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Joined: July 03 2010
Location: Coho Country
Status: Offline
Points: 1302
Posted: June 20 2011 at 05:13
zravkapt wrote:
Why the 80s sucked:
-gated drums
-the choice of synth sounds which sounded state-of-the-art at the time but now sound cheesy and dated
-MTV (or more specifically the importance given to image over the music)
-going from 24-track recording to 48-track recording
-sampling became more and more acceptable
Nonetheless, there was a lot of good music in that decade, especially in Metal, Avant-Prog, "College Rock/Alternative," and Industrial. There was a lot of one-hit wonders in the '80s, but most of those songs were great compared to the one-hit wonders today.
Exactly.
The pompous, lame, cheezy synth sound that sounded exactly to me during the 80's as you state sounds to you now, especiallyin the first half of the 80's. Synth pop, new romantic, art pop, dance pop and some of the new wave artists. AWFUL! Being 18 in the 1983 I went back in time to search and I found what I was looking for. A lot of the music in the 10 year period from 1965-1975. The Culture Club, The Eurythmics, Wang Chung, A Flock Of Seagulls, Wham, etc. I can't go on the memories hurt too much.
MTV. Mainstream TV. Music became more about video than audio. I admit it, I watched Much Music(MM), Canada's equivilent to MTV and what seemed like hours waiting for an artists I actually liked to be be shown thier video. After utter disappointment and frustration within a short time the only times I watched MM was for the Power Hour for metal and the retro segment hoping to glimpses of artists from the 60's and the 70's. MM has now become a "reality" TV show network. What a joke as it was a joke back in the 80's. Regressive.
Sampling started in the late 70's but in unison with that "synth sound" of the 80's. Agony.
Gated reverb on the snare drum. Ahhh man. Now this coupled with sampling and the "synth sound." I used to beg for mercy back in the clubs in the 80's, sometimes even leaving as the music was so unbearable for me. Wasn't Phil Collins that popularised the gated drum. Thanx Bongohead. Then some of the "classic" and even some metal bands incorporated in thier music. What next? Just brutal.
For me, metal was the only music that kept things real generally in the 80's. NWoBHM and the emergence of thrash.
BTW, where in the hell was prog? In the AOR/pop section of the record store.
Joined: April 29 2004
Location: Heart of Europe
Status: Offline
Points: 20414
Posted: June 20 2011 at 07:11
rogerthat wrote:
Sean Trane wrote:
Even if you're a punk or metal fan, you're not likely to like the 80's better than the 70's
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!
Yes, I'd agree that the 80's were definitely the decade where metal did become all-important, and it even became a refuge for non-specific metal/hard rock fans as the anti-pop current. The number of metal bands exploded, a few subge,nres were created and their visibility increased drastically, mainly due to the same artificial tricks (MTV, make-up, spandex, puffed-up hairdo, etc..) as for the rest of the pop-rock domain..
But AFAIAC, if there were loads of metal sales, there were few albums that had the importance or quality such as
Paranoid, Sad Wings, Van Halen's debut, Secret Treaties, Iron Maiden's debut (79), Zoso, In Rock (not that metal, I know), etc... Motorhead was also a 70's band, btw
rogerthat wrote:
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. >>> 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.
well in my own lists (don't really make any) and shelves , I don't think the number of albums I own from the 90's or the 00's would be superior to the ones I have from the 80's, so I'll allow your point.
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 can't say that about the 90's, despite owning a fair bit of 91-93 US albums (grunge or RHCP). Morseso, I'd say that retro-prog and trip-hop and early post-rock save the day (I know) for that 90's decade... there was even a return to form from RIO bands as well. This despite the 90's being a consequence or continuation of the 80's. (whereas, I repeat, the 80's were not the artistic continuation of the 70's, if you'll except the horrible AOR groups).
Now the 00's, I can't really compare yet (even summerize) until i have a sufficient overall view of the decade, which won't be for a few years yet. But I've not seen a real artistical break between the 90's and 00's, soooo I'd say that they (the 00's) were the continuation of the previous decade. Even in terms of my sheves, if I was to count the numbers of album I own (or wish) for that decade, I'd say that it wouldn't be complete for another three or four years, because I usually dioscover things (well some anyway) with a few years' gap in reg&ards to their release dates
Actually, it's fairly interesting to see that even nowadays, when looking at the albums I buy in the last years, there is still more than 60% that come from the 60's & 70's (not counting reissues), and that I'd estimate that less than 5% are from the 80's (and often RIO albums).
let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword
Joined: April 29 2004
Location: Heart of Europe
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Points: 20414
Posted: June 20 2011 at 07:30
CPicard wrote:
The 70's were atrocious: ABBA, Rubettes, Bee Gees, disco music, country, French singers (go to hell, Michel Sardou!), the Carpenters... And some dare to say the 80's sucked?
Well, if you're going to compare from the bottomside, I can easily quintuple amount of suckish album of the 80's to the 70's, despite the names yopu mentuion.... (milli Vanilli, Wham, Culture Club, etc... need I add more?)
Blacksword wrote:
There was just a lot of over produced cheese around in the 80's. Artists wanted to sound big and bright; a sound that went with their big hair, and their big shoulder pads. It was, for the most part, a sh*t time for music.
That said, terrible music could always be avoided quite easily, by simply not buying it.
Well i didn't, but the industry made it almost imposible not to get over-exposed to the crap they were trying to forcefeed you.
let's just stay above the moral melee prefer the sink to the gutter keep our sand-castle virtues content to be a doer as well as a thinker, prefer lifting our pen rather than un-sheath our sword
Joined: January 07 2008
Location: Somewhere
Status: Offline
Points: 1072
Posted: June 20 2011 at 07:51
zravkapt wrote:
Why the 80s sucked:
-gated drums
-the choice of synth sounds which sounded state-of-the-art at the time but now sound cheesy and dated
-MTV (or more specifically the importance given to image over the music)
-going from 24-track recording to 48-track recording
-sampling became more and more acceptable
Nonetheless, there was a lot of good music in that decade, especially in Metal, Avant-Prog, "College Rock/Alternative," and Industrial. There was a lot of one-hit wonders in the '80s, but most of those songs were great compared to the one-hit wonders today.
Why the 80s truly did rock and I'm not kidding
-gated drums -Best, White-Noise Drum Machines and Early Digital Synth noises, that sound unique and epochal today -Cold Smooth, Atmospheric 48 track recording -Good use of sampling by Rock musicians
The only things that sucked that decade besides dance pop were Metal, Avant-Prog College Rock and Industrial. Yuk!
Joined: September 03 2006
Location: .
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Points: 9869
Posted: June 20 2011 at 09:10
Sean Trane wrote:
Yes, I'd agree that the 80's were definitely the decade where metal did become all-important, and it even became a refuge for non-specific metal/hard rock fans as the anti-pop current. The number of metal bands exploded, a few subge,nres were created and their visibility increased drastically, mainly due to the same artificial tricks (MTV, make-up, spandex, puffed-up hairdo, etc..) as for the rest of the pop-rock domain..
But AFAIAC, if there were loads of metal sales, there were few albums that had the importance or quality such as
Paranoid, Sad Wings, Van Halen's debut, Secret Treaties, Iron Maiden's debut (79), Zoso, In Rock (not that metal, I know), etc... Motorhead was also a 70's band, btw
But I was not talking about the aboveground spandex metal. I am more interested in the niche underground/extreme metal scene of the 80s and it turned out plenty of good, sometimes great, albums. I cannot think of a single metal album from the 80s that I like as much as Sabotage but there's so much absolute quantity of good material that it's hard to argue with. And re Motorhead, they may be a 70s band but their definitive Ace of Spades, No Sleep till Hammersmith and Orgasmatron releases happened in the 80s. Same goes for Iron Maiden. As good as the debut was, it is not by itself better than ALL their 80s releases put together. In Rock is metal in my book, a very important metal album at that..I know, I am a poseur.
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.
Joined: October 03 2008
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Points: 10841
Posted: June 20 2011 at 18:05
Sean Trane wrote:
CPicard wrote:
The 70's were atrocious: ABBA, Rubettes, Bee Gees, disco music, country, French singers (go to hell, Michel Sardou!), the Carpenters... And some dare to say the 80's sucked?
Well, if you're going to compare from the bottomside, I can easily quintuple amount of suckish album of the 80's to the 70's, despite the names yopu mentuion.... (milli Vanilli, Wham, Culture Club, etc... need I add more?)
And what is the problem with Culture Club, exactly? CULTURE CLUB DIDN'T SUCK!
During the late mid to late 70's I traveled with many Prog Rock cover bands and some original ones as well. It was very extreme in America. Venues were packed and you couldn't even make your way to the dressing room. You could then....play "Thick as a Brick" , "Watcher of the Skies" to a full house which would be packed to the walls on 3 of the 6 nights you were booked every week of the year. One day we were informed by managers and agents of every kind that we were no longer allowed to play Progressive Rock on a weekly basis. The money was just sky rocketing beyond. Back in 1978 I was making a thousand dollars a week playing Prog covers. The day they broke the bad news to us occured in 1980. Only a selective amount of bands were allowed to continue playing prog covers. A total of 5 bands out of the original 20 to 25 played prog and the rest of us had to tow the line and play 80's music or exit the business. In the early 80's I traveled with a ridiculous show band opening for some of the more well known prog acts of the 70's like Renaissance, Steve Hackett during the Cured tour etc...It was obvious to see then from a business point of view that these bands were right at the edge of falling by the wayside. Although they still had a following....they were not packing the venues. In some strange way from being in that business for so long,....it did feel as if pressure was put upon musicians to disregard playing musician's music, but at that time it was the people's music too and that is the sad aspect to the whole depressing event. It was like America waving goodbye to Prog because as I said before....the money was there along with the respect for the musicianship. Everyone was happy and that was how you made your living.
