No wonder most 80's music sucked. It mostly sounded alike!

[Archae]

I figured this.



http://www.cracked.com/article_22576_the-13-most-insane-things-happening-right-now-519.html

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. Gotta blame reagan/bush, they stopped enforcing Sherman Anti-Trust ending corporate diversity.

[Mnpaul]

2. Bad cover versions of good songs

sums it up for me

[seveneyes]

3. Pack this shit in a bowl and light it up

[Logical]

4. I love 80s music! Nt

[Arugula Latte]

5. There was a whole somewhat hidden world of alternative/college music happening in the 80s and it

was some of the best music ever made. By comparison the 90s seemed bland to me.

I absolutely love the new alternative music being made now, like Interpol, etc.

[hifiguy]

13. Yeppers.

In the space of three months in the summer of 1984 I saw Laurie Anderson, REM, King Crimson and The Pretenders in concert.

There was plenty of good music but not on the radio or MTV.

[Arugula Latte]

17. Cool! I saw the Pretenders on that tour.

I will never in a million years know why I never saw REM live. I LOVED them in the 80s.

I agree, you really had to seek out music back then because otherwise you were fed Top 40 over and over. I was lucky we had an alternative station in the Bay Area when I was in college in the 80s.

BTW, you are awesome, hifiguy. You're a cat guy, an atheist, and an 80s-alternative music fan. I like you.

[hifiguy]

18. I like you too.

And the weird thing is I came out of very heavy Seventies Prog (Yes, ELP, Genesis and German geniuses Can) but wasn't afraid atall of of the new music. Didn't care all that much for punk per se, but the artsier and post-punk stuff (Patti Smith, Ian Dury, Siouxsie, Magazine, Joy Division/New Order, Psych Furs, etc.) grabbed me right away. Those bands just got mixed in with the prog in my listening sessions, especially King Crimson.

ETA - the first time I saw a pic of Chrissie Hynde in the British music weeklies I was in love. Then I heard her - swoon - when I bought their first import single and had SUCH a crush on her for ages. Coolest "cool chick" of her generation. Saw their first US tour in '80 or '81 when they played First Avenue in Mpls. Place was jammed to the rafters and they blew the roof off.

[progressoid]

20. ^^^this^^^

[LynneSin]

6. I just saw Psychadelic Furs in concert on Sunday and they totally rocked

so that pretty much tossed your theory out the window

[hifiguy]

11. i really dug that band back in the 1980s

and was actually humming "President Gas" to myself just a few days ago.

That tune always seemed to be about Raygun and Thatcher.

[Iggo]

7. I saw one of those that put about a half-dozen pop-country songs one on top of the other.

It was pretty fun.

I don't know where it was, but I'll see if I can find it...


FOUND IT!!!

[Throd]

8. A lot of 80's music was awesome. It just wasn't on the radio.

[Archae]

9. Or MTV.

So much total crap had heavy rotation on MTV, especially the bland 80's pop like "Flock Of Seagulls" or Billy Idol.

[Avalux]

10. Ummm....please add POP to your subject line. There were a lot of great bands in the 80s.

REM for one - no one sounded like them in 1981. And then there's Galaxy 500, Joy Division/New Order, Uncle Tupelo, firehose, Meat Puppets....and on and on.

Billboard isn't exactly an accurate barometer for good music since all it gauges is popularity.

[hifiguy]

12. Joy Division and New Order were freaking amazing.

Can't imagine any other band losing a talent like Ian Curtis and not only surviving but thriving.

[Avalux]

14. I have a vinyl copy of Warsaw, their pre-Joy Division incarnation.

It wasn't released until they were Joy Division, later on. It's incredible and still one of my favorite albums. Their time with Ian was short-lived, and I think the band, with Bernard stepping up on vocals, tried to continue his legacy the best they could.

If you're interested, the full album is on youtube:

[hifiguy]

15. Thanks. Bookmarked for later

"Closer" is one of the most difficult and most beautiful records I have ever heard. Especially that virtual suite of songs comprising the second side. Chilling and magnificent.

[Avalux]

16. Enjoy!

Closer is amazing...everything they did was amazing; raw and emotional.

[progressoid]

19. The PBS story says "Computer scientists prove 80s pop music is boring"

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/computer-scientists-prove-80s-music-boring/

But these sounds and styles of the Reagan era flooded the music scene, pushing out genres like country and folk to the point that mid-to-late 1980s became most homogenous period in music over the last 50 years, based on the team’s computer analysis.

This theme doesn’t mean music from this era was bad, but rather it suggests “a small number of styles were very catchy and therefore dominated,” Pagel said. This catchiness may linger to this day and explain why themes from the 1980s have bounced back over the last decade.

more at the link

And here's the study...http://rsos.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/2/5/150081

[Tom Ripley]

22. Sonic Youth, Spacemen 3, JAMC, Pussy Galore, Echo and the Bunnymen, Swans, Flipper were great 80s...

bands, but mainstream music sucked. It sucked really hard.

[Populist_Prole]

23. I dunno. I strenuously disagree with the opinions stated in the OP's graphic.

Music is about personal taste, not pushing social memes like diversity.

I dislike country, folk, hip-hop and rap.

Yeah, the 80s gave us lots of cheesy, overly commercial poppy crap.

I remember the 80s as the birthplace to some of the best rock ever to date.

[LanternWaste]

24. Much like the formulas used by the Tin Pan Alley composers dominated the late nineteenth

Much like the standard formulas used by the Tin Pan Alley composers dominating the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries-- i.e., the standard A,A,B,A format (also known as the 32-bar form) used from Irving Berlin's 'Harlem on my Mind' to the more contemporary, Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin.

But no doubt, many people probably believe Gershwin too, is boring due to that.