The Afterword

Musings on the byways of popular culture

Menu

You are here: Home / Blog / The eighties…

The eighties…

by 83 Comments

Having been born in 1967 I became a teenager in 1980. I didn’t suddenly get into music at that time because I already had. However I did most of my growing up in that much maligned decade and I do get rather fed up of the received wisdom nowadays that the eighties is only about Duran Duran, Wham, Princess Diana, Phil Collins, Live Aid, big hair, crap production, Yuppies and “Greed Is Good.” That stuff had a lot of fans for sure, but it isn’t just how I remember it! Sure, there was some awful stuff around but you ignored it. I remember new wave, post-punk, Billy Bragg’s first album, (whether you like him or not it was fresh, raw and different) the rise of REM/Sonic Youth/Pixies, the birth of The Smiths, some decent soul, innovative early hip hop, pre-gentrified festivals and a real dissenting voice that resulted in protests. Lots of them.
In 1984 I left school. In the six years that followed I went to loads of gigs, played a bit of music myself, drank quite a bit, protested about a lot of things, calmed down a bit and by the end of the decade realised I should probably get some qualifications, thus beginning the process of becoming the person I am now.
So how were your eighties?

2

Comments

  1. I was actually talking about the 80s with a work colleague this morning. We are similar ages – I was born in 1973. I hated the 80s with a passion at the time – at least the music – it really did all seem to me to be “big hair and crap production”.

    But something about the sound of that decade has stuck with me, and I get a real nostalgia rush from a lot of songs from that era now.

    It’s curious how nostalgia seems to have stalled at the 80s for the past 20 or so years now. I think maybe because it was (arguably) the last “forward looking” decade for pop music. Experimental, futuristic music still happens of course, but it is consigned to the fringes. In the 80s you got mainstream futuristic stuff that sounded like nothing before it – Papa Don’t Preach, Word Up, You Can Call Me Al, Karma Chameleon….

    • @Mousey I thought my brother was the only fan of that lot. He played the first two albums (H&C and the Fireman’s Curse) to death and we shared a bedroom… It was years before I could listen to them with a fresh ear. Their later albums went a bit more mainstream but those early ones have a kind of rough goth epic quality. The production is excellent too. I saw them once supporting the Triffids in London and my brother flew over from Ireland for it. I think he was disappointed that they played their more “commercial” stuff. The Triffids were class!

      • They were the cats pyjamas when they started, hip as they come, but turned into a grinding Aussie pub band a la Cold Chisel and all the others.

        Fun fact – lead singer Mark Seymour has a brother called Nick who played the bass in a much more famous band from this part of the world

  3. I was of a similar age and went indie for most of the 80s. Only now am I exploring some of the big-hitters of the era, as I get a Sunday afternoon vinyl event going in my local café.

    Thriller is great! I’m not sure my civilian audience are ready for Closer or The Queen Is Dead.

  5. The start of the decade saw me buying my first records and starting to “get” what this music thing was all about.
    The Jam, Specials, Madness and Adam And The Ants were my introduction (plus a bit of Human League on the side). However, by 1982 I was bitten by the Heavy Metal bug (I blame Status Quo and my mates older brother constantly playing Judas Priest) and (slowly) joined that tribe, whilst devouring history with the aid of paper rounds and a second hand record shop.
    Smash Hits was slowly replaced by Kerrang, but I retained other interests – it is not a common site to see a leather clad long haired scruff buying The Smiths, Otis Redding and Van Morrisson albums in Our Price, but that’s what I did.
    My prime memory (and this is probably age and appeal related) was that the period 1985 to 88 was all a bit bland and inspid – but at least there was The Primitives, Transvision Vamp, The Wonderstuff, Pop Will Eat Itself, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine and Zodiac Mindwarp to sate my non-Kerrang based listening.
    Never did go the “full indie” and the American-y indie stuff like Sonic Youth and Pixies passed me by at the time

    • Is the correct answer, particularly for me. In at the deep end, working at the first WOMAD in Shepton Mallet and getting instantly exposed not just to African music but to a wide specrum of stuff from every corner of the globe, I was almost bankrupted by the brilliant record shops that sprang up in Bristol selling Sunny Ade, Fela, Ebenezer Obe and a thousand others; gosh I had a lot of musical fun.

