Sorry for link to evil empire, but tis a plug for upcoming multipart TV show from Dylan Jones.
Does he have a point? I think he may do @Dave-Amitri
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/16435641/80s-greatest-pop-music-decade/
Musings on the byways of popular culture
by dai 186 Comments
Sorry for link to evil empire, but tis a plug for upcoming multipart TV show from Dylan Jones.
Does he have a point? I think he may do @Dave-Amitri
https://www.thesun.co.uk/tvandshowbiz/16435641/80s-greatest-pop-music-decade/
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The populist view is that the 80s started in 1979 and ended around 1985 (Live Aid),
The pictures in the header re-inforce this view.
But – they’re are other names mentioned (Bruce Springsteen, Iron Maiden, Smiths, Public Enemy) so it doesn’t sound like the usual 80s whitewash.
And as it alludes to later, the decade was certainly more diverse (possibly) than those before, which may (just may) qualify it as the best decade
All subjective though … and Stock Aitken & Waterman were just annoying.
The 80s started with Video Killed the Radio Star (79) and ended with Madchester Rave On (Sep ’89)
When people talk about the 80s they are 9 times out of 10 talking about big hair, gated snares and fannying about on a yacht.
Thankfully for those of us who remember it it also gave us the Shed Sessions, the Replacements, all of Big Daddy Kane’s good records and Stakker Humanoid.
If you’re going with The Buggles, does this count?
I think the 80s started on 1.1.80 and finished on 31.12.89, I am traditional that way, I was 17 on the first date and 27 on the 2nd. 1979 was for me probably the best year ever for pop music but it was in the previous decade.
London, New York, Munich, Paris, everybody talk about Rolf H*rris.
The long versions of ‘Moonlight and Muzak’ and ‘That’s the Way the Money Goes’ are absolute monsters.
I seem to remember that Boomtown Rats and M were booked for the same TOTP, and both arrived in boilersuits, M going first. Ver Rats were not amused.
When the 1978-9 TOTP repeats were on the Boomtowns seemed to appear every week – almost as many times as Darts.
Pop Muzik was the first record that I bought.
Up to then you were just stealing them? You devil!
I’d agree with that except I think the Buggles song was a fitting anthem for the end of the era from the late 50s to 79- and the 80s started on 24 May 1979 when ‘Are Friends Electric’ was first performed on TOTP https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEop9nuTSrg
At the cusp of the 80s there was a lot of robot(techno motifs used in advertising and pop music. More than any other decade there was an anticipation that technology was going to change everything. No one was quite sure how though.
@Dr-Volume
The 80s began in May 1979?
Pish and baldedash!
I think you’ll find that, as ahead of their time as they always have been, les freres Mael started the decade a full month before
As everybody knew at the time, in Japan they’d been doing the 80s for several years before the decade actually arrived. They even had CDs. And the YMO:
@Moose-the-Mooche
Convinced the 80s aren’t yet over, several members of the YMO are still hiding out in discos all these years later
Ryuichi Sakamoto: “Do you know what will happen if I don’t finish the album on time? I’ll have to kill myself….”
I think it’s the greatest pop decade but then it’s the one I grew up in. Anything that highlights some of the stuff away from the Duran/Wham/Spandau orthodoxy would be a good thing in my book. Will watch with interest, hoping that this is the case.
It’s by Dylan Jones so don’t hold your breath.
I watched the first hour-long episode with some frustration. Much like his tome of a book, it packed in too much. Sometimes, less is more.
I thought that. The brief “politics” segment had Paul Weller but no Billy Bragg or anything about the miners strike, which seemed ridiculous.
I’m guessing they won’t be covering Hillsborough.
Thanks Dai, decent article and I’ll give it a watch. My views have been repeated more than “The Greatest Songs Of The 80’s” on Channel 5 and I’ve got nothing new to add particularly. I have an observation though that certain 80’s albums and certain 80’s bands given no credit at all 10-15 years ago are now acknowledged of having some artistic merit. Rio for example is a remarkable record made by a band at the top of their game and I feel even the most fervent “it all went shit after 1973” merchant can acknowledge that now.
Unconvinced.
1956-1966 is the decade when the rise of the teenager occurred, after WWII and post-war austerity. Grey was the predominant colour and a dull grind was what young people’s lives were, until suddenly there was rock & roll, cafés with jukeboxes, motorbikes and scooters, 7″ singles and dansettes to play them on, television…
Mike – a cool cat. Dig it!
The 80s is the last decade where the start and end of the decades are different worlds. From Public Image and the last days of disco to Madchester and acid house is a long and winding roads.
It’s also the last decade where, due to limited ‘channels’, everyone listened to the same stuff. By the time Satellite TV (late 89) came along for the masses and the WWW came along a few years later, we all had different ways of listening. I may not be able to tell your Kylies from your Danniis but at least I’d recognise a chart song from the 80s if I heard it. From the late 90’s to now, things have been far too diverse for there to be any meaningful consensus and I doubt I’ve even heard 10% of the number 1 singles of the past 20 years.
