1980's. Not rubbish shock.
Posted by Scottie on 17 July 2008 - 1:47am.
The 80's.
"God weren't the 80's embarrasing?"
Actually no they weren't and they look better with each passing year.
Yes there was some music that is best forgotten.
MC Hammer will never be cool, not now, not in fifty years time.
But, and I'm not going to list everything so as to keep this short.....okay just a few:
The Teardrop Explodes
Echo And The Bunnymen
The Smiths
New Order
Depeche Mode
House Of Love
My Bloody Valentine
Orange Juice
The Style Council (I loved them ok??)
Plus many other artists that should have been just as well loved but slipped through the cracks.
Excuse me while I give my rose tinted specs a quick wipe down...
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anyone remember Modern Eon?
I thought they were topper!
yeah..
Liverpool band. I've got an LP and a couple of singles. I have to say the LP was patchy, but they had some great songs. I loved 'Euthenics' and 'Mechanic'.
There's loads of this great (or even ok) 80s stuff that may never turn up on CD... Kit, I'm So Hollow, The Farmers Boys, .. etc.
You won't be fazed...
...no doubt, and you'll be quite right not to be, but you'll need to do better than that to win this house over.
I don't think it was ever the music.
Most of the concerns aired here generally were of the "80s production sound", which I suppose is the big drums and swathes of synth.
And the haircuts, methinks.
And rolled up jacket sleeves.
I agree to a certain extent but
what's the difference between a rolled up jacket sleeve in the 80's to a pair of flares in the 70's or a kaftan in the 60's.
Every decade has it's fashion crimes but the 80's takes the brunt.
As for haircuts.....Mike Score anyone?
Johnnie Cochrane couldn't defend that.
That's the point!
They are all crap, now. Guess the fashion faux pas' of 2008, in time for this thread, revisited, in 2028......
rolled up jacket sleeves are back
kids at my scool - the crazy haired, back combed, cool emo kids all roll their blazer sleeves up ... *shakes head sadly* ... god help us if there's a war.
...
thankfully there's no sign of stretch denims with leg warmers... yet.
Is there something wrong
in having your fringe itching your chin?
Should mention
The Cure, Soft Cell and Prince who did good work and there's this sort of thing, which is somehow embarassing and yet strangely enjoyable at the same time:
That is fantastic Sven...
I'd forgotten that one.
Whether it helps me prove my point or not is another matter.
Such a shame
Prince appears to have had most/all his stuff taken off youtube. Narrowminded or wise?
After splitting, singer Anna
After splitting, singer Anna Marie quickly fell in to obscurity but bassist Adrian David Blundell's ability to play with the neck really close to his face while pulling "I'm mad, me" expressions made him the backbone of numerous top acts.
But I was one of those....
.that missed almost all of these delights as I hung around too many nutty boys, modern romantics and other pop fans...I should have stood my ground
Compilation CD's
I only this week put together two compilations CD's for my brother who wanted some "car journey music" of Eighties music. I created a smart playlist from 82-87 and picked 34 tracks from that playlist to fill two cd's. The bands/artists where The Godfathers, Difford & Tilbrook, Prince, Blancmange, Furniture, Lotus Eaters, ABC, Boomtown Rats, P.I.L., Aztec Camera, The Police, Mojo Nixon, Grandmaster Flash, Run DMC, Immaculate Fools, The Pretenders, China Crisis, Age Of Chance, Boys Wonder, Marc Almond, Georgia Satellites, The Rainmakers, Bolshoi, Faith Brothers, Bananarama, Big Audio Dynamite, The Mighty Wah!, Belle Stars, Spear Of Destiny, That Petrol Emotion, Big Sound Authority, Intaferon, Comsat Angels and Feargal Sharkey. If you scrape beneath the surface there was a lot of excellent music recorded in the Eighties.
80s production sound and values
It was mainly the instruments - horrible sounding synthesizers and electronic drums, nasty sounding synth bass, sub Bowie squeeky vocals, and also the dawning realisation that you didn't need to be talented to be a pop star. A bit of slap and a synth preset would do nicely. See Sven's clip which perfectly illustrates the point. The pop charts were atrocious IMHO. There was good music in the 80s but virtually none of it got into the charts.
80s...
always seems to be judged by what was clogging up the top 40. Only decade for which that's a fair way of judging it's musical quality is the 60s.
For me the 80s were my musical coming of age decade so I'll always have a softer spot for it than any other.
Few more to the list:
Cocteau's
Julian Cope
Lloyd Cole
Talk Talk
Nick Cave
Pixies
Jesus & Mary Chain
And the greatest group of that or any other decade, the mighty Felt...
