The 1980s are a highly underrated decade for music

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https://youtu.be/O_i9t7h8AgY


Late 1970's to mid 1980's was best. Before the late '70's was a bit dreary to be honest as early to mid 1970's music had somewhat lost its way though there were some exceptions to that.

https://youtu.be/kd9TlGDZGkI

Here's my take on 1980s music.

I grew up with 1960s and 1970s music, and as other posters have implied, you can't go far wrong with that stuff. The only misgivings I had were with the so called 'Punk Rock' of the later 70s, which was of very patchy quality indeed, Sure it was energetic and different, but an awful lot of it was just overrated rubbish. It makes me laugh when, in reviews of the decade on TV, critics from the boomer generation (and the odd one from Gen X) who regard themselves as 'progressive' fall over themselves to sing the praises of Punk and sneer at the 'stale' (ie massively superior) genres it followed.

Ahem, anyway, the 1980s. They got off to a flying start, as some of the excellent acts which had emerged in the late 70s (Blondie, The Pretenders, etc) continued with the good work for a while, and then some genuinely promising new genres came along, like 'Synth-Pop' and the New Romantics. Listen to some top twenty stuff from The Human League, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, The Teardrop Explodes, Duran Duran, XTC, Yazoo, and the like.

Then I think it all ran out of steam very quickly, after around 1982-83. First sign that all was not well came when Kulture Klub were touted as the 'group of the 80s' and Boy George as a huge talent. Come on! Was he anywhere near the levels of Lennon and McCartney, Bowie, Bolan, Led Zeppelin etc from a few years earlier?

For me though, the end actually came with the release in 1984 of Wham's 'Wake Me Up Before You Go Go'. This went straight to number one and I just knew it was all over. Not just a naff song, but a visually pathetic spectacle too - just look at the way George Michael's sidekick prances pointlessly around the stage pretending to play that guitar. Jimmy Page he ain't.





There was a handful of decent individual releases after that (eg Hazel Dean's 'Searchin', 'Duel' by Propaganda, 'Orinoco Flow' by Enya), but I could never have bothered to buy a single album by a post-1983 artist or group, even if I'd still been 16.

I can remember groups like Frankie Goes To Hollywood and The Communards being highly rated by some critics, but their music and that of similar outfits never did much for me, and I found them all visually unimpressive as well. I couldn't even get into The Smiths, who by all accounts were supposed to be a real class act.

I did not know that about Dexys.

https://youtu.be/u8CMsQ-p1ls

There was a lot of end of the world due to nuclear war fears with movies such as "The Day After" and "Threads". A lot of it ended up in music.






and the aforementioned Frankie Goes To Hollywood


But to me despite that it was fun.
Everything seemed new from the synths to the videos which created optimism. It was a "new wave"

Many look back on it with the overdone fashions and hairdos and sneer. For me after being a teen during the post-hippie conformity coming into adulthood there was a real sense of individualism that I very much miss.

^ Nena and 'Red Balloons' was a great song, should have given that a mention!

^ The stuff I mentioned from the early 80s was better than Punk, to my ears at least. I did like releases such as 'Ever Fallen In Love' (The Buzzcocks), 'Hong Kong Garden' (Siouxsie and the Banshees), 'Oliver's Army' (Elvis Costello) - does that count? - 'God Save The Queen' (Sex Pistols), 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' (Eddie & The Hotrods) and quite a few others. I used to show 'The Great Rock And Roll Swindle' to my classes in the 1990s during my teaching career, though I'm not sure they ever much understood or appreciated it.

80s are played a lot in various stores I go to which makes sense to me. Stores want music that is PC & kid friendly, & also want the music to be kinda upbeat, sound familiar, & not majorly disliked. There's few options that fit those requirements. I was born at the end of 1982 & I listen to music as old as the 70s. I've been really into old-skewl punk for a while now & that's from the 80s & late 70s but people do not often think of punk when they hear the term 80s Music. Most 80s stations stick to the pop stuff which is good & I liked it even as a teen but it's just never been the main music I listened to.

Yeah 'wake me up before you go go' is a terrible song. But ...I do listen to 'careless whisper' 'everything she wants' and 'last Christmas ' by said duo and enjoy them

I still think of the 80s as having a lot of heavy metal, especially the early 80s.

Which bands were you thinking of?

I was a child so I couldn't get access to anything alternative like that.