True that, though MTV as a subscription channel was perhaps a harbinger. How artists looked was for the first time perhaps as important than how they sounded. Again, the 80s was the last decade where free to air broadcasting was the only game in town. Also the last decade with a physical format change that changed the industry.
In the UK MTV was not available at all until the end of 1987 and the vast majority of households couldn’t get it even if they were willing to pay. It didn’t start to make inroads in the UK until the Sky DTH broadcasts started in early 1989 when MTV was available to everyone on the same platform but even then, the lack of boxes and installers meant that again, it didn’t have an immediate impact.
We had Music Box on ITV. It ran all night and Spirit in the Sky by Dr and the Medics always seemed to be on.
Gaz Top!!
MTV was mainly an American phenomenon, hence the 2nd “British Invasion” in the 80s
We briefly produced more, and certainly better, videos than US artists. It’s a side-effect of a handful of bands deeming themselves too big or cool to appear (in person) on TotP, so they made videos instead.
This is one of the reasons that I think of Buggles as an 80s record – I think that was literally the first thing they played on MTV.
It was. The most applicable song to choose, even if it didn’t quite work out that way in the end
Yes. One way or another, radio is bigger than it’s ever been – whereas MTV has kept its cultural dominance by padding out its schedules with shows like Flavor Flav Marries Somebody Improbable and other such, essentially non-musical related soap operas.
In early 80s Ireland the dead time of Sunday afternoons was filled with the awkwardly named MTUSA, in which our man Fab Vinny reported back from the States accompanied by the latest pop videos. The contrast in cool between the U.K. artists and the U.S. acts chosen put me off white American music to such a degree that I hardly listened to any WAM (voluntarily) between Blondie breaking up and Deserter’s Songs some fifteen years later..
Ah, MT USA, I remember it well. I was running the record department in our local Boots in the mid-80s, and that show really boosted sales of lots of stuff. Sold bucketloads of Desert Moon by Dennis DeYoung, yet it’s pretty much unknown in mainland UK.
I agree with @moseleymoles. At the beginning of the eighties, Rap was a novelty. By the end, it had taken over the world.
Also the general argument I am advancing about the shift from groups to individual artists. I would however say with rap that this shift was most pronounced in rap by the end of the 90s.
Not forgetting the ubiquitous guest artiste ‘feat.’
I’ve remarked that absolutely nobody has had a major hit single in the last 25 years without their record “feat.”ing somebody probably marginally more famous and/or talented.
People in summer 1969 buying Get Back: “Who the fuck’s Billy Preston?”
That’s definitely true. Never thought of it like that before but it definitely is a lot of change in one decade.
Far, far better points are made for the decade by the posters above than by Dylan Jones in that pisspoor Sun piece.
Simple Minds (when they were good), Madonna (likewise), Joy Division/New Order, Bunnymen, Teardrops, R.E.M., Frankie, Cocteau Twins, Broooooce (mega stardom), Bowie (some good ones), U2 (some), Stone Roses, Prince, XTC, Talking Heads, (some) Blondie, McCartney’s solo peak (chartwise), Steve Earle, Abba (end of), ABC, AC/DC, Pet Shop Boys, Tom Petty, Smiths, Elvis Costello, Scott Walker (goes weird), Prefab Sprout, Peter Gabriel, Pogues,Pixies, Paul Simon (Graceland), Tom Waits, Squeeze, Style Council,Pete Townshend (solo), Traveling Wilburys, Kate Bush, Joe Jackson, Van Morrison (so consistent), Talk Talk etc etc
Just parts of my record collection, not all exclusively 80s artists but many did at least comparable stuff to their best in that decade.
All of that and more. Eurythmics seem to have fallen deeply out of fashion for some reason but were terrific at their best. Weller had a good decade as he went from the end of the Jam to Style Council. Culture Club’s Colour by Numbers is a joyous pop album. Dire Straits did some great stuff. Thriller is unarguable. And of course it’s when hip hop became a major mainstream force.
And as you say, @dai, several of those artists who had been massive in the 60s and 70s also kept going and producing great work. As well as those you mention, even those who had, shall we say, a mixed decade, still came up with, for example, Freedom (Neil Young), and Oh Mercy (Bob Dylan).
It was also the decade that the ‘world music’ movement really got going, and astonishing artists like Papa Wemba, Youssou N’Dour and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan came to wider prominence amongst Western pop audiences, and started to influence the work of the likes of David Byrne and Peter Gabriel.
So, the period when a much greater diversity of voices and music came to the fore than we’d heard before. For all that, it remains the case that for me personally the template of music and artists I love was forged in the 60s and 70s, and leaving aside my own personal taste, I think it’s true that those decades continued to exercise a huge influence on what followed in the 80s, and since.
