Best Songs of the 80's

[Bator]

All from 1979, lol! Well......if anything is proven in this thread, it's that the 80s wasn't exactly the Renaissance, lol.

There was some great music during the 80's, the US, another British invasion, plus Canada and Australia were involved this time as well. I've been rifling though my parent's albums.

 

[Bugman]

All from 1979, lol! Well......if anything is proven in this thread, it's that the 80s wasn't exactly the Renaissance, lol.

Here's some more obvious 80s stuff that no one seemed to post, just to "represent":

Was it '79? Damn. I would have sworn that album came out early in 1980. Oh well, not the first time I've been wrong about something.

 

[Bator]

The Human League - Human {born to make mistakes}

[/QUOTE]

 

[Bator]

Expose - Seasons Change {feelings change/people change}

 

[Bator]

 

[Bator]

The Banderas - Your Last Sorrow

 

[chicago]

 

[chicago]

 

[chicago]

 

[The Internet]

Yazoo: Don't Go



Yazoo: Situation

There was some great music during the 80's, the US, another British invasion, plus Canada and Australia were involved this time as well. I've been rifling though my parent's albums.

I didn't say there wasn't SOME great music during the 80s, I said it wasn't the Renaissance, and it wasn't. Most of this stuff you posted, you'd be lucky if you found somebody ten miles within your radius who had heard of just ONE of these records. Production got generic......it some cities, you had to "pay to play"! That's when they started charging the bands to pay to play! Thank God that trend went away!

I was fine, my tastes from the 80s has only been validated over time. DURING the 80s? "Why are you listening to THAT?". In the early 80s, the dance clubs were great to hear what was coming over from England and Europe (and in some parts of the states). College radio really took off in the 80s, that was a huge resource. Most of the pop stuff went in one ear and out the other. And the community that you had felt with EVERYBODY - old and young - about music had dissipated, and everyone went of into their own "cliques" and musical wallpaper (aka: subgenres).

 

[chicago]

Subgenres we're invented in the 80s? The more you know.

Sometimes cheesy music is fun too though, even if it has no "substance"

 

[The Internet]

Subgenres we're invented in the 80s? The more you know.

Sometimes cheesy music is fun too though, even if it has no "substance"

Cheesy music is fun! Lots of cheesy music music from the 80s is fun! You presume you know what I'm talking about....but obviously you don't.

No, subgenres weren't "invented" in the 80s.....nor did I say that.

 

[chicago]

Cheesy music is fun! Lots of cheesy music music from the 80s is fun! You presume you know what I'm talking about....but obviously you don't.

No, subgenres weren't "invented" in the 80s.....nor did I say that.

Lol I didn't say you said that. I misunderstood so I asked. I really wasn't sure. And you didn't say cheesy music was bad, so that was more a general response to the thread. Some great 80s music is just silly and that's fine lol

 

[The Internet]

Lol I didn't say you said that. I misunderstood so I asked. I really wasn't sure. And you didn't say cheesy music was bad, so that was more a general response to the thread. Some great 80s music is just silly and that's fine lol

WELL.....then......I must apologize. I'll explain then...but it's going to be long so......I doubt you'll actually read it, but ok, here we go:

You had the goths, the punks....the metalheads...etc etc.....there was not much crossover among those audiences.

Rock and roll - which was the first youth music, which is still what's going on to this day, under whatever name it is - was always a collection of regional musics.....rock and roll meant the Everly Brothers AND LIttle Richard.

But the audience - obviously people had different tastes - knew it all as rock and roll. You were a rock and roll fan or you weren't. the 60s came, and the Beatles - instead of just being one regional style of music - they encompassed them all. And invented a few new ones in the process.

Because they were so big - both with the business side of things, but also among up and coming musicians - they were widely imitated. And so....people took a bit of one element....and it becomes "Folk Rock".....others take another element....and it becomes "Hard Rock"....etc etc.

