What was going on in music in the '80s?

Svetonio wrote: Yeah, but now I'm feel more sad and alone..  Among the 80s bands you mentioned in your previous list there is not Material

Dean wrote: Aye, my list is far from definative ...

Svetonio wrote: Dean wrote: A Certain Ratio, All About Eve, Alien Sex Fiend, Altered Images, The Associates, Toni Basil, The Books, Bauhaus, Cabaret Voltaire, Colourbox, Cowboys International, Chrome, Anne Clark, Classix Nouveaux, Cocteau Twins, Comsat Angels, The Creatures, The Cure, Dalek I Love You, Dali's Car, Danielle Dax, The Dream Academy, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Europeans, The Explorers, Fad Gadget, The Fields of The Nephilim, Fiction Factory, The Fixx, John Foxx, Ultravox!, Gentlemen Without Weapons, Girls At Our Best!, Nina Hagen, Head Of David, The Icicleworks, The Immaculate Fools, Japan, The JAMM's/Timelords/KLF, Kissing the Pink, Annabel Lamb, Magazine, The Lover Speaks, Love and Rockets, Modern English, Modern Man, The Monochrome Set, New Model Army, The Passage, Peter and The Testtube Babies, The Pop Group, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Psychedelic Furs, The Punishment of Luxury, Random Hold, Rikki and The Last Days of The Earth, The Scars, Shelleyan Orphan, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Skinny Puppy, The Slits, Slow Children, The Sound, Spliff, Swans, Talk Talk, The Teardrop Explodes, This Moral Coil, Toyah, Tuxedomoon, Virgin Dance, Victorian Parents, Wire, The Waterboys, The Wonder Stuff, XTC, Xmal Deutschland and the Clan of Zymox I really don't belong here! You don't mentioned one and only pop band that I loved in 80s

Edited by Dean - September 14 2013 at 05:29

Guldbamsen wrote: Dean wrote: The relationship between electronic and minimalism is mostly coincidental, the use of sequencers and loops naturally gives way to repetition, but not in the way that minimalism uses repetition. Both can be seen as Repetitive Music, but different and unrelated branches. Electronic music is far from minimalism and far from minimalistic in my experience, though of course there are electronic artists who are also minimalists, and while some of them acknowledge people like Reich and Riley, most do not. Pretty much sums up what I was about to post.  The electronic artists, at least the early ones, did have a fair few minimalistic qualities to their output, but especially the German and French branchings explored new grounds through repetition, that perhaps mimic what most people would refer to as minimalism, yet the focus is another one altogether imho. Whereas the 'real' minimalism came from classical musicians such as Eric Satie and later got adopted by folks inside the classical sphere, most of the electronic wave of musicians came from untrained explorers of sound. Froese came from the guitar, whereas Schulze approached his music from a drummer's stool. I think this facet shines through in the music, and electronic, as in fully electronic music, became as a consequence of this, obscure and abstract in a way that the minimalistic pioneers could never do - and vice versa.

Interesting perspective.

I thought Karlheinz Stockhausen was like the most importance influence outside popular music on the German prog electronic artists with Morton, Reich, Riley, Varese etc. also having a prominent role. (JM Jarre and Vangelis's stuff being based in more traditional orchestral music) I know for sure that Schulze's been heavily inspired by modern classical since the beginning, very much including Steve Reich and others, but his output is also way more overtly neoclassical than TDs or KW so I'm cautious not to use him as an example too much. Even then, it still turns out to be more complex than I imagined, again because I'm kind of under-educated about the history of both genres as well as advanced music theory.

Perhaps I should mention I've met quite a few who insist that Jarre/Schulze/TD/etc. isn't "real" electronic music because it's either too closely rooted in prior musical traditions including 20th century classical and progressive/psychedelic rock, or too technologically primitive.

Dean wrote: A Certain Ratio, All About Eve, Alien Sex Fiend, Altered Images, The Associates, Toni Basil, The Books, Bauhaus, Cabaret Voltaire, Colourbox, Cowboys International, Chrome, Anne Clark, Classix Nouveaux, Cocteau Twins, Comsat Angels, The Creatures, The Cure, Dalek I Love You, Dali's Car, Danielle Dax, The Dream Academy, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Europeans, The Explorers, Fad Gadget, The Fields of The Nephilim, Fiction Factory, The Fixx, John Foxx, Ultravox!, Gentlemen Without Weapons, Girls At Our Best!, Nina Hagen, Head Of David, The Icicleworks, The Immaculate Fools, Japan, The JAMM's/Timelords/KLF, Kissing the Pink, Annabel Lamb, Magazine, The Lover Speaks, Love and Rockets, Modern English, Modern Man, The Monochrome Set, New Model Army, The Passage, Peter and The Testtube Babies, The Pop Group, Pop Will Eat Itself, The Psychedelic Furs, The Punishment of Luxury, Random Hold, Rikki and The Last Days of The Earth, The Scars, Shelleyan Orphan, Siouxsie and The Banshees, Skinny Puppy, The Slits, Slow Children, The Sound, Spliff, Swans, Talk Talk, The Teardrop Explodes, This Moral Coil, Toyah, Tuxedomoon, Virgin Dance, Victorian Parents, Wire, The Waterboys, The Wonder Stuff, XTC, Xmal Deutschland and the Clan of Zymox

Edited by Svetonio - September 14 2013 at 00:40

NotAProghead wrote: And in any decade there is always a lot of garbage in the undeground.