One thing I really like about the 80s was the sense that oldies produced really embarrassing work in an attempt to stay relevant – Moon Sausage, McCartney, Young, Dylan etc. While the kids were grooving to Madonna and Prince. Just as in the 60s they’d done to those who went before. After this heritage was a valid career path.
I think somebody might have said this on his recent thread but the only really major pre-punk artist to not go to shite in the 80s was Paul Simon. He might have only made two albums that decade but… let’s say neither of them were below-par.
Van Morrison too, I think. Whilst not as ground breaking as his 70s albums, the eight album run from Common One to Avalon Sunset is considerably better than shite. Not something you can say about much of his more recent oeuvre.
Yes. I think more consistent than the 70s. And as I wrote earlier Bruce too, as you mentioned Dylan and Young ended the decade very well.
Oh yes, that’s a fair call. If only because of Poetic Champions, which is a masterpiece.
As I’ve said before, sometimes Avalon Sunset is my fave VTM LP.
I find it a little dull.
So that’s why I like it.
Beautiful Vision, Common One, Irish Heartbeat, Inarticulate Speech of the Heart. Awesome stuff
Ahh crap. I’ve just thought of Peter Gabriel as well. Me and my theories…
Heritage became valid in 1986 with the launch of Q.
Suddenly it was OK to look back (more than 3 years) and think “maybe these Beatles and Stones blokes had something”.
I was going to say the same thing; weren’t the late 80s/early 90s the actual cultural high point of the 60s?
The reality is that 2021 is the best year so far for music, because it contains all the music of previous years, available at will from a pocket sized device at an affordable monthly price, plus freshly minted bangers from the likes of Olivia Rodrigo, Pop Smoke, Wolf Alice, Myke Towers, Tion Wayne, Bicep, Digga D, Adele, Lava La Rue and Tyler the Creator. Unbeatable.
Good luck getting the first Velvet Underground album before it was rereleased in 1977, and I bet it wasn’t easy even then. Ten years later it came out on CD and you could get it in WH Smiths and Woolworths.
I was thinking that Heritage became a valid artistic choice by 1990 for classic rockers. Whereas in 1984 gated drums and synths seemed the best way for someone 20 years into a rock career and a major label deal.
Would Q have been seen as viable without the great shiz in the pool that was L*** A**?
I think it is well documented that the NME’s sneering attitude towards Live Aid was a large factor in the creation of Q magaine.
I kind of miss the sheer cynicism of the old NME though. It was so wonderfully adolescent and fitted in perfectly with my snobbish world. I was kind of with them on Live Aid too. An endless parade of dullness. Worthy cause. But still…
And I am ashamed I forgot The Specials, Madness, The Beat, Wah!, Wham! etc
You’re forgiven, Dai. The first (and best) Specials and Madness LPs were ’79 and I tend to think of them as late-70s, along with rubbish in the streets, strikes, surging inflation, assassinations… I remember pre-1983 as pretty grim – my dad always seemed to be on strike, and everything was in black and white.
Everything was in Black and White in 1978.
Pop music is silly haircuts, glossy magazines, silly pretentious videos, Crackerjack, Razzmatazz, Top of the Pops, Cheggers Plays Pop!, Radio 1 Roadshow, Radio 1 DJs in satin tour jackets, trainers instead of formal shoes, t-shirt instead of a formal shirt, wearing a baseball cap askew or even backwards (!), cereal packets with Mike Read on them, crisp brands like “Rock ‘n’ Rollers”, wearing makeup, swearing and smoking on TV, guest appearances on chat shows and Saturday prime time TV comedy shows, Krazy Juergen’s Banana Pop Show, Get it Together!, wearing sunglasses indoors, dyed blonde hair sometimes, billowy shirts, impressive appearances on Top of the Pops that felt like significant cultural events, taping the top 40 rundown, gender bending, Smash Hits, Record Mirror, No 1, FlexiPop! and Woolies 49p section, picture discs, pop stars who were actually good looking, free T-shirts with singles, Pebble Mill at One, aggressive disdain from the behind the counter at the record shop, waiting to see what TV am’s pop video of the day is before leaving for school, seeing top band for 3 quid, dial-a-disc, lapel badges, stickers, novelty singles, disastrous Brit award shows, being a contender for Eurovision, crisps and sweets, snoods for goalposts, constant threat of imminent nuclear war.
So in terms of poptasticness, the 80s wins hands down.
That is not to say that the music and the bands that passed through this particular pop era are any better or worse than those who came before or after it. But I think, specifically, pop music and everything around it was at its peak in the 1980s.
In 1980 most bands wanted hit singles in order to sell LPs, which is why you’d still get the odd serious artist on TOTP. Post Live Aid and CDs, the older bands could bypass the pop industry entirely. By 1990 the route to pop stardom was a lot less straightforward.
You missed out standing in line at school for lunch in the early late 1970s/early 1980s when the charts were announced on a Tuesday between 12.45-1pm! Because it was all paper based.