Plenty more where they came from
The Eighties were my favourite decade for music
It was the Utah salt flats of rock - a wasteland of such vast proportions that I actually had time to go back and discover all the wonderful music of the '60s and '70s that I'd missed the first time round.
If it hadn't been for the likes of Nik Kershaw, to this day I might never even have heard of Quentin Claunch's Goldwax Records. Ta, Nik.
MC Hammer
Was signed to Deathrow Records from 1995 to 1996 and hung out with Tupac Shakur, even recording with him before he was shot and killed. So he was cool at least once during his life.
All this decade-ism makes me ill
In my experience it works like this:
Previous decade - nobody mentions
Last decade but one - "naff" but amusing.
Last decade but two - quality
Last decade but three - classic
Last decade but four - we understand it happened but we don't actually *listen* to anything from that far back
Does this mean
that in two years we should be laughing at glowsticks, Oasis and sub-Cobainian indie?
Haven't we jumped the gun a little then?
Genius insight...and no I am not creeping
90s: ?
Last decade but one - Club Nouveau
Last decade but two - Led Zepp
Last decade but three - Beatles, obviously
Last decade but four - Pat Boone
Anyone else?
The black version
Last decade: ?
Last decade but one - Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Purple Prince...
Last decade but two - Sly Stone, P-Funk, Earth Wind & Fire, O'Jays...
Last decade but three - Sam Cooke, James Brown, Otis Redding, Aretha...
Last decade but four - Nat "King" Cole
Yep, it works.
Works for now certainly
but not really convinced of it as theory that always works.
Cmon Sven
Where is your evidence to challenge this mighty theory? This typoloy simplifies music for me as well as E=MC2 does physics..
Well OK
I may be misunderstanding the point, but in the 80s myself and those I know had pretty much the same view of 70s and 60s as we do now - ie 70s = quality and 60s = classic, while at the same time we loved much of the music of the time we were in since we were in our twenties, but kind of knew much of the chart stuff was naff and so tended to be into non top twenty music mostly (I know there's always been crap in the charts, but there's degrees of crapness). As I understand it the theory is meant to apply whatever decade you are in.
Also, in the eighties the 50s meant little to us (myself and my friends). But I think the music of the sixties has remained relevant as it's still the main template bands follow, even now, as established then, because that's when music changed the most. The fifties sounded really old even in the 80s, and we didn't listen to it. So I do think some decades are better than others or different to others. Of course a decade is an arbitrary grouping of music, and there's overlap between one and another, as in the old comment that the sixties continued into the seventies (up to '71 or '72), but it's a handy way to identify change and refer to it so we use it. Just standing up for decade-ism really. Not that I want to make a big thing out of it!
I think the theory still holds up
Mr H is right inasmuch as the Eighties are now the ridiculed decade, but ten years ago there was nary a bad shoulder-pad joke in sight, because the "endearingly naff" decade was the Seventies. (Remember all those Old Spice and Austin Maxi jokes?) And in the Eighties, the ridiculed decade was indeed the Sixties - just ask Macca or Dylan, it's when they were selling the fewest records of their now-recovered careers.
And it doesn't only work for pops. Look:
Last decade: ?
Last decade but one: Gazza's dentist's chair, very short shorts, Bruce Grobelaar, Maradona's bad perm amid a sea of mullets
Last decade but two: Cruyff, Paisley's Liverpool and Cloughie's Forest
Last decade but three: Best, Law, Charlton, Greaves, Pele
Last decade but four: Di Stefano
Well it has some merit I suppose,
he grudgingly acknowledged. But it depends who it's being applied to - for some people the eighties are classic already, but will that day/decade ever come for the majority? But then any old OK pop from the past gets called classic these days, classic being a word bandied about all too easily so who knows?
Not sure if I dare say anything else
to be honest.
Alas....
thats the rough and smooth effect that this wonderful interface brings
Producers to be named and shamed....
For services to 80's production hell...
Culprit no. 1 - Trevor Horn - sleek, ironed, unloveable
Culprit no. 2 - Jeff Lynne - take drum sound, echo it to the nth degree and fill/ruin decent Tom Petty and George Harrison tracks with it.
Culprit no. 3 - PWL - It's giving me diabetes
Culprit no. 4 - Steve Lilywhite - again - very 80's - everything trimmed and overdubbed strangling the life out of anything organic.
Anyone else on the roll?
Bit harsh
I think you're being a bit harsh on Horn and Lillywhite.
I love Lexicon of Love esp All of my heart which is certainly loveable when the strings come in on the chorus.
Lillywhite "strangling the life out of anything organic"? You surely can't mean his recordings with The Pogues and Talking Heads "Naked" album (much maligned but I really like it)?
Horn
Lexicon of Love was his finest hour and is one of the best albums of an execrable decade - everything else he did defined the horrible 80s production sound we are discussing. Loud and vulgar.
