80s music

Despite protestations to the contrary, I believe we all know what the OP  means by "80s Music" -- Duran Duran, Frankie Goes to Toledo, all that Johnny Hates Jazz stuff.  And my answer is "Yes", I like it.  

octopus-4 wrote: verslibre wrote: In spite of the "80s stigma" (due mostly to lots of crappy/silly new romantic & hair metal bands, though there's always a grey area), that decade had/has tons of great music, especially when it comes to progressive-electronic. Do you mean the tons of movie soundtracks released by Tangerine Dream? Neither far comparable to their pink period, IMO.

It was a different era for the band. If you're a fan of Johannes Schmoelling, chances are the '80-'85 albums are likely your favorite. I do like their film scores from that period, especially Thief, Wavelength, The Keep, Firestarter and Heartbreakers, but they recorded, IMO, some of their best music, to be found on albums like Tangram, Exit, Logos, White Eagle, Poland and Le Parc.

I am interested in seeing people list 80's jazz fusion that retains the more daring and complex elements from the 70's. I see a lot of parallels in the history of fusion with that of prog rock. By the 80's many of the big acts either faded off or switched to a much more pop-accessible smooth jazz style. I actually really like a lot of it from the 80's, especially Paul Hardcastle's mixture of jazz solos and harmonies with electronic dance at the time. But still I lament the loss of the more proggy elements.

The only one I can think off is Jean Luc Ponty.

'Goth' stuff. Cocteaus, Bauhaus, DCD, there was plenty of interest in the 80s (certainly the 1stt half) but like just about all decades the good stuff rarely reared its ugly head in the charts or on daytime radio.

If 80s music means just any bands/albums from the 80s, there's plenty that I like.  King Crimson, Talking Heads, Kate Bush, Donald Fagen, Prefab Sprout, Metallica, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden (at least, before they got dense), Peter Gabriel, Marillion, Rush, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Police, so on and so forth.  Not relevant from a Western music point of view, but 80s was the most prolific phase of my all time favourite composer Ilayaraja so there's no way I cannot like the 80s.  But if by 80s is meant stuff like Power of Love/Still Loving You/Careless Whisper, no, I don't like that kind of music AT ALL. By the end of the 80s, the influence of R&B/jazz on pop music seems to have diminished and replaced by a general, formulaic 'power' sound which I don't really like - the one you hear on My Haaarth weel go wonnn, for instance.

^^^ I'd much rather Stevie Wonder than any pop artist of the 80s.  And I don't find anything laughable about either the lyrics or the costumes of Pink Floyd so I disagree on both counts.  I do agree that there was some bad pop in the 70s too and some of 70s prog, even the classics, did have,er, strange lyrics and all that.  But at least 70s pop tended to be tolerably boring, well, at least until mid 70s anyway when they began to favour robotic drums.  I cannot say that robotic sounding drums of 80s are objectively bad but I certainly don't like them.  If I like a song with those sort of drums, it is generally in spite of and not because of them.  Script for a Jester's Tears would probably sound a bit more fluid without Pointer's stiff performance.  

Metalmarsh89 wrote: stonebeard wrote: Just because apparently no one here like 80s pop music I thought I'd say I like it more than 60s and 70s pop. All decades have their cringeworthy stuff, though. And prog music in the 70s was just plain goofy. Good musicianship, sure, but the lyrics and pomp and costumes was pretty laughable. I challenge anyone to say the 80s were any more embarrassing than that. So you're saying this... ...Is more laughable and ridiculous than this... ...I disagree.

But the 80's wasn't so fun because prog wasn't popular.

I've tried, but I just didn't like it.

You people leave Soft Cell alone.