Music of the 1980s

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As I have said before, I like a great deal of music from the late 20th century, but none more than the stuff put out in the decade of the 1980s.

I must say, even as the years goes by and it starts to be considered oldies, I never get tired of listening to bands like Duran Duran, Huey Lewis and the News, Bon Jovi, stuff like that. Music in those days is certainly, to me, must more listenable than the stuff put out today, which almost seems manufactured. (On a related note, a recent study indeed confirmed that most music today sounds all too similar.)

On a related note, does any music expert know how to recreate that 80s sound?

To re-create the 80's sound, listen to 80's music and go from there.

Or if you want to be really creative, listen to the Beatles and internalize their style, and try to make a heavy metal sound from the Beatles.

80's music differs from today in that the music has a direction to it, whereas today's music is put together in the image of a number one hit.

Keep in mind that today's artists are influenced by instant gratification entertainment such as Youtube videos, Sportscenter top 10 plays, and the music of their peers. 80's music had more of a gung-ho improvisational feel to it, sort of like the Miami Hurricanes college football dynasty and Piper's Pit in professional wrestling, the wrestling talk show hosted by Rowdy Roddy Piper.

I dunno, even though I am a huge fan of 80s pop music (huge, as in, 8 of my top 10 favourite songs are from the 80s), I wanna be careful in giving it all too much praise.

A lot of the complaints about bad music today, (as well as complaints about bad music in the 90s, for that matter) could equally apply to the 1980s. In the early 80s, with the advent of MTV and the rise in popularity of the music video, image suddenly became very important for pop musicians. At the same time, improvements in the technology of electronic music -including gimmicks like vocal distortion- led to a more manufactured, studio-generated sound for pop music in general, whereas the preceding decade had relied more on organic sounds and on artists who could perform well live. That's not to say the '70s didn't already have their own derided musical genres and trends, such as disco.
But I can distinctly remember that, in the late 90s and early 2000s, music lovers everywhere generally agreed that the 80s had been a worse decade for music than the 90s. Especially the state of rock music in the 80s was seen as disgraceful. Admittedly, metal blossomed and thrived in the 80s, but it was a fringe genre in those days. The radios played a neutered version of rock music, almost always 'hair bands' with boisterous power ballads or vacuous party anthems. Even respected bands like Aerosmith and Queen were riding on the trends, and employed the lucrative clichés of the time to sell their records. It wasn't until Guns N' Roses came along with 'Appetite For Destruction', that the music charts started featuring interesting rock again.

On a similar note, one huge hit in the 80s was 'Pump Up The Volume', by MARRS. It was ludicrously monotonous, and it lifted a line from the infinitely more creative track 'I Know You Got Soul' by Eric B. & Rakim.

I don't think there is one particular "80s sound" though, just as there isn't a definitive 90s sound or 2000s sound, et cetera- as surely as you might as well call 1985-1994 a 'decade' and pin a certain sound on it. 1989 pop music is closer in sound to 1991 than it is to 1982.

Well, not a music expert, but...use old synthesizers? One of my favorite 80s genres is Italodisco. It's a barely surviving genre now, but still people make it regardless. It ended up morphing into today's eurobeat, but some people still stuck around and made italodisco regardless.

Here's a song by an italo artist from 1985:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPA6uYNdOTs[/youtube]

One by the same guy from 2011:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DVT6qzGxkY[/youtube]

As you can see, he didn't modernize his sound one bit. I find that impressive how he didn't compromise his sound at all. But yeah, pretty much comes down to the synths. Use the older sounding drum machines, etc, and you should be good to go.

I like that. I wish I could learn how to sing and make my own 80s-influenced song, you know, teach today's kids what real music was all about!

Well, the 80s was cool, but remember, not everything from the 80s was some magnum opus of musical sound. But, as far as pop music goes, it was a good time I think. I think the main thing that's happened now, isn't so much technology, as musicians will always exploit technology (as we can see they did in the 80s) but it's more that music now is in my opinion becoming more vapid and dumb. Particularly the issue with love songs, love songs have switched from songs about love to songs about promiscuous "hook up" kinda sex. I guess it's art imitating life, you know? Now more than half of all kids are born out of wedlock. It's a bigger social issue, I guess. To be fair to the 80s, there was plenty of songs about stupid stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtztvaGN92A And there always have been songs about that sorta thing almost as far as we can go back. But I think now, though, things are out of balance as far as those kinda songs in society. I think the other thing, too, at least in America, we've not had a clearly defined pop music genre for the most part. Pop can be rap, rock, or R&B, mixed into a pop flavor, but very rarely imo is it just pop. We're starting to see it a bit more, with people like Lady Gaga (who in my opinion isn't really bad.)

But, take disco. America liked disco for a short time. Then there was a huge backlash for two reasons. One, homosexuals liked disco. Who can blame them, it's nice music. But, if you listen to it, then you must be homosexual! The other thing was, lack of perceived artistic merit. To be fair, this is sorta a valid point. Not too many pop songs have much artistic merit, they're not super complex, they're not really like, world changing kinda songs or anything like that, they're usually just love songs. But, why does the music we listen to particularly NEED artistic merit? Think of it this way, would you rather have a good cheeseburger or like....Beef Wellington? One is more complex to make, and the other is much simpler, but which one would you eat everyday? Probably burgers. And there's nothing wrong with that, as long as you can appreciate the complex things in life, along with the simple.

But, as I was saying, I guess the main thing in today's pop music is that it's very much about like, promiscuity, partying, that sorta thing. While a song like, say, Aha's "Take on Me" might not be some kinda super amazing song, it's a nice song that makes you feel good and is positive, and I think that's what counts. But, I think that's the major separation in spirit of 80s music and now. It's not the synthesizers, it's the content. I think another thing, too, regarding sex and music and all that, in the 80s it was more alluded to, but now it's just straight out there, which personally I don't like.

I think nowadays, pretty much music's best hope is house music. To a point, you just see pop songs copying stuff from house music and electronic music in general, like for example, how you hear random dubstep breaks in songs now.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoB0mdYuOdA[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-Z3YrHJ1sU[/youtube]
Both of those are Romanian house songs, and the Edward Maya song got significant radio coverage here in the states. So yeah, sorry for so much text to prove my point, but that I think is the essence of what people are missing when they long for music of the past. Not so much the synthesizers, old instruments, etc, but the "good old fashioned love song" kinda thing.

About a good chunk of songs on my iTouch is from the 80s...... does anybody else agree with me that pop/rock was at its best in the 80s ?:D

Music from the 1980's is amazing, along with music from the 1970's and 1990's!

-LegoMaster2149 (Written on September 20, 2017)

Gated reverb.

Same idea would be applicable with guitar gear. Marshall JCM800s, Soldano SLOs, Peavey 5150/6505 and Mesa Mk.2s would be good places to start for hard rock or metal tones of the era.

The Roland TR-808 basically defines 80s hip-hop (and many other genres).

I love the 808... <3 It was the sound of hip hop and electro. I also like the 303 and 909. Those were also sounds of house music and acid house. And the 808 was also the sound of house music and acid house as well.

The quirky, weird "New Wave/synthpop/alternative" artists showed me that you can "Dare to Different" and have some success. It was an era when artists were freer to be themselves. There were artists that made really good pop music while being experimental a rare combination. It was not 80's retro, it was the real thing.

If you did live through the '70's especially as an Autistic it is hard to explain how liberating and innovative it was.

Here's a song from the 1980's:

Manuel Göttsching - Gemäßigter Aufbruch (1984)