      I could sneer at Top Of The Pops and proudly put on a dozen things that would blow it all into the dust (including the stuff that was Western and equally great – particularly the Talking Heads stream of things)…

      And besides, I was still palying catch-up on all the brilliant reggae that had emerged in the previous decade. It’s a wonder I had any cash for beer and fags.

  7. I think the 80s were great and have been unfairly maligned, based upon fashions and production techniques. I started work in 1980, after 5 years at uni, during which I moved from progtastic hippy wannabe to noo wave skinny tie boy. Dare was probably my defining buy of 1980 and I spent that decade moving to Brum, marrying and becoming a father. Before the last of these I was hoovering up all the available shows at the late lamented B’ham Odeon (at least as a concert venue) and having disposable to spend on records. I loved all the stuff of that decade, from FYC, Lloyd Cole, Deacon Blue to all the by now established year zero icons, EC, Pretenders, Police, all of that. When kids arrived, mid decade, I moved sideways into full on folkie, to coincide with the launch of Folk Roots as a glossy mag, hoovering up all the exotica of that scene, when a night out at the (Red Lion) folk club could equally well be EII, Alias Ron Kavana or Gregson & Collister.
    Wonderful decade.

  8. I was also born in 67 and remember that there was a very mainstream 80s, which many of us didn’t care for although no-one could deny there were a lot of fantastic singles, and plenty of alternative 80s which we did buy into. The rockier side of metal, including MWOBHM, was my gateway drug for music and from there I moved on to gothier stuff. The shiny, colourful, Radio 1 80s didn’t bear much comparison with the grim, violent 80s in which most of us lived but there were plenty of alternatives which weren’t hard to find.

  9. Looking at my itunes, my fave UK/USA 80s albums:
    Catholic Boy, Shades, Closer, Tin Drum, Steve McQueen, Eden, Neither Washington Nor Moscow, Darklands, One Trick Pony, Peter Gabriel 3 & 4, Heartattack & Vine, Signing Off, Penthouse & Pavement, Tattoo You, Pirates, Bella Donna, Wilder, Nebraska, Sandinista, Rio, Avalon, Beautiful Vision, High Land Hard Rain, North Marine Drive, The Final Cut, The Curse Of The Higsons, The Smiths, Cafe Bleu, Fans, Rum Sodomy & The Lash, Little Creatures, Boat To Bolivia, Robbie Robertson, It’ll End In Tears, Spirit Of Eden, The Stone Roses.

    My favourites from the last 18 years:
    Stone To Flesh, Blemish, Manafon, On An Island, 12 Stops & Home, Lookaftering, Above The Bones, Push The Sky Away, The Endless River, Saudade, Carrie & Lowell, Blackstar, Blonde, Coming Home, Love & Hate, Stoney, Blue & Lonesome, Dread Times, Black Smoke Rising, The Temple Of I & I, Piano & A Microphone.

    80s win.

  10. I turned 18 in 1980 so it is my decade. A large part of my collection comes from that era. It was a bad decade for legacy acts who made bad production and artistic choices. But as stated above a load of great music in that tome period.

    Not sure why we always use these arbitrary years to define things. The decade from 77-86 is really great as would be 65-74 to name a couple of examples.

  11. Definitely my formative years, musically and otherwise. Yes, the mainstream mid-80s were horrible, but it was also the decade that introduced me to Husker Du, REM, The Gun Club, The Birthday Party, the Cocteau Twins, and where I worked my way back through the record racks and discovered Joy Division, Burning Spear, Black Uhuru, Sly & the Family Stone, Tom Waits and numerous others.