I use to think....why wipe Prog completely clean of promotion? Why couldn't it be placed in rotation with everything else? Clearly there was still an audience for it. The industry could have if they wanted to ...kept Prog going and still made a decent profit, however we were forced to not give up our on going profit by playing Blondie and The Police. So I was about 23 years old witnessing Progressive artists 10 years older than me getting burnt by the business. During that time it was more and more difficult to find underground prog albums or even the more established prog band's albums in most record shops. You either found a specialty shop or? I can see most of the costumes that Gabriel, Wakeman, Emerson, and Anderson wore looking a bit ridiculous to people , but the industry could have taken steps to assemble festivals and hall concerts to promote bands like Conventum, Harmonium, and others just as they did when they signed Jazz/Fusion bands to huge labels like Columbia. For some reason the 80's "New Wave" became the main source for the record industry's profit and also "Heavy Metal" and disregard for Prog seemed a law then.
When auditoning for a simple "Top 40" cover band from the New England states down to the coast of Florida in the 70's,... you just weren't asked to play a "Top 40" hit. You were asked to display other diverse aspects to your playing. Bands would ask you questions like...."Can you play the Blues?" or "Lets hear your Jazz chops?" "Can you play fingerpicking Folk style?" etc. This was clearly not a reality in the 80's. Your audition depended more on your dress code equals fashion. Band leaders would say...."I couldn't care less about your ability in Jazz/Fusion". You are only being hired for 2 things. "To play 3 or 4 chord songs and to dress according to fashion". So in the 70's when you were a musician looking to make money..... fashion was a concern, however you had to be diverse on your instrument or you wouldn't get the gig. Simple as that!
That's what sucked about the 80's. That mentality! Either dress like us and play the simplistic moronic hits or forget your between 500 to a thousand a week.There were many times when a working band would hire a professional schooled guitarist in their 30's to play 80's Van Halen because they knew for them it was easy. It was easy and he was like a cartoon character but what else did they have to offer? Anything truly interesting enough to captivate the musician as they made their money? The answer was no. The 80's was a decade where you had to play crap to make money. You needed to make good money so you could afford the recording studio. It was the best way to make contacts then and playing out every week helped as well. But the music was like....blah! yuk! So they wanted people with less talent. So by being talented and schooled with diversity you became a less desirable choice and the musician who knew no more than 8 chords was made senior vice president.. Not so much with the "Metal" bands , but the "New Wave". For a musician.....that is what sucked about the 80's.
Joined: May 16 2009
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Points: 6797
Posted: June 21 2011 at 13:59
Come On! Really! Some eighties pop sucked like 70s pop and 90s and 00s some pop sucks (Its made for kids mainly and so someof it is lazy derivative bullsh*t). If you look around the eighties there's loads of good stuff ! Even Marillion? Cocteaus, Sisters, Play Dead, Japan, Dead Can Dance, Cabaret Voltaire, Talk Talk, The Cramps, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Siouxsie, Throwing Muses etc blah blah blah blah Style yes but substance too I would argue. And much of this was original stuff (Might not argue about the Cramps but heh I like rabid Psychobilly Rock.).
I guess if you were around at the time and you only listened to the stuff in the charts then you would think it was all rubbish?
Come On! Really! Some eighties pop sucked like 70s pop and 90s and 00s some pop sucks (Its made for kids mainly and so someof it is lazy derivative bullsh*t). If you look around the eighties there's loads of good stuff ! Even Marillion? Cocteaus, Sisters, Play Dead, Japan, Dead Can Dance, Cabaret Voltaire, Talk Talk, The Cramps, Kate Bush, Peter Gabriel, Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Siouxsie, Throwing Muses etc blah blah blah blah Style yes but substance too I would argue. And much of this was original stuff (Might not argue about the Cramps but heh I like rabid Psychobilly Rock.).
I guess if you were around at the time and you only listened to the stuff in the charts then you would think it was all rubbish?
