I really don't get it... The songs were catchy... there was actually a hook...

A great decade for music

coolcat said:

Forget the music. The 80's get diss sometimes because of the hairstyles & fashion taste.

I love the '80s.

Icicle said:

and movies...

It's a hair thing

coolcat said:

Wretched production, wretched hair, wretched clothes .... but they were a laugh and a lot more exciting than the here and now.

PANDURITO said:

I'd like to see your 80's hair style, please!

Cheek said:

I had a short fro and then I shaved it all off and made like Isaac Hayes. No jeri curls.

Cheek said:

Pandurito was probably a baby when Pete Burns last looked human.

Icicle said:

Yes!!!!!

Icicle said:

The older I get, the more I realise there is to appreciate from the 80s.

onenitealone said:

When i was about 13 or so, i got into Prince, Culture Club, M.J and all those 80s icons, i remember talking to one of the younger teachers about 80s music every time i saw her, she must have gotten tired of me

Luckily, we still have the 12" singles

Icicle said:

I'm sure you didn't annoy her. If anything, you probably took her down Memory Lane.

GREAT artists to get into at that age.

Early '80s music often doesn't sound too bad now, I think musically it's the mid-late '80s where some truly horrific production on records really came in. The drums and synths often sound 'plasticcy' and sterile, making the music soulless. Some acts, I'd single out the Pet Shop Boys, managed to still sound good in the late '80s, but there are many more records I'd like to forget from that period.

It does seem to me that the songs themselves were often better and more diverse than today, though, even if many were ruined by bad, then-fashionable production.

Prince's '80s work, mainly due his Linn drum programming genius, has survived better than most, but even his late '80s stuff now sounds rather dated to my ears, mainly due to the fact that he started aping other people's production sounds from about '87-'90, especially on his side-projects.

The fashions were more fun than today, though , where everybody has to look so deppressingly normal, so you can't tell the artists from the audience (Mind you, that could be the case back in the New Romantic '80s too) .

Miles said:

One thing that always strikes me when watching 80's videos is just how much happier people seemed back then. Okay, that could be a complete fallacy - you've only got to look at the social and political climate of the time - but, Christ, people actually seemed to enjoy music! Fast forward ten years and everyone is depressingly 'normal'.

onenitealone said:

Yeah, probably, we had some good conversations

PANDURITO said:

onenitealone said:

Yes, I notice that! I also notice that 80's artist & video directors knew how to make a video that tell the stories within the songs.

And yes, synths RULED in those days!

TonyVanDam said:

I read recently - I can't remember where, sorry; it might have been the Org - someone saying something like 'Only in the 80's could you have Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson standing shoulder to shoulder in the charts next to some bin man from Chiswick who got a record deal'. It's true, though. Okay, we have reality, manufactured acts today but - back then - it was mostly about talent. And the MUSIC. And fun. Where are the Princes today??

God, I sound like my Dad. ;lol:

The first half of the 80s (1980-85) was amazing....alot of groundbreaking,incredible music was released during that period.Even the early rap songs ("The Message","White Lines",etc) were impressive.The problem began sometime around 1985.Drum machines and synthesizers took over,resulting in music that sounded cold,robotic and sterile.A perfect example is Billy Ocean's 1988 Number One hit "Get Outta My Dreams,Get Into My Car".Today,songs like that sound horribly dated.I can't even listen to alot of late-80s music for this reason.

Miles said:

Precisely.Alot of the music from the late 80s sounds so mechanical and soul-less.Stevie Wonder is one of my favorite artists,but I can barely get through his 1987 'Characters' album....too many damn synths! Rick James is another one of my favorites,but try listening to his 1986 album 'The Flag'.

SoulAlive said:

Exactly, David. And 'In Square Circle'.

I've mentioned this on the Org before: silly as it sounds, sometimes when I listen to Stevie's 80's albums, I almost try to imagine them as if they'd been recorded the decade before. With real instruments and a more organic production. Imagine Wonderlove backing him up on some of those tunes!

It's not the material that's at fault - he was still writing magnificent songs - it's just those horrible synthesisers and the plastic production that mar them. But... it's Stevie. That voice could sing the phone book and I'd still listen to it.

onenitealone said:

I hear ya! When I listen to albums like 'In Square Circle' and 'Characters',I try to imagine what it would sound like if he had used a 70s approach....harmonica,piano,REAL DRUMS,etc.There's nothing wrong with the songs,it's just the production that ruins them.Stevie is one of those artists who should always keep his music sounding "organic".

Which is rediculous because the 1980s had some great fashions and hairstyles. It was all about being an individual and being as wild as possible. People only laugh at the styles of the 1980s because there is no style in the 1990s and today. A baseball cap has become the hairstyle of the 1990s and present and rediculous looking oversized jeans and sports jerseys have become the fashions. Hell, you can buy that shit in stores. Real fashions have to be custom made, like when....the 1980s.

Exactly. Damn near everything was great during this time. The funk was slammin' and the slow jams had a very "after midnight, pick up and a stranger, and have a one-night stand" type feel to them. The early 1980s were like a more modern version of the 1970s.



The rap was great back then also, especially jams like "Planet Rock". Most of the rap was faster than funk in those days. Rap back then was more at a disco tempo. There was very little of the boring opera-tempo type shit that dominates today.



That's exactly the year that things started fucking up. Everyone was trying to crossover to pop, and what's worse, they were trying to invade the adult contemporary world also. Actually, a lot of the best jams of the late 1980s were rap jams by The Egyptian Lover, Pretty Tony and Freestyle, BOSE, The LA Dream Team, etc.

Full fledged R&B "singers" of this era were becoming too "parent friendly". I wonder who started that trend in 1985. Every generation's youth loves rebellion and it has always been uncool to listen to music that your parents would like. With all these adult contemporary R&B artists that were taking over, the doors were wide open for gangsta rap to come in and fill the "rebellion" void in the early 1990s. The only difference is, their music was and still is just as boringly slow as the adult contemporary singers.
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[Edited 10/23/06 11:47am]

vainandy said:

"Rapper`s delight" is the perfect example (the only example i know )

I can think of plenty fast paced rap from that era.....

Planet Rock - Soul Sonic Force
Scorpio - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five
Flamethrower Rap - Felix and Jarvis
Fix It In The Mix - Pretty Tony
Can You Rock It Like This - Run D.M.C.
What People Do For Money - Divine Sounds
Electric Kingdom - Twilight 22
Egypt, Egypt - The Egyptian Lover
Jam On It - Newcleus
Nasty Rock - The P Crew
Jam The Box - Pretty Tony
Reckless - Chris "The Glove" Taylor and David Storrs featuring Ice T
Survival - Melle Melle and Duke Boutee
Looking For The Perfect Beat - Soul Sonic Force
Siberian Nights - Twilight 22
Computer Age (Push The Button) - Newcleus
The Party Has Begun - Freestyle

vainandy said:

Thanks :typing in song titles on bearshare: