Is 80's music coming back?

[Sendy]

Here's a good example of the surreal 80's ballad kinda sound I like. Typically there's only two or three songs from these bands that I really like, the rest don''t have that magic configuration. (The only Billy Idol song I like is Eyes Without a Face for example).



Check out those lyrics: Don't look back until you've tried a line that feels so alive outside of you it's just tomorrow started. I mean WTF? But it just "sounds right". And the emotion he puts into his voice (something that rarely happens in today's pop music, especially with men) convinces my brain that I know exactly what he's singing about. (Basically, having to grow up into a world which is indifferent to you and the choices you make)

Later on it sounds like "I'm just a bus that you take"

[MFXxx]

its a hit, miss and rather forget when talking 80`a music. talk talk, stevie wonder, kraftwork, the start of hip hop and dance, queen and the list goes on. then we start to dredge up the stock, aitken and waterman brigade...now to dig out my white.jacket, vent brush and low lights, drain pipe trousers and wicker deck shoes...boofon gentlemen lol

[osiris]

Don't look back until you try
a line so openly a lie,
Outside of you,
it's just tomorrow starting

[Tricky-Loops]

This song wins the prize for the best lyrics of the 80ies:

[robogone]

I've never really been sure exactly what is meant by defining music by a decade as most decades cover a lot of ground.

As for the 80s, they really seemed to be a lot of different types of music with very rapid changes. I mostly know the scene in the UK from the 80s, but it seemed to start of with a big new wave focus, moved for a few years to cheesy sterile pop music, horrible hair metal power ballads took over, then thankfully the Madchester scene and the rave scene rescued the decade.

As with most decades it had good and bad, but I think the decade either side produced far better music on average.

[MFXxx]

I've never really been sure exactly what is meant by defining music by a decade as most decades cover a lot of ground.

As for the 80s, they really seemed to be a lot of different types of music with very rapid changes. I mostly know the scene in the UK from the 80s, but it seemed to start of with a big new wave focus, moved for a few years to cheesy sterile pop music, horrible hair metal power ballads took over, then thankfully the Madchester scene and the rave scene rescued the decade.

As with most decades it had good and bad, but I think the decade either side produced far better music on average.

+1 Great summary Frankie says Relax

[SODDI]

I've never really been sure exactly what is meant by defining music by a decade as most decades cover a lot of ground.

I kind of agree with this. It's also a continuum, whole movements like art rock and hardore spanning the 70s and the 80s, and the the 80s and 90s, fairly seamlessly.

As for the 80s, they really seemed to be a lot of different types of music with very rapid changes. I mostly know the scene in the UK from the 80s, but it seemed to start of with a big new wave focus, moved for a few years to cheesy sterile pop music, horrible hair metal power ballads took over, then thankfully the Madchester scene and the rave scene rescued the decade.

As with most decades it had good and bad, but I think the decade either side produced far better music on average.

Prince is sadly missing in all the "shiny pretty" discussions - he's a talent and a synthesist that dwarfs them all. And it's unfortunate that he won't allow his videos on YouTube, because just a simple review of the track "Raspberry Beret" would show just how much of a monster he really is.

[MFXxx]

Prince - Genius - is back...afro and female drummers - love it

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/ ... ng-session
http://www.okayplayer.com/news/prince-p ... vlKcbRBp58
http://vimeo.com/61739791

[metamorphosis]

Only if we're lucky:

[robogone]

Prince is sadly missing in all the "shiny pretty" discussions - he's a talent and a synthesist that dwarfs them all. And it's unfortunate that he won't allow his videos on YouTube, because just a simple review of the track "Raspberry Beret" would show just how much of a monster he really is.

Prince is great, and the 80s were his decade really. There are a handful of artists that stand out and are really separate from any discussion about a decade as they are just extremely talented, period. Prince is definitely one of them, as he straddled both pop and some very substantial songwriting talent.

For the most part, when I'm talking about a decade I'm excluding that kind of talent, as you know that someone like Prince would have thrived no matter what years he was active in.

[Tricky-Loops]

Prince *WAS* great, especially in the 80ies. But his newer stuff is pretty boring, some kind of average funky pop music...

[SODDI]

For the most part, when I'm talking about a decade I'm excluding that kind of talent, as you know that someone like Prince would have thrived no matter what years he was active in.

Actually, Prince is one of the main progenitors of the studio musician/DIY aesthetic that a good number of us KVR humanoids model ourselves after. He played most of the instruments on his first couple albums, using OBX, DX-7, D-50, Linn Drums... then had to teach the parts to his touring bands.

At the end of the 80s, and inspired by Prince's "do it myself in the studio" aesthetic, another one of those progenitors released his first album - Trent Reznor - Nine Inch Nails.

[MFXxx]

NIN totally skipped my mind, whilst we're on the indie pop 'per say' Red Hot Chillies, dare I mention Nirvana (Seattle Grunge) and of the wall...De La Soul - 3ft high and rising an album produced in a 'garage', or so the urban myth goes. Pet Shop Boys, Art of Noise, Public Enemy, Grandmaster Flash and the furious 5...did someone say "sampler" :•)

I recall walking into the local music store displaying a hanging sign "anyone caught playing Axel F on the DX7 or any keys would be shot, evicted and life banned..."

Guess what I am driving at the 80's was the decade of expansion for many music genres from Rock, New Wave, Dance and electronic. Especially as technologies started to grow...and here we are now a mere 20-30+ years on, haven't we done well???

[ontol]

[crimsonwarlock]

You can leave it to Rush (Neil Perth) for some meaningful lyrics:

Sprawling on the fringes of the city
In geometric order
An insulated border
In between the bright lights
And the far unlit unknown

Growing up it all seems so one-sided
Opinions all provided
The future pre-decided
Detached and subdivided
In the mass production zone
Nowhere is the dreamer or the misfit so alone

Chorus
(Subdivisions)
In the high school halls
In the shopping malls
Conform or be cast out
(Subdivisions)
In the basement bars
In the backs of cars
Be cool or be cast out
Any escape might help disprove the unattractive truth
But the suburbs have no charms to soothe the restless dreams of youth

Drawn like moths we drift into the city
The timeless old attraction
Cruising for the action
Lit up like a firefly
Just to feel the living night

Well some will sell their dreams for small desires
Or lose the race to rats
Get caught in ticking traps
And start to dream of somewhere
To relax their restless flight
Somewhere out of a memory of lighted streets on quiet nights...




Although this is from the eighties, Rush is of course of many decades (and still)