The 80s..the worst era for prog. - Progressive Rock Music Forum

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Abstrakt

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Posted: March 05 2011 at 16:30

No way!

Some great 80's prog albums:

Ozric Tentacles - Sliding Gliding Worlds

Rush - Moving Pictures

Marillion - Clutching at Straws

King Crimson - Discipline

Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Eloy - Colours

Yes - Drama

Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Doc at the Radar Station

Electronic Music, Alternative Rock, Post-Punk & Heavy Metal are other great genres that blossomed in the 80's aswell :D

Edited by Abstrakt - March 05 2011 at 16:39

rogerthat

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Posted: March 05 2011 at 23:17

80s did have some good prog but 70s, 90s and 00s all produced more good prog so it is, let's say, the "least great" era of prog, a more polite way of putting it. "Worst" can put off people.

maribor

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 06:32

Shub Niggurath, Univers Zero, Present, Art Zoyd, Magma, Eskaton, Zappa, Uberfall, Mike Oldfield - they all produced some of their best stuff in the 80s and I'm probably forgetting quite a few artists as well.

Non mi svegliate

Johnnytuba View Drop Down

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 07:11

greenback wrote:

Blacksword wrote:

I dont think may would argue with you, that the 70's was the best time for prog

There was a lot of crap around in the 80's anyway, but there was good prog rock..

Script for a jesters tear - Marillion
Fugazi - Marillion
Misplaced Childhood - Marillion
Clutching at Straws - Marillion
Moving Pictures - Rush
Signals - Rush
Grace under Pressure - Rush
Once aroubnd the world - It Bites
Never Forever - Kate Bush
The Dreaming - Kate Bush
Hounds of Love - Kate Bush
The Wake - IQ
Art & Illusion - Twelfth Night
Duke - Genesis

sure! should I add to this list:

tales from the lush attic - IQ

seasons end - marillion

power windows - rush

big lad & windmill - it bites

the jewell - pendragon

fly high fall far - pendragon

eloy - colours + planets + times to turn + performance + wings of vision

gandalf - journey to an imaginary land

steve hackett - defector

anthony phillips - 1984 + private parts 2, 3 & 4

jon & vangelis - short stories

mike oldfield - airborn + most of his 80's albums

alan parson - turn of a friendly card

rush - permanent waves

many saga albums

univers 0 - ceux du dehors

many tangerine dream albums

camel - nude , stationary + single factor

sally oldfield - water bearer + easy

jethro tull - a, broadsword & under wraps

ian anderson - walk into light

yes - drama & 90125 + ABWH

many UZEB albums

MANY Frank Zappa's albums: tinsel town, drowning witch, you are what you is and so on....

tons of vangelis albums

king crimson - red

the 3 first asia's

the first 4 Fixx's albums

magnum - storyteller

supertramp - breakfast + brother were you bound

pink floyd - final cut + momentary

eddie jobson - zinc + theme of secrets

now, i have to stop, because i have not finished soon!

NO, definitely the 80's were not a bad decade at all! Stern Smile

Don't forget Hold Your Fire - RUSH

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Time will do its healing, you've got to let it go.

topographicbroadways View Drop Down

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 07:22

The only thing i really miss in the 80's is the Mellotron. Nobody can claim those string emulators sounded anything close to as good as Mellotrons

lucas

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 08:26

there was a lot of good music in the eighties.

Prog had its heydays in the seventies, like jazz-rock.

But there were nonetheless a load of good prog rock bands (Marillion, Saga, Castanarc, IQ, Ain Soph, Aksak Maboul, Queensryche, Fates Warning, Ruins, Steve Morse Band, Thinking Plague, Pablo el Enterrador, Watchtower, It Bites, Malomenos, In Spe, Kenso, Thule, Rebekka, Bacamarte, Steve Vai's Flex-able, 5 UU's, Shub Niggurath, Coda, Sagrado Coraçao da Terra, Ozric Tentacles, Mekong Delta, The Muffins, This Heat, However, Debile Menthol, 12th night, Watchtower, Doctor Nerve, Biota) or prog-related bands/artists (K.U.K.L., Talk Talk, Japan, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush, Geoff Mann, Dalbello, King's X, Michael Garrison, David Borden, Bernd Kistenmacher, Patrick O'Hearn, Software, Steve Roach, Massacre, Voivod) and some usual suspects of the seventies continued to release good albums (Anthony Phillips, Rupert Hine, Rush, Kansas, Dixie Dregs, Brian Eno, Harold Budd, King Crimson, Los Jaivas, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Vangelis, Synergy, Frank Zappa, Klaus Schulze, Allan Holdsworth, Art Zoyd, The Enid, Nu, Alas, COS, Univers Zero, Roy Harper)

So, to sum up a lot of neo and RIO in the eighties.

"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)

let prog reign View Drop Down

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 09:05

[QUOTE=greenback] king crimson - red

sorry but this was not made in the 80's

Once upon a time there was some writing on the wall we all ignored, until the time that there was war and feasts of famine at our door

lucas

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 09:09

probably 'discipline', there must have been a confusion between the name of the 1974 album and the colour of the 1981 album.

"Magma was the very first gothic rock band" (Didier Lockwood)

himtroy

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 12:17

Well Frank Zappa was still alive so this is a false statement.