  12. I was born in 1970 so have to face the fact that my full teenage tears were spent in the 80s in suburban Essex. Didn’t feel comfortable at the time and grew to dislike the Thatcher effect, although I avoided its worse consequences: in fact, my hometown was one of its epicenters. I heard the Beatles, the Velvets and the Doors at an early age and so became bit of an indie music snob by 1984. At the time and at school, that retro-rock taste seemed odd, but now I realise how typical it was of a certain adolescent style. However, I always caught TOTP and read my sister’s Smash Hits; I am now more sympathetic to the sheen of mid-80s pop, though Queen remain verboten. Got into Sonic Youth,Husker Du and the Pixies after 1987, started following bands in London, then stumbled upon the rave scene although I was hardly one of the beautiful people at the Shoom club. I suppose I now appreciate coming of age in a pre-digital era with a certain oppositional edge to its culture, and, for me, the 90s were fun.

  14. The ’80s is when music transformed from an increasingly successful business into an enormous behemoth of an industry, awash with greed, money and cocaine. The great CD con was perpetrated and we willingly paid through the nose for the cheapest means of bringing music to the market there had ever been.
    Bad drugs were already everywhere by then and cynicism was the mindset that came with them.
    Not everything that was produced in the ’80s was terrible, but I think the sheer amount of crap that surrounded us was inescapable.
    I’m not just talking about music here. Movies, TV, industry/commerce in general, basic social interaction and politics were all tainted to some degree. Real human happiness decreased and we replaced it with hedonism.

    • Having said all that, it was also the decade in which my musical horizons broadened. Especially with African music and Jazz. The NME tapes of Blue Note and RCA jazz classics and Island Records “Sound D’Afrique” vinyl compilations, along with seeing King Sunny Adé and Fela Kuti at successsive Glastos.

  15. I was born mid-70s and while I find myself feeling nostalgic at the 1980s TOTPs on BBC4, there was very little contemporary pop that I liked at the time. Still, the day I bought the Sledgehammer & Addicted to Love singles wasn’t all bad.

    What the 80s did to by nascent musical taste was turn me into a 60s head. Oldies radio meant 60s music, and tv shows like The Rock & Roll Years and even The Monkees presented that music as coming from a time of wonder that would never be repeated. I succumbed totally to the 1987 It Was Twenty Years Ago Today celebration and albums like this one offered a respite to the SAW sound at that time. https://www.discogs.com/Various-Sixties-Mania/release/1675758

    Maybe this kind of thing is cyclical. There must be one 12 year old in 2019 who’s obsessed with Britpop and the like.

  16. Similar to @retropath2 the eighties were framed by my marriage to wife no.1 IN 1982.
    By 1986 we had moved to Florida for a 2 year stint and it was there that I first heard Steve Earle’s Guitar Town, Peter Case’s first album and 10,000 Maniacs In my Tribe. Still favourites until this day.
    Paul Simon’s best album Graceland was a child of the eighties too .
    And Costello released King of America and Blood and Chocolate in 1986 – again KOA is to my mind his best album.
    I think the eighties are more maligned for British music, awful recording trends like Linn Drums and Vocoders and some pretty shit bands to be honest.
    My 80’s were good, the 80’s that most people remember were shit. As they came to an end there was a lot of optimism for the 90’s which personally I think was a better overall experience.

    • Indeed Steve, two fantastic Costello albums in one year seems incredible when you look back. For me Blood and Chocolate wins out but only by a very narrow margin. And I’ve seen Peter Case’s name crop up a lot over the years, so I must check that album out.

  18. Some truly interesting responses so far. I don’t really think I meant that all of the mainstream was crap because it isn’t (and Lloyd Cole’s album title of the same name was apparently supposed to be about the fact that the mainstream had some fantastic stuff in it-he was right) but how today’s popular perception of the years between 80 and 90 as being generally, well, a bit naff. I should also have made it clearer that personally I had a ball.