As I went home for lunch, I considered that writing down the charts on a Tuesday was my job so I always returned on a Tuesday afternoon with it all scrawled on a sheet of paper. In fact, I’ve only just thrown them all away as part of the big pre-move house clearing.
We listened in the playground, Paul Burnett IIRC (70s)
Blimey! Nobody had a radio in school! This was when Johnnie Walker did the rundown.
I made myself a crystal set in lunchtime Physics club. “Is that a radio, boy?” “No, Sir, it’s my Physics project”. So I was able to listen through an earpiece and relay it to my classmates. The week Duran Duran went in at number one, I was even (briefly) popular with the girls.
Great post, BC! You have such a vivid memory.
I’ve thought before that it never occurred to teenage me in the 80s that the music would still be the mainstay of the most popular national radio station 4 decades later. Even then I was more of a chin stroking albums kind of a guy, but every week there seemed to be a couple of new singles which were irresistible, even to me.
The 80s were odd years for acts from previous decades mentioned in the link, even ones like Springsteen and Bowie who reached new heights of commercial success. I doubt their biggest fans would put that decade at the tops of their lists. What it was great for was pure pop, which existed for a 3 minute single which was distinctly of its time and is preserved there in all its greatness.
For Springsteen in the 80s:
The River
Nebraska
Born in the USA
Tunnel of Love
That’s pretty exceptional
And that big fuckoff live box in 1986.
Awaiting Deram’s nuanced take with great interest…😏
If there was a time machine we’d all be going back to the Beatles’ teenage years.
If you refute that, you are lying (BIG, BIG lies), and I refer you to the title of the third track on the second side of the fourth album by Bob Dylan for my thoughts on the matter.
Don’t consult me again, I don’t do also-rans.
Well, we never *have* met, thankfully. And I prefer those sweet little lies (80s song, yay!) to ‘BIG, BIG’ ones.
Not in Ireland, DD. You wouldn’t want to have been a teenager here before the mid seventies at the earliest. And you could wait another ten years after that if you were gay or female..
I never had sex in the 60s so why on earth would I go back there?
Lots of great music in the ‘80’s but lot’s of shyte also IMHO.
In any decade the shite will outweigh the great
If Sturgeon’s Law is anything to go by, the Shite:Great ratio will be 90:10
I went the full folkie in the 1980s and can report it was a terrific time for fiddle dee dee beginning to flex away from the constraints of folk-rock, trad arr or winsome acoustic singer-songwriters, applying all manner of new ideas and influences. Moving Hearts, who formed in 1981, would be as good an example as any, and little can yet beat the sheer power of them in full flight:
Alexis Korner – him again – played this, segueing into Jesus Hits Like An Atom Bomb from the Atomic Cafe soundtrack.
Niiiiiiice.
It’s always a bit reductive comparing decades: music isn’t a competition and the bias towards one’s own youth tends to make the exercise a bit pointless. That said…
It’s difficult to think of three people who did more to define the idea of what constitutes a pop star than Michael Jackson, Madonna and Prince. There’s barely a pop star working today who doesn’t owe some sort of debt to at least one of the three, they produced some fabulous music and, in Jackson’s case at least, they were globally famous on a level I don’t think had been seen previously.
To this day, when I hear the words “pop star” my first thought is Prince, well past his imperial phase, absolutely bodying the half time show at the Super Bowl: leading a stadium full of people through Purple Rain, in a full on downpour, wearing those shoes. The guy probably brushed his teeth like he was emperor of the entire universe.
Also: never buy the Sun.
It’s the last decade that currently isn’t history. Looking at footage of the Pistols playing miners benefits and it’s like something from ye olden times. The Dame doing starman on TOTP is a holy relic from the golden age.
It’s the furthest back I’d be willing to go for time travel purposes without material concerns about the smell factor.
Three great 80s smells:
1. Embassy No. 1
2. Beef & Tomato Pot Noodle
3. Stu-stu-stu-Studioline
Beer stained carpets in Pubs, Clubs, and Dog Tracks
(The Dog Track in Reading still had that unique pong as late as 2008 when it closed)
Beer stained carpets weren’t invented in the 80s. Stained a few myself in the 60s.
That’s enough about your house.
Oho!
Kouros or Aramis. I can see where you might have been going wrong , Moose 😉
Whither Hai Karate?
A quid from the Sunday market, next to a Rubik’s cube that only has two colours.
Kouros the choice of a sophisticated man in 1989…that’s me that is.
Unfortunately, when I hear the words ‘pop star’ I hear an overexcited Louis Walsh on X Factor saying ‘You look like a pop star!’
Never underestimate the power if 80’s Top of the Pops on our subconscious or conscious memory of the music of that period. A half an hour hit of noise and image that the best made absolute use of…
Singles sales in the UK were absolutely phenomenal in that period (I can’t speak for other territories). You could go platinum, in old money and all, without even getting in the top 3.