In the 70s, these subgenres got wider apart. I remember my Uncle, who was into Prog Rock....was ANTI-singer-songwriters. My aunts who were into the singer-songwriters couldn't stand Led Zeppelin. But even then....you'd go into people's houses....and they had a variety of styles in their collections.

In the 80s...things got cliquey....or dumb. lol. The general populace was happy with Night Ranger and whatever generic shit was on the radio, Tiffany, etc etc.

But these cliques started, mostly out of the new wave and punk movements, the underground music of the day. At first, you liked New Wave, and all the different bands, and it was like the pre-Beatles era, with tons of great singles and new sounds and it was fun.

But then.....there'd be the goths. The punks. You'd go to a punk fan's house, and that's all I'd hear! The music became the wallpaper for the clique, if that makes sense. "I'm a goth" so I have to listen to this, this and this. And I'd NEVER listen to that!

This is an oversimplification but maybe you get the gist.

*********************************************

Regarding cheesy 80s music, let me tell you a funny story! I was dj-ing after the MTV music awards one year....and The Smashing Pumpkins came in. Whatever I was spinning, it WASN'T 80s music. So Darcy and James come up to me and request "Cheesy 80s music". So - I always brought tons and tons of records of me, of all genres - so I started spinning 80s stuff. "I Eat Caniballs" lol. The Flying Lizards. Altered Images. etc.

All of a sudden, this publicist chick comes running up to me, yelling at me: "Why are you playing this, dont you know Metallica is here?" Apparently Metallica had just walked in.

So I say, hey, I'm sorry, the Pumpkins asked me to play some 80s I'm sorry!

the Pumpkins leave quickly after Metallica there (i don't know if its coincidence or not)....but I cue up the Who "Young Man Blues"....and as soon as the first split second of the record starts, Metallica cheers.

But the publicist comes back! And she's still yelling at me! "Shut it off! Shut it off!" (she wants me to play metal, which I don't really play).

"THere is no way I'm shutting this off"

"Shut it off....now"

I look at her, smile, say "Ok!" and cut the music. The Who go silent, mid-jam.

Metallica freaks out. "Not that song! oh no, not that song!" lol.

I smiled, disgustedly at the publicist as I put The Who back on.

 

[The Internet]

Speaking of Altered Images, cheesy 80s....and super stoney as well....I used to put this on in my walkman and look at the sky, lol.....PRE-pothead (and post) !

Altered Images: See Those Eyes

 

[The Internet]

Here's probably the most-played piece of music of the entire 1980s! lol



After school, we'd play Space Invaders on Atari and watch MTV. We used to sit and watch MTV and marvel how much it sucked. Those were the days, lol.

 

[The Internet]

The theme song for the 80s!

Bobby McFerrin: Don't Worry, Be Happy


Though this could also have been the theme! Hilarious, I wish I wrote this song.
Frank Zappa: Cocaine Decisions

 

[Barbershopman]

It amazed me that Sweet Dreams by the Eurhythmics became a huge hit and it only has three lyrics:

Sweet dreams are made of these, who am I to disagree, I've traveled the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something

Some of them want to use you, some of them want to get used by you, some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused

Hold your head up (moving on) keep your head up (moving on) hold your head up (moving on), keep your head up (moving on)

Listen to the song and see if that blows your mind like it did mine when I discovered this.

Barbershopman

 

[Barbershopman]

What I remember about the 80s (I graduated high school in 87), was that in the middle of the decade, you had the birth of synth pop with groups like A-HA, Men at Work, Devo, Tears for Fears, Bobby McFerrin and others.

These groups are popular for one or two mega-hits and then falling off of the radar. It gave us a lot of great memorable songs but the bands didn't last.

Barbershopman

 

[The Internet]

What I remember about the 80s (I graduated high school in 87), was that in the middle of the decade, you had the birth of synth pop with groups like A-HA, Men at Work, Devo, Tears for Fears, Bobby McFerrin and others.

These groups are popular for one or two mega-hits and then falling off of the radar. It gave us a lot of great memorable songs but the bands didn't last.