  19. Musicwise, the eighties had a great start and a brilliant finish but the dip in the middle was utterly dreadful. The exceptions were noticeable for their reliance on old-fashioned production values. I’m thinking Tom Waits, Dexys Midnight Runners and the two Elvis Costello albums mentioned above. However, Soul music and Reggae, my two real loves, effectively disappeared and what did come to my attention sounded awful.

    Vinyl went thin because of the oil crisis. The economy was dire. There were riots well into the middle of the decade, unemployment was high and Thatcher was in power. One big blessing was CDs. At last, music sounded good on cheap equipment, freed of those pops, whistles and jumps. Duco is right about Jazz but I was buying the Blue Note and Reprise back catalogue, which sounded wonderful.

    Personally, I was a miserable, nasty drunk. Best not to think about it.

    • @Tiggerlion How could I have forgotten about Dexy’s – it was their decade. Tom Waits also had Swordfishtrombones.
      Reggae did disappear but Sly and Robbie’s non reggae album Language Barrier came out in the 80’s and I am not sure they have bettered it. Also Grace Jones of course.

  20. More than any other decade the 80s tends to be lazily shorthanded through some of worst and most mainstream of its acts. Lets not forget that the sixties was also Englebert and Hermanns Hermits, and the seventies saw Toppie weekly full of 27 minutes of novelty pop, Alvin Stardust and Gary Glitter alongside ‘the clip that changed my life’.
    We saw…
    Post-punk in full flow for the first two years of the decade.
    House, balearic, acid and techno changing the world in the last four years of the decade.
    The irresistible rise of hip-hop from The Message to Straight Outta Compton
    Indie as a proper alternative music ecosystem from labels to designers to artists to distribution to shops to venues to promoters…..
    WOMAD and the first sustained efforts to look to music on other continents (I went to the second one, Nusrut Fatah Ali Khan oh my gosh).
    Synthpop
    The antipodeans – Birthday Party, Triffids, Gobetweens, Crowded House etc
    The British jazz revival
    Minimalists go mainstream – by the end of the decade Glass and Reich were huge stars
    American college rock
    etc etc
    So not just good artists but as much change, evolution and new as in any decade previous. Possbily the last decade where you can say that.

    • Lest we forget – the decade was founded off by the beginnings of Madchester.
      After the 1987 nadir (a personal choice of “worst year”) things were looking up and (a little bit) exciting again

  22. I think the 80s is the decade that defines my musical tastes. I only really got seriously into 70s heroes Bowie and Ferry in 1980 (Sixth Form friends encouraged my working backwards from Scary Monsters and Flesh + Blood respectively), then being an avid NME/Smash Hits reader and Rhythm Pals Radio 1 listener during my student days I latched on to the bands and artists who I still hold most dear, from originally ‘left field’ going big time stuff like Adam and the Ants, New Order, The Smiths, JAMC to the major league artists who were subversive and fizzing with ideas and incredible music such as Prince, Madonna, Kate Bush and Pet Shop Boys. I also loved observing the New Romantic and Goth scenes from the periphery, never being daring enough to adopt the look or the lifestyle, but loving the peacocks and dark goddesses who graced the legendary Hull nightclub, Spiders. Looking back, I wish I had had a more adventurous outlook and perhaps chanced my arm in going to find opportunities in That London like so many graduates did; but then I wouldn’t have met the love of my life, so it’s more of a whimsical ‘what if? than a real regret.

  23. I had the audacity to not be born until the mid-eighties, so consequently all the experience I’ve had of listening to music from that particularly decade has been from the perspective of someone who wasn’t really there at the time.

