Why the 80's did suck!

Warthur wrote: harmonium.ro wrote: Another way to look at the indie scene that started in the 80s is that in the 70s the same artists wouldn't have needed to become "alternative" to reach the market (a market). Accessible pop and sophisticated experimentalism coexisted. IMO it's all down to the change in paradigm that happened in the industry, not to the creative changes. I think that may be true, but I think that was a change in paradigm at the managing and marketing level rather than at the artistic level. Had the music industry developed the approaches and models they used in the 1980s earlier, they'd have used them earlier.

Didn't I say just that?

^ I've often been puzzled by the perception of artists on indie labels being automatically considered 'purer' than those on majors.
A corner shop wants your money
A supermarket wants your money

Isn't everything an over simplification  Any business has to create revenue to pay its costs, if they are providing support to bands then that cash is generated by sales of that and other artists on the payroll. For Virgin one album(thus one artist) funded the entire catalogue for years while others like Island, Chrysalis and Charisma relied on a core of two or three artists to pay for everything else they released. For example the (relative) success of VdGG, The Nice and Lindisfarne in the early 70s (and hit singles by people like Clifford T Ward) payed for Audience and Genesis's early albums, and those VdGG, The Nice and Lindisfarne albums were themselves funded by the earlier success of bands like Atomic Rooster and Steeleye Span (on parent label B&C), who were themselves funded by the success of Desmond Decker and Dave and Ansel Collins (on Trojan). Similar profiles can be produced for all indie labels, even Island in the 70s and Stiff and Factory records in the 80s - one or two big hits fund the non-earning bands - Free, Traffic, Cat Stevens and Jimmy Cliff paying the way for King Crimson, Blodwin Pig and Rennaisance... These guys were business-minded and commercial, (Island was the biggest Indie label of all time) and they were very shrewed, (just look at Branson), unlike Tony Wilson, whose business acumen on Factory Records resulted in some very bizarre practices (like losing money on every copy of Blue Monday ever sold, so the more successful it became the more they lost money) - however in spite of this New Order and Happy Mondays funded just about every other artist on Factory in the 80s, just as Tubeway Army, Gary Numan, Bauhaus and M/A/R/R/S funded everything else released on Beggars Banquet and 4AD.  

Edited by Dean - July 02 2011 at 05:38

Dean wrote: ^ a'tchly I don't think it's true anyway - the 70s artists that were not mainstream were on independent labels and for all intents and purposes they were alternative artists - Virgin & Caroline were indie labels, Island & Chrysalis were indie labels, Charisma and B&C were indie labels, Transatlantic was an Indie label, Ohr was an indie label, Brain was an indie label (etc, etc) ... The perception that the 80s were some kind of rebellion against the corporate music industry is misplaced, that rebellion occurred in the 1960s and perpetuated through the 70s and into the 80s. However all through that time-span the major labels were fighting back, sweeping up the indies as they went (such as Atlantic and UA/Liberty, acquired by Warners and EMI respectively in the late 60s) and countering them with ersatz indie labels (aka "imprints") of their own like Deram, Vertigo and Harvest (and of course Apple, Mantecore, Threshold, Swansong, Purple etc).

I love 80s music. Heavy metal, new wave, synthpop, no wave, quirky prog like the Cardiacs. There was horrible crap in any decade but there was plenty of cool crap from then :)

.......the 80’s didn’t suck (completely) - it’s just that many of our beloved Prog-Rock bands had to adapt to the music bizz of the day in order to survive. Sure, technology and production stylings date material from this period, but I love truck-loads of albums from this period. It was especially great for MetalThrash bands (and Marillion, Pendragon, Twelfth Night etc.)
And you have to accept that for every ‘commercially styled’ band out at the time, there’s usually a band member with talent (and a Prog background......)

Edited by Tom Ozric - February 26 2018 at 02:46

Cristi wrote: So, no, 80s did not suck.

Starting my youth in the begin of eighties I really thought it sucked. But gladly speedmetal in the middle of eighties saved my youth!

80's hair bands sucked! 

micky wrote: why didn't the 80's suck...  two words BIG HAIR!!!!!  my god...  time for another cold shower...