^ Spock's Beard 'The Light' was released in '95 - 18 years on, it sounds like a recent release. Yet some of the early 90's albums suffered from an 80's hangover, particularly concerning drum sounds (ELP's 'Black Moon', Hawkwind's 'Electric Tepee' etc.)

Music sucks.

AnonymousLoner wrote: The majority of the mainstream music during the time was tasteless garbage, but the underground music at the time was great.

Atavachron wrote: Polymorphia wrote: Atavachron wrote: Luna wrote: Atavachron wrote: Despite the truly inventive music that was being made - with Pop as much as anything else - in retrospect, the '80s were more or less the vapid and disappointing period we all thought it was. Care to elaborate? I know that popular music back then really plummeted, but popular music has never really been good.  There have been periods where 'Pop' was high quality, even innovative;  Gershwin, the Beach Boys, Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, etc.    And there absolutely were some wonderful 1980s acts, Simple Minds, Cocteau Twins, '80s King Crimson, even Yngwie Malmsteen.    But if you look at what was happening, the musical movements that were most prevalent as seen on MTV or the Billboard charts, it was artist like INXS, A-ha, George Michael, Huey Lewis, Hall&Oates, and Springsteen's jingoist period that were setting the tone.   I think also for music lovers and musicians, the decade represented a sort of "giving in" to the new clean, clipped & streamlined look and robotic sounds of that period.   No one seemed immune, few survived, and drummers and bassists were on the verge of going extinct thanks to new technology.   Luckily that never really happened but it could have. I tend to prefer A-ha over America and Bread. The musical movement that was most prevalent, anyways, was New Wave which included much better artists than INXS. Are you forgetting Talking Heads, The Fixx, The Cars, and New Order?  Or did those never "happen?" No, not forgetting them.   But, though memorable, I'm afraid I count both The Cars and The Fixx as quintessential vacuous 80s artists.   'One Thing Leads to Another' is, at best, an energetic and catchy pop tune.   But that's all it is, and therein lies the issue.   Talking Heads?   Sure, but I think Byrne's latest solo stuff (Love This Giant) is much more interesting.

If I was basing my judgement of them solely on "One Thing Leads to Another" then I would have stated the song title, not the name of the band. The songs are intelligently constructed, and I find them (especially in terms of timbre) much more interesting and less vapid than Genesis or ELP. That claim doesn't stand for all 80s music, but, for plenty of it, it does, which is why I couldn't say with honesty that the 80s was a bad decade for music.

Polymorphia wrote: Atavachron wrote: Luna wrote: Atavachron wrote: Despite the truly inventive music that was being made - with Pop as much as anything else - in retrospect, the '80s were more or less the vapid and disappointing period we all thought it was. Care to elaborate? I know that popular music back then really plummeted, but popular music has never really been good.  There have been periods where 'Pop' was high quality, even innovative;  Gershwin, the Beach Boys, Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, etc.    And there absolutely were some wonderful 1980s acts, Simple Minds, Cocteau Twins, '80s King Crimson, even Yngwie Malmsteen.    But if you look at what was happening, the musical movements that were most prevalent as seen on MTV or the Billboard charts, it was artist like INXS, A-ha, George Michael, Huey Lewis, Hall&Oates, and Springsteen's jingoist period that were setting the tone.   I think also for music lovers and musicians, the decade represented a sort of "giving in" to the new clean, clipped & streamlined look and robotic sounds of that period.   No one seemed immune, few survived, and drummers and bassists were on the verge of going extinct thanks to new technology.   Luckily that never really happened but it could have. I tend to prefer A-ha over America and Bread. The musical movement that was most prevalent, anyways, was New Wave which included much better artists than INXS. Are you forgetting Talking Heads, The Fixx, The Cars, and New Order?  Or did those never "happen?"

No, not forgetting them.   But, though memorable, I'm afraid I count both The Cars and The Fixx as quintessential vacuous 80s artists.   'One Thing Leads to Another' is, at best, an energetic and catchy pop tune.   But that's all it is, and therein lies the issue.   Talking Heads?   Sure, but I think Byrne's latest solo stuff (Love This Giant) is much more interesting.