Why the 80's did suck!

 

Sean Trane wrote: Of course, it wasn't meant to be that way.... It just happened ... that's the magic of that era.... FTM, the 70's just were the natural consequence of the 60's, a bit more than an afterthought, though.... Whereas there was a real jump or leap made when the 80's happened.... The 80's rejected the 70's heritage (well the punks did in fall of 76).... something that cannot be said of the 70's towards the 60's.   I've got a buddy that considers the 70's starting in spring 67 until spring 77, and the 80's starting from that date onwards and the 60's being from the surf music until the summer of love... Can't really disagree as well.

The 70s were a natural consequence but also an expansion on the 60s. And metal/hard rock, which had a presence towards the end of the 60s, became a much bigger force in the 70s.  Another important development was that Motown was set free and went through that in the 70s that rock did in the 60s (though not as seminal of course).  Anyway, I am just adding to your points, not much of a disagreement here.  I didn't intend "meant to be" in that sense. I really meant if that the cultural accident of the 60s could happen, then it is not so surprising that it didn't last.  It was bound to happen.  The bigger problem is in fact the marginalization of academic music and rock bands can't seem to find hot new techniques to borrow from jazz/classical as much as they used to. Pop music was boring before the Beatles and a few decades after them became boring again.  What has changed is the place academic music once held in society.

Sean Trane wrote:  But from the 80's album I have, I'd say that more than 50% of them I have are from 60's - 70's artistes, rather than 80's group proper (the ones releasing their debut in the 80's that is).

I think I did mention this myself in my earlier post as well.  In the 80s, some 70s artists still had the vitality to adapt to going trends in music and succeed. By the 90s, they were winded for good.  On the other hand, in the 80s, the trend of artists burning out after a couple or more of good albums had already begun so not as many cashed in on the 90s so one usually tends to like albums of artists that began to release albums in that very decade.

 

Nope, sorry, 80s is THE metal decade irrespective of that two of the best metal bands made their best work in the 70s - Sabbath and Priest.  There's no two ways about it, 80s radically changed metal and defined what it is for good. When I say "metal fan", I mean an obsessive metal listener who likes something from a good many of its genres and not just a few bands or one scene like the NWOBHM.  And I don't think anybody who likes extreme metal or even heavy/power metal would say the 80s was not a better decade for metal than the 70s, it absolutely was.  I am a metal fan and that is my view too but I like prog, fusion, funk/R&B (the better artists like Wonder) too much to like 80s more than the 70s!

Sean Trane wrote: of course in the 90's and 00's things got worse and the conglomerates grew even bigger, making their 80's ancestors looking like feeble start-ups... But it all took birth in the 80's (yeah, I know McDonald's and General Foods existed well before the 80's)... and I can't help but wonder how much better (or worse, who knows) the planet would be  if the 80's never happened the way it did, but say had just remained clamer or just a logical continuation of the 70's... Maybe it wouldn't be better at all and the world would still be bi-polar with the Cold War and such things that we tend to forget but made the 70's anything but an easy decade for almost everyone as well.

I understand where this line of argument comes from and can relate to it but since I was not an 80s kid, I am only looking at the albums that were made at the end of the day and on that basis cannot find any clinching reason to say the 80s were so much worse than the 90s and 00s. There were still talented musicians in the 80s and in spite of them either being past their best (because their prime era was the 70s) or being constrained by the peculiar sonic values of the time, they still made interesting music within a mode that made it easier for large audiences to enjoy it. That is what rock music lost with the 90s...the moment audiences are expected to persevere too much to get to the better stuff, the genre stagnates and gets boring.  The only band I have heard to really buck this trend was Dave Matthews Band.  To an extent, Radiohead too (but I am not sure their more interesting stuff is that accessible and we are speaking of mainly two albums here). Also, a good many of the genres and trends that people like from 90s and 00s were, ironically enough, defined in the 80s.  Dean had made quite an authoritative post on this but it's a long time back and I doubt I'd be able to reproduce it now.

Lastly, I am not a big believer in hypothetical scenarios so if it was meant to be that Beatles, Dylan and other 60s bands briefly made rock/pop a very interesting and cutting edge kind of music,  then it was also inevitable that things would eventually go wrong. In other words, there's probably no way the 80s would have turned out differently, it was meant to be.


Edited by rogerthat - June 19 2011 at 03:27

 

 

I actually didn't mind (even liked) both styles still in 79, but largely by 83, I didn't like either...>>> I used to love early Priest and sabbath, etc... I welcomed Iron maiden, but by Piece of mind, I didn't care.... and never got into MWOBHMB, and even worse, the spped-thrash schools or the glam-hair metal scenes bnever did a thing for me.... Even if nowadays I can find some of those bands listenable.>> Ditto for punk... despite Violent Femmes and The jam still making the odd good album in 83, the movement had become irrelevant by 79.

 

Despite my dislike of the 80's (I was 17 in 1980, soooo it should've been MY decade), there was indeed a lot of things still possible.... unfortunately, it all took a turn for the worst

 

the reason why I don't like the 80's is that unfortunately, is that it's place in the chronology of music is that it simply bend the rules for pop & rock one way and made a return impossible... thus shaping the following decades in an almost un-salvageable manner (il you'll except the retro-movements)

 

What I'm getting at is that the music insdustry was always dictating whatever was being distributed and whatever was forcefed to the public (it's amazing to see that Abbey Road studios in 65 were filled with old men whilte lab coats), but in the late 60's and early 70's, they sort of lost control of things.... and it sort of did so willingly too... because the public followed adventurous artistes, thus making money for the industry....

 

But the music industry executives saw a mean to get back in control and this time made sure that it would never be tossed aside anymore... the first thing they did was rationalize the costs , but also getting rid of the old wave wityh strong demands by installing kids that were all too glad to bask in the quarter hour of sunshine

 

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It's not limited to music alone, though...  this was in almost all areas of life that firms became bigger than countries and going global and become multi-national affairs ... of course in the 90's and 00's things got worse and the conglomerates grew even bigger, making their 80's ancestors looking like feeble start-ups... But it all took birth in the 80's (yeah, I know McDonald's and General Foods existed well before the 80's)... and I can't help but wonder how much better (or worse, who knows) the planet would be  if the 80's never happened the way it did, but say had just remained clamer or just a logical continuation of the 70's... Maybe it wouldn't be better at all and the world would still be bi-polar with the Cold War and such things that we tend to forget but made the 70's anything but an easy decade for almost everyone as well.

 

 

anyway, that's all for my two-penny philosophico-historical ramblings