    Last summer, I listened exclusively to albums released between 1980 and 1990 as part of an ongoing project (currently on hiatus) and can confirm the following albums are either great or terrible:

    Great:
    The Jam – Sound Affects, Tom Tom Club – Tom Tom Club, Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Rattlesnakes, The Smiths – The Queen is Dead, Kd Lang – Shadowland, Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation, Public Enemy – It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses, Pxies – Doolittle, Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Searching For The Young Soul Rebels, Peter Gabriel – 3 (Melt), Echo and the Bunnymen – Crocodiles, Talking Heads – Remain in Light, Joy Division – Closer, The Undertones – Hypnotised, Teardrop Explodes – Kilimanjaro, Siouxsie and the Banshees – Juju, OMD – Architecture and Morality, Human League – Dare, ABC – The Lexicon of Love, Elvis Costello – Imperial Bedroom, Dexy’s Midnight Runners – Too-rye-ay, Bruce Springsteen – Nebraska, Duran Duran – Rio, REM – Murmur, Tom Waits- Swordfishtrombones, Blue Nile – A Walk Across The Rooftops, U2 – War, Prince – Purple Rain, Echo and the Bunnymen – Ocean Rain, Bruce Springsteen – Born in the USA, The Pogues – Rum, Sodomy & The Lash, The Smiths – Meat Is Murder, Tom Waits – Rain Dogs, Jesus and Mary Chain – Psychocandy, Sonic Youth – Evol, Paul Simon – Graceland, Run DMC – Raising Hell, XTC – Skylarking, Peter Gabiel – So, Prince – Sign o’ the Times, The Smiths – Strangways Here We Come, Sonic Youth – Sister, Michael Jackson – Bad, The Pogues – If I Should Fall By The Grace of God, Pixies – Surfer Rosa, Sugacubes – Life’s Too Good, Madonna – Like a Prayer, Kate Bush – The Sensual World, The La’s – The La’s , Specials – More Specials, The Pretenders- The Pretenders, Heaven 17 – Penthouse & Pavement, Soft Cell – Non-Stop Exotic Cabaret, Prince – 1999, Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five – The Message, Kate Bush – The Dreaming, Michael Jackson – Thriller, Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast, Violent Femmes – Violent Femmes, Frankie Goes To Hollywood – Welcome To The Pleasuredome, Sade- Diamond Life, Cocteau Twins – Treasure, The Replacements – Let It Be, Prefab Sprout – Steve McQueen, Suzanne Vega – Suzanne Vega, Kate Bush – Hounds of Love, Simply Red – Picture Book, Beastie Boys – Licence To Ill, Nanci Griffith – Last of the True Believers, Billy Bragg – Talking To The Taxman About Poetry, Dinosaur Jr – You’re Living All Over Me, Def Leppard – Hysteria, REM- Document, Guns n Roses – Appetite For Destruction, Jesus and Mary Chain – Darklands, Triffids – Calenture, U2 – Joshua Tree, The Waterboys – Fisherman’s Blues, New Order – Technique, Beastie Boys – Paul’s Boutique, Aerosmith – Pump, NWA – Straigh Outta Compton.

    Terrible:
    Napalm Death – Scum, Venom – Black Metal, Big Black – Atomizer, The Cramps – Songs The Lord Taught Us, Circle Jerks – Group Sex, Motorhead – No Sleep Til Hammersmith, Black Flag – Damaged, Minutemen – Double Nickels on a Dime, Anthrax – Among The Living, Butthole Surfers – Locust Abortion Technician, Laibach – Opus Dei, Metallica – And Justice For All, Killing Joke – Killing Joke, UB40 – Signing Off, Steve Woonder – Arc of a Driver, Rush – Moving Pictures, Birthday Party – Junkyard, The The – Soul Mining, The Police – Synchronicity, Minor Threat – Out of Step, Dire Straits – Brothers in Arms, Slayer – Reign of Blood, Bad Brains – I against I, The Cult – Electric, Ladysmith Black Mambazo – Shaka Zulu, Terence Trent D’arby – The Hardline According To Terence Trent D’arby, Fishbone – Truth and Soul, Living Colour – Vivid, My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything, Jane’s Addiction – Nothing’s Shocking.

