Compalation albums, true, but no massive releases of “Tribute to” albums, reissues of the group’s Cd, etc. I also see that tv related stuff is sold, mostly tishirt relating to cartoons, and tv shows on dvd. However, it seems like thecompanies are releasing them ever so slowly. I went to tvshowsondvd.com, and it seems the forums are full of people asking why, if there is such interest, why do the companies not release the really good stuff. When they do, they fuck it up. Alf, for example is not avalible on Dvd as broadcast, but only the kind avalible with ending cut sort for syndication. I also can’t recall how many nostalgia book I can find on 60s/70s groups. However, it seems like 80s nostalgia boooks are an after thought. There aren’t manny of them, and it is never as if there is a big coffetable book avalible for the period. Go to any book store, and you are likely to see coffy table books talking about Disco, Woodstock, mods, (The fashion, not the people), but you will only find on or two books, without many pictures, in the humor section about new wave. Ben is dead magazine publised one, but theyare a zine company, not time-life books.

Oh, one other thing. As I vaguely recall, when I was in high school, we all all pretty much dressed in plain street clothes, but there was always a wanna-be stoner, a hippy, all wit the taste in music to go along with the ideals, and other embraced stereo-types of a bigone era, but nowadays, the impression I get is that if you don’t like rap, you are nothing.

P.S. Boy, I am really rambeling. It is way too late.

27

I see girls around here all the time wearing TShirts with big glittery letters that say “Product of the 80s!” (I want one). Tight pants are back, and I see some of the throwback 50s Stray Cats greaser types running around. Adam Ant released a remaster. Don’t get me started on the girls that work at Guitar Center - they all dress like Pat Benatar. Suddenly my elbow-length sleek hair isn’t so great anymore - teasing and Aqua-Net are here once again! (I’m not going there though, if only 'cause my hair does only one thing, and that is grow. . .).

I’ve been saying it for years, but it’s undeniable now: the 80s are coming back. All the people that were kids then have kids now, and it shows - hell, my nephews are going on about He-Man, and nieces about Strawberry Shortcake! It’s here and it is on the rise.

Hell, I think I am going to give in to my long standing temptation to run around dressed like Adam Ant.

28

The Highwayman, please do not think I am ignoring you. You raise a very good point, but it came in when I was typing my last post. I have a question for you however. As far as I can tell, when people think of the 5os-60s, they think of what can genrally be thought of as rock groups. Never mind that country had many gains, they think of rock. Disco for the 70s, depite the fact that as you have just said, and as I said in my OP, many groups were from the late seventies. The 90s is associated with grundge, despite the fact that was only really the first half, and some kinda whiny version of alt-rock for the second half, and the modern era is rap.

However, when people think of the 80s, they are likely to bring up names that belong to every manner of band, Madness, THe Beat (Ska) Adam and the Ants (New Wave/Glam) Ramones (Punks) etc.

It isn’t possible to pin down the decade to one kind of music, unlike the others. Do you suppose that is why revivals never reach nearly the same scale as other decades,or if not for that reason, why? Does the secret masters of the world :slight_smile: that controll all youth markets not like that fact?

29

Whear the hell do you live, and how do I get there? I figured that places that sell clothes to farmers (In other words, not controlled by fashons) would have straight legged jeans, but no go. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to get inexpensive jeans that are not visibaly loose in the crotch. I simply see no interest in them, judging from local clothing stores.

30

The Highwayman and I live in Los Angeles county. It might take a while to get to Baltimore, I’m guessing. :slight_smile:

31

I agree with most of this. However, I still think that the music from the 80s is mostly crap. How does this match? Well, although a lot of new forms arose in the 80s, they didn’t come into adulthood until the 90s. Same for the synthesizers. 80s music is full of Roland D50/MT-32s (I still have one of those small black boxes at home), and although amazing at the time in terms of what they brought for relatively little money, in terms of sound-quality, especially compared to the level the 90s brought us to, they sucked. And that lousy quality synthesized sound is ubiquitous in much of the 80s music. Rap music was born, but didn’t become really good until in the 90s. Both rap and dance didn’t get a proper beat until the 90s. The house and new-beat of the 80s didn’t get up to proper speeds until the 90s. The music that peaked in the 80s was nothing really innovative. You had stuff like U2, that impressed not with its innovative music, but with its passionate use.

On top of that, I listened to the radio all through the 80s, like mad. I’ve heard all the good songs from that decade so often that if I hear them again now, I barely hear them, or just get annoyed and bored. I’ll be able to stand listening (which is not necessarily to say enjoy) to some of those songs again only if I haven’t heard them for a decade or so.