Not interested in reading The Bun but it’s probably a reasonable proposition.
Surprised that nobody has brought up Scritti Politti, who epitomised the shift from post-punk to art-pop, with deft production, tunes, and overall, something to interest pop fans. To be honest, “Skank Bloc Bologna” was never going to fill the dance floor in “Sherry’s” (horrible Brighton night club), even if we liked it.
I also note very little mention of “The Police” above. Revisionism? They were huger than huge, and probably brought a lot of new sounds and rhythms to the previously mainstream pop audience drawn by Sting with his shirt off. (I have a theory that like a child’s tastebuds, exposure to a range of new possibilities in an acceptable form, broadens the range of preferences.)
Yes, The Police were a great pop singles band. Albums were very patchy though for me.
Synchronicity is probably their most complete (ie least patchy) album.
But by that point they could barely be in the same room together, let alone a stage or tour bus.
I recently read this, from 2000. It’s very funny.
https://web.archive.org/web/20180830003223/http://www.scarlet.nl/~gugten/article11.html
That is a very funny piece. Copeland in particular clearly pissed (as in drunk) and at one point defending Sting in response to something critical from the journalist.
Interesting recording process whereby they run through a song a few times and record the 4th take, because by then some energy would have built up and mistakes dealt with.
In later albums, putting Copeland in a separate drumming studio with a video monitor seems to have really hurt his feelings. I remember an interview backstage at their 2007 tour where Copeland says eye contact is very important to him and I remember thinking that this comment seemed to be directed at Sting, who looked a little uncomfortable. Obviously a bit of niggle there.
I think Sting is probably a bit autistic. Has he ever said anything about this?
The total lack of politeness in that interview is very refreshing. They just sit there calling each other wankers like real people.
I think the interview indicates the affection of old friends / colleagues. At least that’s how I regard this sort of thing from my dear friends from over years being derogatory and rude. It’s the tone. It is jocular and barrack-room, rather than nasty and vicious.
Great interview – the affection (remaining gang mentality?) that is so obviously there between them (even though they spend most of the time dissing each other).
Could sort of see this in the Stewart Copeland doc a whole back when he’s interviewing Sting and the tone is very much like that – winding each other up for the fun of it.
There’s one bit of that interview that has been reported as “fact” elsewhere – the bit when Sting throws some loose change on the table saying “There’s your Puff Daddy money” has been twisted to a story where Andy Summers confronted Sting at this home, and Sting threw the change at him and shut the door in his face.
Different story now placed in context.
First two albums are my favourites.
Then NWOBHM ensued and I stopped listening to them.
Revisionism? The Police have never been cool and any mention of them must be met with superior sniggering about lutes and tantric sex. Of course Sting is a twerp and often sings in a silly voice, but haven’t we all?
Back in the real world, they were brilliant, though – as are Sting’s two 80s albums. If you want a very ordinary example of Sting as a top-drawer tunesmith try Fortress Around Your Heart.
But Richard Thompson doesn’t like him so I’m pissing in the wind here.
Sting > Richard Thompson any day of the fuckin week
Have a thumbs up. Don’t quite get the awe with which RT (or FC) are regarded.
Not that music is a competition but, in common with the public at large, I’ve never personally seen the appeal of Mr Thompson or the band that gave rise to him. I see the appeal of The Police all day long.
Actually I like RT as a musician and this may be the point at which to say he is very much an exception to my going-to-shit-in-the-80s rule.
But in terms of feel-my-pain earnestness, I think RT is a man throwing stones in a glass house there.
Going to shite in the 80s, I mean. Absolutely everyone went to shit in the 80s – it’s not like we spent ten years holding it all in.
Indeed..
Loved that movie – that Robert de Niro was the elusive hero. Then Jonathan Pryce turned up at the end of Jumping Jack Flash – a pale reflection, but still a pleasing one.
“The traitor distrusts truth!”
You certainly know your Pryce.
What’s wrong with lutes and tantric sex? Sounds like a good night to me. Not sure if I can ‘maintain’ for 2 hours though. Up to and inclusive of “10 Summenors Tales”, each album was chock-full of great songs excellently played.
Apropos, saw a perfect joke the other day on the occasion of Mr S’s birthday:
At last, that elusive first draft of Leonard Cohen’s ‘The Future’ comes to light:
“Give me lutes and tantric sex” (‘Hmmm’, thinks Len, ‘That’s a bit fruity, I’d better tone it down. Hang on, I’ve just had a great idea…’
“How can I save my little boy
From the razor in his Mitt?”
The Police were a fabulous band, and that interview above made me even quite like them as people. Copeland always struck me as incredibly hard work – one of those jabbering motormouths who always seems slightly aggressively drunk even when sober – but Christ he can play the drums, and actually that interview shows a rather sweet vulnerability/ insecurity, which I think is generally the root cause of jabbering motormouth syndrome. Even Sting comes off as quite fun – not at all the self-serious lute-yoga wanker you’d expect.