Horn and Lilywhite
Lexicon of Love and Relax - granted. Everything else, nooooooo!
Lilywhite - If I Should Fall from Grace - granted - but (bad era) Simple Minds, U2, Dave Matthews Band, Toyah etc...hmm
Maybe I'm turned off by the bands rather than the production but even then, thinking back, very good though it is, If I Should Fall from Grace is even produced to death compared to Rum, Sodomy & The Lash and Red Roses.
Toyah
not sure if Lilywhite's production proves or disproves the old adage that 'you can't polish a turd'.
Truth is though
when I was at the school disco "wanting to be free" I was not overly worried about production values, and as it was pop trash, i still dont care...but I appreciate at the time they thought they were probably making a classic...
Steve Lillywhite
Did some good stuff in the 70's though and I'll forgive him all (well almost all) of his subsequent sins for Fairytale of New York.
It isn't the drums with Jeff Lynne
Its the bloody echoed falsetto vocals (cals cals) that follow every phrase (rase rase)
To think I liked the bloke when he was in the Move (oove oove) and the early stirrings of ELO (lo lo)
80s...
...lots of good stuff around for definite but yeah, it's the production style on some records which hasn't aged well, for me anyway. In addition to the Horn/Lilywhite/Lynne (that bloody drum sound is on everything he did in the 80s/90s!!) axis, see also Hugh Padgham and the 'gated snare'.
But yes, pride of place has to go to the PWL/SAW clan- I find that stuff hard to listen to due to the programming/drum sounds.
something of the night about them
The Sisters Of Mercy
Bauhaus
Fields of the Nephilim
Play Dead
The Cult
The March Violets
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
This Mortal Coil
The Three Johns
Let's not forget some great singer-songwriters
Suzanne Vega springs to mind as someone who made the 80s a bit special and in a way revitalised a genre. She's still a recognisable name, but I'd also like to mention Annabel Lamb, a great and sadly forgoten English artist; Carmel (McCourt), a gutsy and instinctive singer and her idiosyncratic band, who made some terrific records in the 80s and early 90s (and whose style, as has been noted here, a certain Amy Duffy echoes very strongly; Carmel had the better songs based on what I've heard); and Julia Fordham, who has a lot more to offer than her "woman of the 80s" slogan.
As to Trevor Horn: alongside Lexicon of Love we must surely place Propaganda's magnificent album A Secret Wish.
And I would like to add
Tracy Chapman, Joan Armatrading & Kate Bush that released quite a few good/great albums in the 1980s between them....
Suzanne Vega
Again, illustrates the argument in my view. Listen to the acoustic versions of Marlene on the Wall. Far, far superior to the synthed up sheen of the debut album.
Springsteen's Tunnel of Love probably contains some of his best songwriting but is rendered near on unlistenable to my eyes due to the production techniques in fashion at the time.
Help please
Record production is not something I am very aware when I listen to music (sorry if that offends anyone) so can someone please provide a basic introduction or top tips to recognise good production..sorry to appear pretty lightweight.....
It's the difference between the noise and the sound,
Isn't it? Or is it the other way round......
Nobody mentioned
The Unforgettable Fire or ahem The Joshua Tree or New Gold Dream etc..........and I like all of those pop pickers.
I abandoned my list
when I reached the 60th artist/band that I rated in the 80s without racking my brain. Two singles I adored were James King and the Lone Wolves 'The Angels Know, and 'Attention Stockholm' by Virna Lindt - if anyone can find these as mp3s, please let me know.
What about...
REM:
Murmur (1983)
Reckoning (1984)
Fables of the Reconstruction (1985)
Lifes Rich Pageant (1986)
Document (1987)
Green (1988)
Their best work I feel.
Also Stone Roses - the first album years, as it laughably says on Wikepedia.
seriously wide of the mark
Archie, Archie, Archie,
Well wide of the mark on both Nat King Cole and Alfredo Di Stefano, the only soccer player on your list fit to hold his ball-bag is Pele. Now then, Nat King Cole operated in what was very much the white mans world, specifically that of the 50's crooner, and operated with much success and a great deal of style and class. And boy could he sing. Ah youth!
The original premise. . .
wasn't that the Fifties were rubbish, but simply that nobody really listens to or watches stuff from that far back. How many "Best of Di Stefano" DVDs do you see out there compared with the "Best of Besty" or "Greavesy's Greatest Goals"? That was my only point.
(And for what it's worth, I more than agree with you: I think Di Stefano was even better than Pele.)
Spot on about REM, Sven. The
Spot on about REM, Sven. The 1980s always attracts this lazy criticism - 'ah all the music was s***, there weren't any real bands, it was all synthesizers' How short-sighted, there is brilliant music in any era!