Our 1980 top 10s in & out of PA (share & comment)

The 80s were killer years for music. Here's a few....

Joe Jackson - Beat Crazy
Elvis Costello - Trust
The Bears - s/t
They Might Be Giants - s/t
Utopia - s/t
Shriekback - Black Night Music
Adrian Belew - Lone Rhino
Rush - Moving Pictures
Frank Zappa - Broadway the Hard Way
Talking Heads - Little Creatures
King Crimson - Discipline

And of course, all the Allan Holdsworth and Pat Metheny Group albums. 😉

Partially because I am not as invested in just rock as many people, nor do I or have I payed as much attention to kinds of mainstream music often, I can find so much I like without thinking much about all that I don't. As a youth in the 80s I was enjoying music like Kate Bush, Laurie Anderson, Midnight Oil, Gary Numan, Kraftwerk, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure. Soundtrack artists like Doldinger and Moroder etc. and I was hearing post-punk and experimental music (including music we would call avant prog here) that I appreciated especially on university radio.

That said, the vast majority of music that I am into now I discovered in the internet age, mostly from 2003 until now. Much of what I most like from the 80s now, like Siouxsie and The Banshees, Glenn Branca, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, Swans' Children of God, Talk Talk, Joy Division, and a huge many others, I have not been very into for many years. I was at a party a decade ago and the conversation went to Joy Division and I had nothing to say. Same thing has happened to me with Twin Peaks (that I now love) and Game of Thrones (that I got into later). At least I got there eventually...

In about 2005, I really got into the RIO side of things, with Art Zoyd being a particular favourite of mine, and as a RIO/Avant Prog/Zeuhl lover, I find the 80s very strong for that. There's lots of electronic music I like from then, various Krautrock types, and psych music. Experimentation was not absent in the 80s, but I would not look to things like Yes or Asia for that, nor neo-prog or arena rock/ AOR bands for that matter. I did like Rush in the 80s, by the way, much more than I now do.

I guess an issue I have is that a lot of people who dismiss the 80s as bad (be fine to me if people explicitly say that they find it poor based on what they know) are either seeing it through the lens of what they knew back in the 80s, or what was popular in the 80s. and have not explored a lot of 80s music since, don't have broad tastes, and have not delved deeply into a wide diversity of styles. It can depend on how widely and deeply you have cast the net and how much you have researched.

The internet made discovering more obscure music easy, especially if you are not reliant on listening to physical product. I find streaming wonderful although I still like having and playing physical product. Thanks to a kind gift of many CDs by a PA member not long ago, I got my stereo system out of storage and I am enjoying physical product again.

There was a terrible to my ears production aesthetic to much music I heard in the 80s, but I could list hundreds of albums I love from the 80s. I could not have in the 80s but I discover more each year especially from every 60s and up decade. My lists at Awesome Prog for each year can keep growing if I keep listing...

In the 90s I certainly did find it to be a breath of fresh air for rock (who knew grunge could smell that fresh?), and the 90s is now one of my favourite decades (especially for the second half). I love Radiohead now. But again, most of I know like was not what I was into in the 90s. Those are more recent discoveries.

I'm happy for people to like what they like commonly (with many exceptions as many things that people like can be harmful) but I wish less people would casually dismiss many things as bad just because they are not to their tastes and often out of ignorance. Many people making sweeping generalisations. Some people throw around terms like bad, good, best worst much more freely than I would like, including publications. It's hard enough often to judge that which one is familiar with, let alone judging that for which one lacks familiarity.

And often the people who throw around such terms the most casually, and making sweeping generalizations are the hardest to get into details with via discussion to try to better understand where they are coming from. I like specifics commonly. If one make claims, examples can help, and recongise the limits of one's claim, argument and belief.

My philosophy is to not to dismiss things lightly, to recognise one's own biases, limitations and ignorance. The first step on the road of wisdom is to recognise one's own ignorance, to paraphrase Plato's Republic. And sometimes I would get people saying that the only good thing in my one of my list was one album, and then they barely know any of the other material. It's that kind of attitude that is very different to my way of thinking and expression (most days anyway, sometimes I can be like that when short on time and attention). Doesn't matter to me much as long as we can understand where each other are coming from, the context is clear, it does not impede communication and ultimately exploration, even if the exploration is just on the civil and thoughtful conversational level.

I wish I were better at writing more economically. That can help conversation. The more I write the more I might confuse not only others, but myself.