(Though he clearly is in some respects: that photo of him and Trudi with lute / yoga pose in a Tuscan wine cellar is one of the funniest pictures ever taken.)
Maybe The Police were one of those bands who needed each other to rein in their worst tendencies. Clearly couldn’t sustain that for too long, though – it must’ve been exhausting.
Another in the The Police fan club here. They had a proper trajectory which I always find fascinating. Their’s from Roxanne to Every Breath You Take in (checks Wikipedia) 5 years was pretty incredible
I would say 2 pretty much equivalently good songs. Neither of which should be used as a 1st dance at a wedding ….
What about “Be my girl. Sally?”
How about ‘Wrapped Around my Finger’?
Perfect: “Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis”
What about “Sue Lawley…I feel Sue Lawley”?
Sting’s greatest moment?
The video where Stewart Copeland throws out Windsor Davies is even better. Not on YT, alas
Lute-Yoga Wanker – Afterword T-Shirt.
A bunch of important-to-me albums are hitting their 40th anniversaries this year – and in some cases there are tours planned. If there were TV shows about that era Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, OMD etc it would be the equivalent of my parents watching Looks Familiar! – a prime time panel show about acts like Flanagan & Allen and Arthur Askey.
I was about to say that acts from the 40s weren’t still performing the same stuff 40 years later, but I think many of them went on and on and on. I certainly remember Max Wall still doing his funny walk thing well into the 1980s. In fact, at one Manchester gig, you can clearly see a young Ian Brown in the mosh pit, paying very close attention to Mr Wall’s stagecraft.
And at the time, how many of those acts though they’d still be doing it 40 years later?
Not until the “heritage watershed” (mentioned above) did many believe a career would extend beyond their mid-30s (and certainly not after the age 40).
Depeche Mode probably though their time was up when Vince Clarke left
See also Marillion. “Fish has left – that’s probably us finished”….er…
Much improved by the gobshite leaving, IMHO.
Wrongity wrong.
OOAA.
Yes, they did – they said as much in interviews at the time.
Julien Temple very wittily spliced clips of Max Wall and Billy Dainty into The Filth and the Fury to contextualise Lydon/Rotten’s stage persona, possibly on JL’s advice.
And Olivier as Richard III of course. Respectfully, that’s not the kind of thing you get from Ken Burns.
I have been mulling this thread over. Really good one @dai as it’s not just ‘here’s 100 songs that show why this was the best’. So some more thoughts…
Following up on my argument that the eighties is the last decade that isn’t ‘history’ squared off to analyse, but the start of the present.
1. The biggest three stars of the decade (Jackson, Prince, Madonna) were all individual artists. Though Elton John sold a shedload, the seventies saw lots and lots of groups – particularly Queen, Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Bee Gees and (cough) The Eagles at the top of the all-time bestsellers of the decade list. By the end of the eighties the pendulum was swinging – particularly through rap and R and B – back decisively to solo artists. It’s still there. The oft-repeated quote that the last ‘band’ to make it enormous is the Arctic Monkeys – now well over a decade ago.
2. To extend the argument, the enormous gravity well of the Beatles shifted the dial to groups from 63 to 84/5, but that’s twenty years. For the ten before, and the 35 after, it’s been much more about solo artists.
3. The eighties saw the last innovation in band line-ups: the faceless muso producer and the livewire singer. Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, Erasure etc. This would be further developed in the 90s in which bands were the producer and a rotating cast of livewires: it’s one of the basic templates that still works today.
Nice summary.
Agree about the 80s being the last grand scale innovation in bands line-ups and sounds
To add to your point 1 re: biggest stars, and sol performers vs Groups
The most successful Singles chart act of the decade was Shakin’ Stevens – someone who had very very minor success in the 70s, and pretty much nowt (apart from that song after the decade closed.
Shaky might just be the anomaly here as his schtick was rooted in the 50s, and didn’t really develop from there
Also was Shaky really just a UK phenomenon? I suspect he was. Possibly shifted units in Belgium but can’t see him being Big In The States or even Big In Japan.
Popular across Europe, big in Israel and Zimbabwe (eh?) and huge down under (oh behave!)
True a totally blinkered UK view on my part
(just to get Shaky’s name on this thread).
A quick look at his wikipedia entry shows (a) that he looks a bit like Mike Read, and (b) he was immensely popular in Ireland, and a big seller in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland and Sweden. But the US – nowt (surprisingly?)
Slightly too early to cash in on the second British invasion engendered by MTV. (see elsewhere in the thread)
Still, he was good enough for Kevin Turvey and Fulchester United. Roight, Armchair Britain?
Apart from The Smiths, a dreadful decade.
Wrong. Here is the evidence.
Not really convinced. Sounds pretty average to me.
Play it 5 times and you will be hooked, it is a 1980s masterpiece of a song.