      • JESUS CHRIST I JUST READ THAT LIST PROPERLY. NOTHING’S SHOCKING ‘TERRIBLE’? NOTHING’S SHOCKING!? “OCEAN SIZE”? ‘SUMMERTIME ROLLS”? “TED, JUST ADMIT IT”? “JANE SAYS*”??????!!!???? SOME PEOPLE DO NOT DESERVE TO HAVE EARS.

        *ADMITTEDLY JANE SAYS IS NOT AS GOOD AS THE VERSION ON THE TRIPLE X LP

        • Well, chacun à son goût, as they say. But here’s an interesting thing I’ve just realized: all of the (non-family) people I care about I met between 1980 and 1989. I should probably get out more..

    • From your Great list: yup, yup, OK, if you say so, yup etc

      The Terrible list though – you seem to have erroneously included No Sleep Til Hammersmith (a truly brilliant live album, up there with Live & Dangerous and Live At Leeds) and The Cult – Electric (a mad collection of recycled AC/DC riffs)

    • That’s a great list in general – [you’re wrong about the Cramps, Soul Mining & Terrence Trent D’arby – although Soul Mining isn’t as good as some would have you believe]
      ‘The 80’s, when even U2 where good’

  25. It was brilliant. The heyday of Zippo Records, Demon, Fairport reformed and The Waterboys were in their pomp. Also, I was working in a record shop, which helped.

  26. Born in 69 (which I reckon was around the second best time to be born, music wise, after 1944-46), so first starting to notice music outside the Bay City Rollers/Showaddywaddy stuff (that I favoured when I was tiny) in 78/79, meaning that the first singles I started badgering for and, eventually, getting with my own money were things like Rat Trap, Up The Junction and It’s Different For Girls. It was a fantastic time for great singles in the charts until around 1982 when the charts turned a bit pants. Not yet being aware of music publications beyond Smash Hits and those that had the song words in, a lot of the music which is now my favourite from the early to mid 80s didn’t enter my ears until much later. Instead, I spent the next couple of years immersed in all things Beatles, followed by Dylan. Frankie Goes To Hollywood were pretty much the only current band I was a big fan of.

    But then Stephen Duffy, The Dream Academy, Prefab Sprout and Pet Shop Boys dragged me back into the 80s. After that it was the indie kids, as I’d discovered the NME and that radio extended beyond the wacky, zany Radio Fab DJs.

    In the early 2000s my missus bought me a mini disc recorder and I had great fun making compilation discs. I was making myself an 80s one when a friend of the wife’s turned up. When I told her what I was making she was keen to hear it, as she “loves 80s music”, so we all poured a drink and settled back to enjoy it. I can’t remember how many songs it lasted before the ladies decided we should turn it off and put a music TV channel on, but it became clear pretty quickly that our idea of 80s music were two completely different things.

  27. Musically, Costello, Weller, Joe Jackson, Eurythmics, 10,000 Maniacs, Everything But the Girl, Talking Heads were pretty important. Older heroes like Van Morrison, Bruce Springsteen and Paul Simon did some great stuff. Dylan not so much.

    Three musical developments I identify with that time –
    I bought a CD player and my vinyl collection was frozen in time
    Stadium concerts. I loved Dylan and Springsteen at Wembley, and the Mandela concerts, but concerts on that scale have really never been a great idea.
    ‘World music’ broke through to my consciousness and many others, thanks not least to Womad who got going, though I didn’t go to one of their festivals til 1990.

    Of course the politics was shit. The Thatcher government, blatant racism, the riots in Southall Toxteth and elsewhere; a useless Labour Party riven by extremism, the lack of compassion and urging for everyone to get on their bikes and look for work. Jesus, some of that seems very familiar…

    And yet, and yet, I can’t deny that I was one of those for whom the 80s was a time when things were pretty good. I spent most of it in my twenties, a young man in a hurry. Carved out my career, bought my first house, got married, grew up. Had some great holidays and went out a lot to gigs, cinema and theatre on account of our kids not having been born yet. If I compare that to the chances my kids, now in their 20s, currently have, I was bloody lucky.

  28. I was also only a kid in the 80s so the music has the gauze of nostalgia particularly 81-83 – and actually the late 80s when I was a teenager. I don’t hear the sound/production issues that trouble some of you – I like that big 80s sound so things like Cupid & Psyche ’85 by Scritti or Dare by the Human League just sounds fucking great to me – and listening back they sound very much of their time but that just makes them even more intriguing – as I write this I’m listening to ‘More Specials’ which has aged very well indeed and could have been released last week. I hated things like Dire Straits and I’m still not convinced by ‘The Boss’ but the Pop of the era still stands up, if not more so.

  29. Madonna was an absolute treasure in the eighties. A sexually frank young lady, accused of exploiting men as boyfriends to further her career, she quickly asserted herself and lost the ‘record company product’ tag. She was never afraid to sing about difficult issues (Live To Tell child abuse, Papa Don’t Preach unwanted teenage pregnancy) and was a style icon. She may not have written all of her records but they were all stamped with her personality and the singles, particularly, were excellent. She transcended eighties production values. Her videos were ground-breaking. The album True Blue remains superb and The Immaculate Collection rounded off her decade as well as any Greatest Hits ever has.

    • I concur overall, but I’d suggest Like A Prayer was her 80s magnum opus. She lost her way a bit in the early 90s, but the late 90s-mid 2000s run (Ray Of Light, Music, American Life, Confessions On A Dancefloor) is on the whole as good as her 80s pomp. And she did co-write her songs from True Blue onward.

  31. The eighties were fab for me, going from 13 to 22, having some of the best times of my life. So much great music came out of that decade, of all genres (well, duco might be right about the jazz drought spell, but at the time I didn’t think of jazz as contemporary music so was happy to sample from its rich history). And so many great record stores averywhere, and albums were cheap…I’d go on shopping sprees and pick up random albums by bands I’d never heard of based on a good name or title, or an exciting album cover; they rarely disappointed when I got home to hear them for the first time, and my already eclectic taste was expanded even further.
    Lots of nights out and parties, getting drunk in strange places and dancing in even stranger nightclubs. Making some great friends. Lots of good times! Some awful first jobs, but all worth it to blow the paychecks on more albums and nights out! And half-way through the decade I moved into my first flat, but this was before the property tax hike so the rent was still remarkably cheap for the first few years…and then it got tougher towards the end of the decade…high rent, expensive CDs, friends becoming young parents so fewer nights out and more daytime trips to huge shopping centres and IKEA…
    And when it became the 90s, the shit really hit the fan…I was extremely poor, rather bored and tired for most of it!

  32. I left school in 1980 and had spent my teenage years up until then listening to Queen, Genesis, Pink Floyd etc.
    In work, an older bloke lent me Fear of Music and that changed my life.
    Most of the music that hits me hardest was made in the eighties and I’m aware that it’s as much to do with what I was experiencing at the time as anything to do with the music.
    The whole ‘crappy production’ thing seems to me to be an issue mainly for established musicians who were trying to update their sound for a new audience, most of the stuff I loved at the time still sounds fantastic.

  33. I hated the early 80s Post Punk lot, and synth pop, but I think the 80s gets a bad rep. I don’t like the record production of the Trevor Horn ilk, vile samplers and synths, but there were some great pop records. I still enjoy the Spands, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Belinda Carlisle, Princess etc. I got into country then, via the NME Neon West tape and EC’s “Almost Blue” though I lost interest in him otherwise. After the first album, which I thought was great, I found his songs unmemorable and have never bothered since. I liked the New Country mob, Vince Gill, Randy Travers, Steve Earle etc, plus I backtracked into bluegrass and old country – George Jones, Tammy, Dolly, Merle etc. Gary Moore discovered the blues which was terrific, and I seriously got into high widdle factor jazz rock and fusion plus continued to explore older jazz, especially be bop and cool. Not very 80s really on reflection.