Barbershopman

Actually all that synth pop started a little earlier, in the late 70s (Devo, Kraftwerk)/ early 80s (Ultravox, early Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Human League, etc).........it was big in England, just didn't hit mainstream America (via MTV) until the mid-80s with stuff like A-Ha (which me and my friends COULD NOT STAND), Pet Shop Boys, etc. (Men At Work was more of a band, they didn't have a synth in them, McFerrin did accapella, but you're right, most were flash-in-the-pans. Quarterflash, Asia, lol....)

That whole New Wave-punk scene between 1977 and, say 1984 was a great "singles" time! Not unlike the pre-Beatle period of 1960-63. Most bands you'd just buy their single, alot of times you bought the full album and the only good song on it was the single. You'd marvel that they were able to get it so right once, but not be able to repeat the feat over the course of an entire album! lol.

Speaking for me, starting around '84 college radio really took off as a force, you could hear tons and tons of bands that weren't getting exposure anywhere else, when indie rock was truly indie rock (ditto the term "alternative"). MTV did a deal with the majors that they wouldn't air videos from the indie labels (thats when they took off shows like The Cutting Edge and 120 Minutes). I know for me, that's when I started moving away from the (mostly) British dance music stuff and more into the other "underground" stuff of the 80s.

I'm Class of '87, too! I remember the band at my prom playing "White Lines", ha!

Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five: White Lines


....and here's the song they ripped it off from......... 😉

Liquid Liquid: Caravan

 

[porcelaindoll2]

AHa Take on Me

 

[The Internet]

AHa Take on Me

LOL Touché, Porcelain Doll!

 

[The Internet]

Ah, I'm such an obnoxious snob, so sorry (again, with the "sorry" lol).

My Aha aversion came from the fact that when it came out....MTV played it RELENTLESSLY.....four times an hour! So didn't mean to offend anyone's tastes.....I just associate it with that..... "Not again!!!".

Two videos that DID get played alot (a couple of years earlier than Aha) that everyone I knew liked were these two Duran Duran videos. Then again, "Planet Earth" had been a club hit here so they weren't an unknown band, at least not to me. (I had their first album in fact, then available only as an import, and which nobody that I knew was even remotely interested in, lol. That all changed with these two videos......and just like the obnoxious music snob I am, I dropped Duran Duran like a hot potato, lol)

Duran Duran: Hungry Like The Wolf


Duran Duran: Rio


and here's "Planet Earth" from their first album.

Duran Duran: Planet Earth

 

[Bohemianne]

One of the HOTTEST stuff... not the dancing. I mean Michael Hutchence. RIP though.

 

[Bator]

Yazoo: Don't Go



Yazoo: Situation




I didn't say there wasn't SOME great music during the 80s, I said it wasn't the Renaissance, and it wasn't. Most of this stuff you posted, you'd be lucky if you found somebody ten miles within your radius who had heard of just ONE of these records. Production got generic......it some cities, you had to "pay to play"! That's when they started charging the bands to pay to play! Thank God that trend went away!

I was fine, my tastes from the 80s has only been validated over time. DURING the 80s? "Why are you listening to THAT?". In the early 80s, the dance clubs were great to hear what was coming over from England and Europe (and in some parts of the states). College radio really took off in the 80s, that was a huge resource. Most of the pop stuff went in one ear and out the other. And the community that you had felt with EVERYBODY - old and young - about music had dissipated, and everyone went of into their own "cliques" and musical wallpaper (aka: subgenres).

You're so snobbish and full of yourself when it comes to music that it's ridiculous. Come down from your pulpit and knock off being Mr. High And Mighty for a change. This was my parent's music, I grew up listening to it plus my Grandparent's music as well as music from other eras. Perhaps I do come off like a neophyte to you, but that's only because you're too old and won't, can't or refuse appreciate it for what it was without having a stroke over every minor detail. And yeah, most of it may not have been played on your local radio station or MTV, but who's fault is that?