This is all very true. I have admiration for the Penguin Cafe Orchestra and the early Shadowfax which was really just instrumental progressive music that sold well because it was pasted with the new 80's term called "New Age" . The meaning behind 80's marketing of "New Age" music with the healing process concepts was rather misleading because the early W.H. releases offered true creative musical journeys. Peter Gabriel was in the mainstream limelight through the 80's and had a style that was progressive, but in the songwriting vain. Where Dead Can Dance felt and sounded underground. Progressive musicians who had been touring the road since the mid 70's were struggling. Unless you personally knew Brian Eno of the Editions label or anyone from another label you were defeated. It was a task getting signed simply as a "Progressive Rock Band" in the 80's
. Peter Gabriel wanted to make Happy the Man his backing band to record and tour with him. Happy the Man decided in the end that it would be best to remain who they are and continue their career. The timing was bad for these guys....as I said before the bitter end of traveling Prog bands in venues during the late 70's. Anyone who wanted to play progressive had to end up like Univers Zero and Art Zoyd. Univers Zero were distributed through an American label in Maryland and Steve F. did an excellent job at helping these bands out. The first year of wipe out for these bands was 1980. I mean that realization slapping you in the face. The real label dropping of the more progressive bands.....and if you didn't see them a few years later on a low budget label then they vanished. Marketing tactics were different in the 80's. and there was no call for artists who were progressive unless they were lucky like Univers Zero to be promoted by an independent vendor. The scene was still stronger in Europe than in America. Maybe in America you could see Gong or Bruford"s band playing a small venue, but the over-crowded excitement that once packed the theatres for prog was phasing out. Everything went far to the underground by then and today you have excellent prog bands from Mexico performing at picnics. So you have to sleep on a couch and eat PBJ sandwiches and suffer to be an independent prog artist?. Which is what some of the guys are seen doing on the "Progressive Warriors" DVD. So man ...what is the point? There needs to be more money invested into Prog. We need some people with money who actually believe in the art and are willing to push some of these bands a bit more to the front line so that more people in society will adapt to different kinds of music. Some of these European prog bands can't even afford to play in America. What's up with that?
Totally, because every other decade was all about the content and not style/image?
Seriously, the 60's 70's 80's 90's and 2000's all had great bands and lots of trash and pop (and I used "pop" to mean anyone about "making it" or "being big" over music).
Besides the 80's had lots of great stuff! Just some here may not realize it since they can only listen to prog rock. If any decade really sucked it was the 2000s
The human race has really tapped the well dry by this point and ALL genres of music, metal, rap, punk, country are not true to themselves and have gone "pop". Hell even pop is worse now! 13 year olds with rich families are literally being made pop stars, being autotuned to hell and singing about stuff years away from em!
Joined: September 03 2006
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Posted: June 21 2011 at 20:14
And yet, King Crimson could still make Discipline in the 80s with Master Fripp STILL preferring to seat himself on a stool, thick spectacles intact. Sure, Discipline was not a blockbuster success but they did quite well themselves. Rush did well in the first half of the 80s. Yes adapted well with 90125. Music culture always changes, that's one thing that hasn't changed. Prog rock bands who started in the 70s were caught unawares by the sweeping changes of the 80s and couldn't adapt. Talking Heads would fizzle out over the 80s but they opened it with arguably their best album, Remain in Light. I don't know that you could really ask for so much more in terms of intrigue than Remain in Light as far as commercial successes go.
Just another point here to make about the 80's. I remember several times as I traveled with bands in the 80's pulling off a Weather Report, Jean Luc Ponty, or Brecker Brothers instrumental in front of a packed dance floor of 80's youth dressed in 80's fashion. They would just go crazy dancing to funky fusion instrumentals. The crowd would roar! They mostly enjoyed the mainstream "New Wave" hits played on the radio during that time, but if you played an instrumental swing dance tune like "Birdland" and played it well....these kids would scream and praise you all night. It was then obvious to me that the youth would welcome instrumental music with open arms! We would pack the dance floors as we played obscure funky instrumentals. The 80's crowds would follow us to the dressing rooms complimenting our talents as the owners of the venues stood by the dressing room door waiting to rip us to pieces. Young people were now determined to stay at the venue till closing, buying more drinks, and giving the owner the best business profit imaginable......while the owner would scream and threaten to fire us if we continued to play instrumentals in his club. It makes no sense at all does it? Clearly I got the message that the 80's youth were not the ones trying to sabatoge musician's music. It was the industry from the higher ups right down to the local club owners who changed the rules as a means to change the concept of how to do business in the 80's. Sometimes I am a little confused about who and why or what for? But it surely felt as if the music industry on all levels were ganging up on the musicians. lol!
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Why the 80's did suck!
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ghost_of_morphy wrote:
) for that 90's decade... there was even a return to form from RIO bands as well. This despite the 90's being a consequence or continuation of the 80's. (whereas, I repeat, the 80's were not the artistic continuation of the 70's, if you'll except the horrible AOR groups).
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.
Yes we need someone to carry the torch..