What’s so great about 80s Music?
As a follow up to last months post about the history of our online radio station, I wanted to post something about why we decided upon 80s music as the core format. Having been a serious music fan for over 20 years before creating the station, my collection of LPs, CDs, DVDs and tapes ran the gamut from 50’s rockabilly to the most current of rock bands (White Stripes and Drive By Truckers being at the top of my current faves list). Despite having an appreciation for almost all genres of music, it seems that I spent most of my time actually defending 80s music among other music aficionados and many baby-boomers (and sometimes both), who felt great music ended with Woodstock.
Most of the “80s music sucks” arguments are shallow at best with references to synth-pop bands that claimed heavy rotation on MTV and the influx of so much of the sappy pap from the hit music charts of the times. The reality is that one of the greatest things about 80s music, and what we tried to capture on 80s Airwaves, was the truly vast variety of music that was released during that time. There was an amazing 12 year period of music from the late 70s through the end of the 80s that I don’t believe has ever been matched simply in terms of musical variety.
During the late 70’s, as the glitter of glam began to fade and super-groups like Journey, Boston, Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac and others began to sell out stadiums, punk was taking hold both in the US and the UK. In the later part of the 70’s we saw crucial releases from The Ramones, The Clash, The Sex Pistols and The Saints. With heavy reggae influences, the Clash paved the way for a second-coming of Ska music from the likes of the Specials, the Beat, the Selecter, Madness and more. With an endless barrage of New Wave bands that hit with the new 80s decade, there also came a counter-force from New York taking on the name No-Wave who used analog guitar noise to counter the computer synths and electronic drums. Speaking of electronic music we can’t forget the likes of Kraftwerk, Can, the Residents, Jean Michel Jarre and Vangellis, while on the industrial side we had the early beats from Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire and Leather Nun. With all these cheap electronics, samplers and tapes loops, its not surprising that we saw the rise of house music in Chicago by the close of the decade as well as the great Factory bands like Joy Division, New Order, A Certain Ratio and OMD.
Of course while all this “new” music was being created using new instruments built from new technologies, “old” genres like Jazz continued to push through in the 80’s including key players like Miles Davis, Sun Ra and cross-over success for Herbie Hancock. Reggae also continued to make progress in the 80s, despite the loss of legend Bob Marley at the start of the decade (May 1981) while one of his sons, Ziggy Marley, helped to conclude the decade and bring some much needed positive vibrations to reggae music that saw increasingly violent lyrics. Not wanting to ignore R&B and soul, I’ll just mention Rick James who was the essence of 80’s excess.
And obviously, rock music didn’t actually stop in the 80s. Artists that represented the core of rock and roll during the 70’s, saw numerous critically acclaimed releases during the 80’s from the likes of Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones, the Who, ZZ Top, Aerosmith, Bob Dylan and solo releases from each of the fab four. Of course 80’s rock and roll wasn’t just coming from the veterans since many highly influential rock bands like Guns n Roses, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins all saw their first releases happen toward the end of the 80s. And taking rock and roll, one step beyond, heavy metal somehow morphed into hair metal bringing music and madness from bands like Poison, Motley Crue, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake and dozens more like them.
One of the most debated 80’s music influences from the decade was rap and hip-hop. From Run DMC and Public Enemy to Grand Master Flash and the Beastie Boys, rap music has a huge impact on the entire world.
Ultimately, the 80’s produced dozens of bands that not only claimed the 80s as their own, but have continued to make critical contributions to the current state of music and set new records for concert attendance as their following has grows over decades. This 80’s veterans include U2, the Police, Van Halen, Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, John Mellencamp, REM, Madonna, Devo, Blondie, The Cure, B52’s and many, many more.
So the next time someone tells you how bad the music from the 80s was, ask them which genre and then point them to this little history lesson!
-pjc