Edited by Logan - 13 hours 42 minutes ago at 11:36

^ I am often very negative about the 80's for mostly the obvious reasons that it was a time that rock music threw away the gains of the late sixties and the seventies and decided that U2 were a band that was worth taking seriously. It did however force me to listen to listen to artists (like Kate Bush and Suzanne Vega) that I would not have bothered with otherwise and also I discovered Vangelis and Tangerine Dream in that decade and I'm thankful for that but ultimately the terrible production aesthetic of so many albums as we get further into the decade just hurts my ears and goes against any innovation that might be happening. It's a personal thing of course, i get that, but I was glad of the return of 'real' rock music into the 90's with the likes of Nirvana, Red Hot Chillie Peppers, Oasis etc and also the very wonderful Radiohead who showed a true progressive attitude. So very much my own opinion of course

Alas, there are few recordings from 1980 that I like;

here is a list of many not mentioned yet, and it includes only 7 entries, including some non prog in the bunch

Passport-Oceanliner
Budgie-Power Supply
Gentle Giant-Civilian
Atomic Rooster-Atomic Rooster 80
Eddy Marron-Por Marco
Spyro Gyra-Catching The Sun
Wishbone Ash-Just Testing

richardh wrote: Jared wrote: richardh wrote: Jon & Vangelis - Short Stories I'm pleased our Top 3 are identical, and I didn't see yours before posting. Isn't Short Stories 1979?? I Hear You Now was released as a single in December 1979 and the album came out in January 1980. I think its an okay album (hence the B tier rating), they virtually chucked it out there with very little recording time and it shows. Their next album The Friends Of Mr Cairo was much better and I have argued that the track Horizon from their third album Private Collection is very akin to a post rock style that evolved much later in the decade. Its a pity that they stopped until later putting out that not very good 90's album which rounded off everything.

Agreed. Cairo and Collection are certainly a step up from the other two; these are the pair I presently own..

Jared wrote: richardh wrote: Jon & Vangelis - Short Stories I'm pleased our Top 3 are identical, and I didn't see yours before posting. Isn't Short Stories 1979??

I Hear You Now was released as a single in December 1979 and the album came out in January 1980. I think its an okay album (hence the B tier rating), they virtually chucked it out there with very little recording time and it shows. Their next album The Friends Of Mr Cairo was much better and I have argued that the track Horizon from their third album Private Collection is very akin to a post rock style that evolved much later in the decade. Its a pity that they stopped until later putting out that not very good 90's album which rounded off everything.

Logan wrote: Commonly people get more conservative and status quo, same-old, same-old, as they get older.

I think I'm in this category.... I seem to have receded into a Mike Oldfield / TD / Froese / Vangelis vortex of late, re-appearing for occasional doses of Camel or Floyd. I'm getting quite concerned as I've been stuck here for a little while now.

1980 in PA:

1. Mike Rutherford - Smallcreep's Day
2. Yes - Drama
3. Genesis - Duke
4. Steve Hackett - Defector
5. Manfred Mann's Earth Band - Chance

1980 Not in PA:

1. U2 - Boy
2. Steve Winwood - Arc of a Diver
3. Haden/Garbarek/Gismonti - Magico
4. Wayne Shorter - Et Cetera
5. Keith Jarrett - The Celestial Hawk

Logan wrote: As for Jared's, I like the Tangerine Dream's and have liked the Eloy's, and should check out the Sky again.

tbh, my problem is that I like to take part in your threads, because you help keep the forum alive with all the hard work you put in to it...

yet, you almost know what it is that I'm going to post, before I get around to it... very predictable with few surprises. I like what I like...

Agnus (ARG)   Pinturas Y Expresiones    (1980, Progressive Rock)
Asia Minor (F)   Between Flash And Divine    (1980, Progressive Rock)
Bauhaus (UK)   In The Flat Field    (1980, Gothic Rock, Post-Punk)
Diamond Head (UK)   Lightning to the Nations   (1980, NWOBHM)
Ian Dury & The Blockheads (UK)   Laughter    (1980, New Wave, Pub Rock)
The “Gunesh” Ensemble (USSR)   Gunesh   (1980, Jazz Fusion, Jazz-Rock)          
Joy Division (UK)   Closer    (1980, Post-Punk, Gothic Rock)
Kræn Bysted (DK)   Stavnsbundet    (1980, Folk-Rock)
Hazel O’Connor (UK)   Breaking Glass   (1980, New Wave, Film Soundtrack)
Yello (CH)    Solid Pleasure   (1980, Synthpop, Electronic)

only a couple of Prog and quite a lot of different genres

Edited by David_D - May 21 2025 at 09:54