Can’t excuse the clothes though!
OK. I’ll get back to you.
You’re right. It’s genius. Of course. I should have allowed myself to swallow my prejudices and go beyond the intro.
What is it? “Blocked in my country”
Behind, as it were, the green door?
It’s Shaky?
Living in a World Turned Upside Down by Private Lives.
So basically, the ’80s were the greatest pop decade because you all came of age in that decade.
My opinion is that the ’80s marked the corporatisation of pop.
’50s and ’60s it was a rising business but the people who ran it were’t really aware of that. It was hit-and-miss “What is it? Record it and let’s see if it makes us some money”.
’70s was “Bloody hell we’re raking it in! Sign up some more of ’em! Wahey!”
’80s was “Cassettes. Niiiice! Hang on! Let’s ditch vinyl and cassettes, release CDs. Vinyl and cassettes are costly and CDs are much cheaper, but we can charge twice as much. Loadsamoney!”
’90s was “That one was a big seller. Let’s make more records like that, by artists who sound like they do. Oh shit. The customers are getting computers. They’re copying the music and giving it away to each other instead of buying it from us.”
Some nice stuff recorded and released in the ’80s. Studio technology was getting better by the week and stage sound was much better, but that’s when the Indies began to stop actually being independent and the accountants started to take it all over.
Leading on from what @moseleymoles says above:
The eighties brought several global megastars – solo artists, who were both front person and CEO of their own brand, with all the pressures that brings & without the support of being in a group.
Phil Collins came through the 70s, Springsteen had the E street band, and Sting had the Police, but the five solo artists in their early 20s – Michael Jackson, Prince, Madonna, Whitney Houston and George Michael, all had colossal success – and Madonna is the only one to have celebrated her 60th birthday.
Bruce (in his 30s) had the band for several tours and they played on some of the albums, but he was ostensibly a solo artist as far as the name on the records is concerned, not sure his huge stardom and inevitable tabloid exposures was shared much with the band. Good point about those who are no longer with us, many newly successful bands in the 80s split/broke up pretty quickly too.
If Prince was a solo artist then so was/is Springsteen.
The difference being that if and when he chose to, Prince could do everything in the studio on his own.
Except reach the high shelves. That’s pretty much what he kept the band around for.
2 of Springsteen’s 4 studio albums in the 80s were more or less solo, Nebraska absolutely and Tunnel of Love (E St band members embellish solo recordings)
Bruce was signed as a solo artist, the E St Band only get their name on the front cover and labels for live recordings (with one dodgy exception)
Absolutely true about Springsteen – although his mega stardom time (Glory Days?) was with Born in the USA and the mid 80s tours with the E Street Band.
The point I was trying to make (badly) was that these artists in their 30s had their wild partying days in the 70s, and maybe had a bit more perspective when it came to the windfall 80s. Bowie deliberately set out to become commercial and make money, studying how the Rolling Stones made their cash from touring, and releasing Let’s Dance, which appealed to far more than than his usual fan base.
I agree with the corporatisation bit @mike_h – my argument being not that it was the greatest decade. Pound for pound I would probably go with the 70s, but that it saw much of the modern music industry model come into being. The Stones 82 stadium tour (which I saw) I recall as being one of the first tours in which bands realised that there was serious money in touring itself, as opposed to it being a loss-leader/promo for the new record.
Interesting you talk about indie. It’s the heyday of a single ‘indie label sound’ (C86, mute, rough trade, 4AD etc) as being something distinct from an all-genres major label sound. It saw majors set up fake indies (Blanco y negro) to try and capture this.
Dylan Jones documentary on the 80s starts on BBC this very evening
I am again late to a thread, but this one is a good’un.
I was born 1970, so the 80s was my pop decade and I am willing to defend some of it. 1987-90 was especially good, but that might be the “music fan at 17” rule. Sonic Youth’s run of 80s albums is still impressive; My Bloody Valentine are still the last truly innovative guitar band; the Pixies in London ’88 remains my best ever gig. Nevertheless, what continues to puzzles me is how rock bands like Husker Du or Pixies simply could not break through into the charts or at least some wider audience. Morrissey blames Rough Trade Records for not getting enough Smiths’ product out on sale, which may be true, but it seemed to happen a lot of other groups that would have clearly been bigger in the 90s. I also have noticed how the clean, studio sheen of records that I hated at the time has come back as an entire aesthetic, and now seems less offensive.
You’re really puzzled as to why Pixies and Hüsker Dü didn’t achieve mainstream success?
Pixies’ Doolittle made number 98 in the US charts. Nirvana’s Nevermind, which I consider to be a companion piece, did, well, much better. I still rankles.
I love Pixies and Hüsker Dü. I love Nirvana (whose Pixies influence to my ears is pretty much limited to use of dynamics).