    • I liked Genesis but I saw them as very competent musicians still just about young enough to be successful in the pop game, driving to the conditions. Inventive in the context of reinventing themselves, yes, totally – but did the world listen to their stuff and think “dammit, these guys are pioneers !” ? I don’t think so. If they were in 2019 and were 35ish I think they’d be having autotune effects on their songs and trying to sound a bit like Drake.

      I have a soft spot for the pop acts of the 80s largely due to being a teenager at the time but the undisputed area that the 80s influenced forever was dance music. The disco was indeed burned down and rap, hip-hop and house took over. The Message was the first dance song from the States I remember hearing that had a bit of real-life “edge” to it. In its own British way, the earlier ska revival had shown us you can go nuts on the dancefloor to clever home-grown pop songs. I think ska helped the acts inspired by the can-do attitude of punk to produce music for pleasure.

      In 1979 you went to the disco and Liquid Gold, Baccara, ABBA and Manhattan Transfer tinkled alongside Donna Summer and the Jackson Five. These songs – ace though they are – are now in the “work do” arena. We disrespect this part of our history and will only enjoy it as long as everyone knows we’re being all retro and that. In today’s music the influence of 80s rap acts is still very much there and respected with a straight face.

      • Oi! I went to discos in 1979. They were brilliant! Earth, Wind And Fire, Chic, Sister Sledge, The Jacksons, Michael Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Shalamar, Stevie Wonder, Funkadelic, Parliament, The Gap Band, The Bee Gees, KC And The Sunshine Band, Anita Ward, Crown Heights Affair, Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Evelyn ‘Champagne’ King, Fatback Band, Hamilton Bohannon, Heatwave, Kool And The Gang, Lipps Inc, McFadden & Whitehead, The Trammps, The Village People, The Whispers and Yvonne Elliman, amongst others, regularly filled dance floors to good effect. Michael Jackson was at a career peak.

        Disco might have been sneered at by some punks, but I don’t think it is disrespected any more.

        • Disco was the true music of the people. Created and enjoyed by more freaks, rebels, minorities and outcasts than Punk was, I bet. It’s also dated the least due in part to the amazing production on most of it.
          From the mid-seventies until the early eighties, we had our own take on it with Jazz Funk. I know people deride it as Mark 11 Cortinas, furry dice and Shakatak but it was more than that. Bands like Light Of The World, and early Level 42 were brilliant,
          especially live (actually so were Shakaktak).

        • I’m someone who would definitely tend towards the more punk end of the spectrum, but wow, that is a highly persuasive list Tigger! You can’t not dance to that stuff, even if you do it badly, like I no doubt would.

  36. No surprise …
    I hate absolutely everything about the 1980s but, in terms of pop music, actually have more time for the big hitters (Queen, The Police, George Michael etc.) than the painfully po-faced, tight-arsed, indie stuff beloved of the defunct (good) NME, MM etc.

    That said, if I had the option of being a teenager in the 1980s or a teenager now I would take the former every time.
    The ability to bully 24/7 with modern-day technology easily at hand is truly frightening. If you’re 15 now, good luck.

    • Agree, Twang Jr is 14 but happily so far isn’t really interested in social media. I have mates whose kids are already feeling the impact in various ways. I was a teenager in the 70s and wouldn’t change it other than maybe to be the 60s, mind you then I’d be 70 now so overall I’ll stay where I am.

      • I thought the 70s sucked. Fashion, food and telly were all shite and racism, sexism and homophobia were the norm. Only the music was good. I’d much rather be a teenager now, with all the internets.

        • Fashion was brilliant! Tank tops! Budgie jackets! Flares! Penny round collars! Food that didn’t make you spherical, the rise of anti Nazi league etc was actually the end of all that – it was by no means everyday, certainly not where I lived. Telly – there’s always a degree of shite but much of the best stuff is still on now. And the music was sensational.

Leave a Reply