Why the 80's did suck!

JJLehto wrote: I mean thing can only continue so long and only so many ideas can be made. All things need to run dry. I will say though, few bands today that are good are unique. Most are either throw backs or heavily inspired, the era of innovation certainly ended in the early 90s' but again...not like its anyone doing. Every idea/notion/concept has been exhausted.

I don't really agree with this as in I don't believe ideas can physically run dry.  It is just that rock music is overrun with 'players' and technicians rather than composers today.  I'd hesitate to generalize about ALL music because that's impossible, but a lot of people getting into music seem to just want to get onto stage and let rip.  The 'science' of music is not very important or relevant anymore.  But that is how new ideas were first originated and then explored in different contexts.  The concepts that great classical composers came up with were not known to the world of music before they showed it could be done.  So, musicians who cannot innovate would always feel burdened by the weight of legacy on them and it's innovators who can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'd hazard a guess that the technology that was unveiled in the 80's (unrealistic drum machines, rigid and quantising computer sequencers, thin and anodyne digital synthesis plus being restricted to looping short digital samples to save memory) would have all served to make creating an 80's masterpiece about as easy as replicating the Mona Lisa with marker pens while wearing oven mitts.

Post Punk was probably the decade's saving grace (and it's no accident that such bands were predominantly guitar centric bands)

Confession time: I actually liked OMD, some Simple Minds, Heaven 17, Human League and some Depeche Mode
(you'll never take me alive copper)

Whoops, almost forgot to mention that it was during the 80's that the vile phenomenon sometimes carelessly labelled 'neo prog' fell steaming out of satan's nethers into our in trays.


Edited by ExittheLemming - June 19 2011 at 04:48

zravkapt wrote: Why the 80s sucked:   -gated drums -the choice of synth sounds which sounded state-of-the-art at the time but now sound cheesy and dated -MTV (or more specifically the importance given to image over the music) -going from 24-track recording to 48-track recording -sampling became more and more acceptable   Nonetheless, there was a lot of good music in that decade, especially in Metal, Avant-Prog, "College Rock/Alternative," and Industrial. There was a lot of one-hit wonders in the '80s, but most of those songs were great compared to the one-hit wonders today.

MTV and Wal*Mart are the devil when it comes to music IMHO. Wal*Mart made it easy to market trendy thoughtless music and like what was pointed out MTV made images more important than the music itself. How is it that a video could cost more to produce than the album itself?


Money for nothing.

darkshade wrote: You know why the 80s DID suck? Because it "set the standard" for mainstream music today, and has kept the mainstream from evolving (which you have to admit, every decade up until the 2000s had its own distinct sound) 2000s mainstream music sounds like 80s music with better production, and maybe some 90s influence

If musicians are lazy enough to derive their standard from the 80s, that cannot be blamed on the 80s.  That is like blaming Eddie Van Halen for the lousy shredders who blindly filled every inch of tape with shred-tap-shred-tap.  That only indicates that mainstream musicians at least in rock are bereft of ideas now.

Although I grew up with the music of the 80's my favorite decade for popular music is the 70's. This is because a lot of the styles I enjoy today really flourished/or came into existence during that decade (progressive, punk, jazz-fusion, electronic, new wave, heavy metal, and even rap in an embryonic form)

stonebeard wrote: zravkapt wrote: Why the 80s sucked:   -gated drums -the choice of synth sounds which sounded state-of-the-art at the time but now sound cheesy and dated -MTV (or more specifically the importance given to image over the music) -going from 24-track recording to 48-track recording -sampling became more and more acceptable   Nonetheless, there was a lot of good music in that decade, especially in Metal, Avant-Prog, "College Rock/Alternative," and Industrial. There was a lot of one-hit wonders in the '80s, but most of those songs were great compared to the one-hit wonders today.   None of those are bad. MTV in the 80s was even good.

says the man who uses Tom cruise as an avater

zravkapt wrote: Why the 80s sucked:   -gated drums -the choice of synth sounds which sounded state-of-the-art at the time but now sound cheesy and dated -MTV (or more specifically the importance given to image over the music) -going from 24-track recording to 48-track recording -sampling became more and more acceptable   Nonetheless, there was a lot of good music in that decade, especially in Metal, Avant-Prog, "College Rock/Alternative," and Industrial. There was a lot of one-hit wonders in the '80s, but most of those songs were great compared to the one-hit wonders today.

None of those are bad. MTV in the 80s was even good.

I like the DX7 and similar sounds from the 80s.

Why the 80s sucked:

darkshade wrote: You know why the 80s DID suck? Because it "set the standard" for mainstream music today, and has kept the mainstream from evolving (which you have to admit, every decade up until the 2000s had its own distinct sound) 2000s mainstream music sounds like 80s music with better production, and maybe some 90s influence

Music died in the 1980s simply because all possible sonic routes had already been explored and the onset of digital established the limits of what is possible in sound. The 90s were a reactionary episode against the virtues of synthesized production while the 2000s were a gutless rehash of a sound perfected in the 80s. The 80s were the last original decade, period.

Rush in the R'n'R Hall of Fame?... Well, that's, like, your opinion, man.