Pixies and Hüsker Dü’s lack of mainstream success isn’t any kind of mystery: the anomaly is Nirvana’s success *despite their weirdness*, not the others’ lack of it.
The thing about Nevermind is the ferocious immediacy of its hooks, alongside its weirdness. Teen Spirit, Lithium and Come As You Are are the spoonful of sugar that makes Breed and Stay Away go down. Pixies are amazing, close to being my favourite band, but they’re just plain weird. They never wrote a pop hook comparable to anything on Nevermind. Their catchiest pop song is Here Comes Your Man, which is a retro pastiche of surf, a minority-interest subgenre even at its height. Kurt had an ear for a pop tune which Charles Thompson just doesn’t.
And then there’s the production and mix. Vig’s production gives Nevermind a fat wallop that just isn’t there on Doolittle, and that’s vastly heightened by Andy Wallace’s mix. And you’ve got to remember that hard rock and metal were already mainstream in 1991: Metallica, Guns n Roses – the pop audience was used to huge distorted guitars. The mainstream hard rock audience was ready to hear a Nirvana. They’d had their gateway drugs already. Not a Pixies – who aren’t remotely a hard rock band.
With Hüsker, the problem is much easier to explain: those records sound like shit. Amazing songs. Appalling recordings.
It’s usually pretty grim when, usually for royalties-related reasons, a heritage act of whatever vintage decides to record carbon copies of their old catalogue in the hope that radio stations/films etc will now license those instead of the original recordings which don’t earn them a penny. In the case of Hüsker Dü though, I’d have been first in line to hand over my money if they could have just made those brilliant songs sound like they do in my head and not like they do on the records.
As I observed during their Saturday afternoon 1992 Reading Festival set, Nevermind-era Nirvana sounded like a cross between Pixies and The Police. Later on they sounded even more Pixies-like (partly due to Steve Albini’s production).
Agree about Hüsker Dü, though – awful recordings. Sugar sounded so much better.
Pixies / Pop Hooks:
I think they got exceedingly close with lumps of Beneath the Eyrie
(for info: that may very well be my favourite Pixies album – is this wrong?)
Well, it’s an opinion, certainly!
Monkey Goes to Heaven (or maybe Gigantic) was their most commercial effort I would say, but only made it to no. 60
Monkey Gone To Heaven is three minutes of a nonsensical spoken-word narrative about “an underwater man who controlled the sea”, a chorus which goes “this monkey’s gone to heaven”, and ends up with yer man literally *screaming* IF THE DEVIL IS SIX THEN GAAAAAD IS SEVEN, GAAAAD IS SEVEN, GAAAAAAAD IS SEVEN!
It’s not Papa Don’t Preach, is it?
Fun fact: Show Me Heaven by Maria McKee is the same song, written from the perspective of the underwater guy who controls the sea (generally presumed, by a very short process of elimination, to be Aquaman).
The lyric is addressed directly to the monkey, and represents an extended plea for that sainted primate to grant to Aquaman an extended tour of his new abode.
In that sense, Maria McKee is also an important Nirvana influence. They were basically Maria McKee meets the Police meets the Pixies. Amazed no one thought of it before them, and they certainly can’t be allowed to take the credit for it.
Another Fun Maria McKee 80s Fact:
Sheargal Farkey recorded “A Good Heart” – written by Maria McKee about Benmont Tench.
The follow-up single was a cover of “You Little Thief” written by Benmont Tench about Maria McKee
(this “fact” has apparently been debunked by Mr Tench himself, but why let the truth get in the way of some prime trivia)
Rock me, Joe!
Nice tune though
The Smiths were on the radio and in the charts – just not the top ten. I don’t know if that can be blamed on distribution but it was interesting that Morrissey’s first solo single (on HMV/EMI) went straight to number 3.
Yes his first few solo singles all made top 10, after only 2 top 10s for the band. Just took a look at his chart history, 51 top 40 hits in total with The Smiths and solo, that’s pretty impressive
I don’t recall him personally promoting those singles. Every Day is Like Sunday in particular was a really good song and 100% on-brand Morrissey, who was still widely adored at the time. if he’d done TOTP, Wogan, The Tube and all the trimmings I think he would have had the number one he clearly craved.
He didn’t play live until December that year – nearly two years after the Smiths’ last gigs. In fact I don’t think he toured properly until ’91. He lost a lot of momentum that he never got back.
Of course later he lost his fkin mind as well, which is arguably worse.
He was on TOTP at least
Full-page ads in the NME and all. And every single week a “Smiths to Reform!” story in either the NME or the MM for about two years. It was all publicity.
Marr is to be commended for his fortitude… the pressure must have felt huge.
I honestly thought I would have remembered that. I must have been away. It’s a great song.
There’s a 1981 John Peel show over on the 100 Greatest Bootlegs blog. More variety (and more Theatre of Hate) than you might remember.
If you go back far enough you’ll find that he even played U2.
PS. “Masks still advised” – you’ve seen me, then?