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himtroy

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 12:18

Originally posted by topographicbroadways

topographicbroadways wrote:

The only thing i really miss in the 80's is the Mellotron. Nobody can claim those string emulators sounded anything close to as good as Mellotrons

I think we can say this about all analog vs digital technology. Digital at it's absolute best is only equivalent to analog in tone. Convenience is much higher in digital, but I'd rather have a Moog, the harder to tame beast, than a digital keyboard, the throwaway computer sounding garbage. I can handle ambient digital synths but leads are usually pretty bad and fake sounding.

Which of you to gain me, tell, will risk uncertain pains of hell?
I will not forgive you if you will not take the chance.

topographicbroadways View Drop Down

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 12:53

himtroy wrote:

topographicbroadways wrote:

The only thing i really miss in the 80's is the Mellotron. Nobody can claim those string emulators sounded anything close to as good as Mellotrons

it's not so much the analogue vs digital thing with Mellotron vs. string emulation because the mellotron was an instrument in it's own right with the unique sound it made, which is nowadays emulated in digital but in the 80's it was just a sound made to be like a string section, not as atmospheric or pleasant to listen to

sleeper

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 13:06

I wonder where this idea that the 80's was good for Neo prog came from. After you get past Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas and Twelfth Night theres almost nothing of value.

Spending more than I should on Prog since 2005

cstack3

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 13:31

Come to think of it, the '80s saw the return of "prog as pop"! If you are old enough, think back to Asia's "Heat of the Moment," GTR's "When the Heart Rules the Mind," Saga's "On the Loose," Yes's "Owner" etc. etc. This stuff was HUGELY popular with young audiences at the time!

This was reminiscent of radio in the early 1970's, when Yes' "Roundabout," ELP's "From the Beginning," Flash's "Small Beginnings," and Focus's "Hocus Pocus" were all fighting for airplay! Early 70's were a great time to grow up, believe me! (

lazland

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 13:36

sleeper wrote:

I wonder where this idea that the 80's was good for Neo prog came from. After you get past Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas and Twelfth Night theres almost nothing of value.

Well, that just about WAS neo-prog in the 80's. Most of the other notable acts came in the following decade.

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sleeper

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 15:47

lazland wrote:

sleeper wrote:

I wonder where this idea that the 80's was good for Neo prog came from. After you get past Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas and Twelfth Night theres almost nothing of value.

Well, that just about WAS neo-prog in the 80's. Most of the other notable acts came in the following decade.

Thats my point, 5 bands and 14 studio albums, several of which arent very highly rated, dont constitute a successful decade. The 90's and 00's both have a considerably wider range of bands releasing albums that are at least liked.

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boo boo

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 19:44

You know, the 80s really didn't have more crap music than any other decade. That's such a myth. A lot of pop music from the 70s was pretty terrible. Dan Fogelberg, c'mon now.

progremist wrote:

80's was worst era for music generally. Thin, plastic sounds. That was like transition phase to exciting seventies to kick-ass nineties.

Thin plastic sounds? Compared to today?

There was more to the 80s than freaking Flock of Seaguls.

Without Marillion, Toto, Queensryche, Rush and maybe King Crimson that would been total disaster.

You forgot to mention Michael Jackson, Talking Heads, The Cure, The Police, XTC, New Order, Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, The Smiths, Prince, U2, Iron Maiden, Metallica, Van Halen, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Killing Joke, Minutemen, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, Sonic Youth, Pixies, Violent Femmes, REM, The Replacements, X, Bad Brains, Meat Puppets, Tom Waits, Brian Eno, Cocteau Twins, Talk Talk and many others.

The 80s would have done just fine without prog, and it did. Prog is not the be all/end all of music.

Also Toto can f*ck off.

rogerthat

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 19:47

sleeper wrote:

lazland wrote:

sleeper wrote:

I wonder where this idea that the 80's was good for Neo prog came from. After you get past Marillion, IQ, Pendragon, Pallas and Twelfth Night theres almost nothing of value.

Well, that just about WAS neo-prog in the 80's. Most of the other notable acts came in the following decade.

But there was a lot of RIO and some pioneering efforts in prog metal that had already begun to give shape to the genre. Some good jazz fusion. Of course, in spread, it still doesn't compare to other decades of prog.

rogerthat

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 19:55

boo boo wrote:

Thin plastic sounds? Compared to today?

There was more to the 80s than freaking Flock of Seaguls.

A lot of people dislike 80s synth and drum tones and it's quite justified. Maybe you're just immune to that possibly by listening to a lot of 80s music in your formative years, doesn't mean everybody has to be, get over it. Across the board, lots and lots of bands in the 80s sported these tones. Even Chad sounds crap in Metal Fatigue though his playing is amazing. Today, artists have the option of using better tones and better production, making robotic dance songs of the sort one hears on radio is their prerogative but you can produce an album really well, should you want to, today.

The Dark Elf View Drop Down

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 20:51

Meh, music in the 1980s was mostly dreadful, no matter how much lipstick you slop on the pig.

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boo boo

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Posted: March 06 2011 at 21:04

Writing off a whole decade because you're biased towards the decade of YOUR formative years is not justifiable at all.