No, the real reason of the popularity of the 80s is that the other decades have been used too much. For the last twenty years, the majority of ‘neutral’ parties have been dominated by seventies disco, and people were getting fed up. But in terms of musical quality, danceability, and so on, the seventies rocked.

32

What’s not to love about the 80s? As for me, I was a teenager and I was in love. The music on the radio had a good beat and you could dance to it, unless you were more of the tough, angry type…then you could listen to some of that eeevil devil-inspired heavy metal. Madonna was young and pretty and sexy (not yet a haggard skank). Michael Jackson was an incredibly talented dancer and singer (not a sideshow freak with a thing for little boys.) George Michael was a studly pop star and PeeWee Herman had the greatest kid’s show ever. Neither of them was known to wank in public. Stephen King was still publishing good books. Clothes were tight, so we could all get a good look at everyone else’s booty. Getting dressed for school was like getting ready for a costume party…spandex, lace, torn denim, chains? Hairspray! There were colorful, creative music videos on MTV. AIDS meant diet candy to most people until about '85. You could smoke in the mall. It was, like, so totally bitchin!

33

I’m 34, so I was in my teens in the 80s. I still listen to the music today. In fact, in regular rotation (along with The Shins, Keane, Weezer, etc.) are Crowded House, The Cure, Split Enz, Roxy Music, Depeche Mode, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, etc. It’s great music, especially compared to the early 90s grunge and late 90s - early 00s nu-metal.

Sure, the 80s had Great White, Skid Row, Stryper, Ratt and other crappy bands. And the 90s had great bands like…like…um…what was I saying? I pretty much only listened to The Tragically Hip in the 90s, along with my 80s CDs.

Although the music is derivative of the 80s, I love all of these new bands like Franz Ferdinand, The Killers, Interpol bringing the sound back and putting a modern spin on it. It’s really fun music. I was getting sick of avoiding the radio altogether so I didn’t have to listen to Good Charlotte, Simple Plan or Nickelback. Ugh.

Then don’t click here.

34

To be fair, the G.I. Joe toy line that was reintroduced in a major way in 2000 was a huge hit among kids and 20-something nostalgia-fueled collectors alike. They are still pretty strong, consistent sellers to this day.

35

I have seen the new toys, and something abouit them is lacking. Perhaps the paint job, or perhaps the lack of cool vehicules. I don’t know. I am not desputing that they sell well, however, since I shoiuld have been clearer.

When I said “A few years later”, after the mid ninties, I was wrong. This piece of crap, a G.I.Joe Extreme figure was from 1995. This one is even worse.

36

Disclaimer: I never tell anyone what to like, or that their music has no merit – if you like it, then it’s good. For you.

That said:

I was born in 1959, and I never cared much for the music from my teenage and early adult years (1975-1980). At the time I listened to 1960s rock and older country.

But I really didn’t like the direction of pop and rock music in the 1980s.

I remember how everyone was jumping on the ‘high-tech’ bandwagon, and it seemed to be reflected in the music – they were trying to make it sound like it was all played by machines. (Again, if you enjoy it, no offense intended). There also seemed to be a ramping up of the corporate mentality that created disco. (I realize that all pop music has marketing, even the stuff I listen/listened to. But it got worse in the eighties. There were fewer bands that got together, built a sound and eventually hit it big, and more hitmakers created because they looked like movie stars).

Coupled with the technology of the day, real, live music took a back seat to outfits that consisted of one or two guys and a sequencer. Country guitar great Junior Brown recalls this as the time when demand for live bands dropped like a rock. I admit to some prejudice here, because I was playing in bands in that era, and I did indeed see the decline.

There were a few bright spots (e.g., I liked some early Van Halen, although it’s arguable whether they were an eighties band, having first hit it in the late 70’s). But for the most part, I didn’t like the music of the eighties, and I still don’t.

37

The 80s were the best in every possible way. Had I known what the 90s would be like, I would have cried on New Year’s Eve, 1990.

38

The eighties were the best because I was a teen in the eighties. Seriously, I’m sure that is what makes them seem the best, and slants my view, anyway…
Eighties seemd to allow for more variance of style and ideas than the 70s or 90s and also money didn’t seem as tight as in the 70s. 90’s bought us “Who dies with the most toys wins” mentality which was very nasty and antisocial, Punk had mellowed in the 80s to New Romantics and Goth. The threat of Nuclear war and Aids though put a damper on the decade though.

39

That’s because the 80s stereotype is that of the yuppie. Young, hungry, suit-and-tie-wearing, fast-talking, fast-driving wealthy, cinder-block-sized-cellphone-using businessmen. Doesn’t lend itself well to that kind of skit.

40

I’m exactly the opposite. The 80s were the worst in every way. Music, culture, politics…everything. I miss the 70s.