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Best album of the eighties? on 23:32 - Oct 11 by CiderwithRsie
It was my decade. I was 18 in 1981. I should love its music but at the time I didn't.
I may have been sort of spoiled for it by having older brothers old enough to be into Bowie/Roxy and punk respectively. In hindsight I see a lot of the 80s was better than I thought at the time, there's some great albums in this thread. But mainly the stuff I love from the 80s and 90s, the songs that were the soundtrack of my life, were singles and often by people no-one will mark down as great artists. 99 Luftballons, Torn, What's Up (aka What's Going On), Anchored Down In Anchorage - I never bought the albums of any of those.
I kinda envy QPRXTC because he found a great band that he'd probably buy every album, go to every tour. Kate Bush was mine but she never toured and took years to put out an album.
ah, but one in Kate Bush is worth two of the hand.
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Best album of the eighties? on 09:21 - Oct 12 with 1602 views
A lot of good shouts on here and a great thought that the decade can be halved with the post punk, over produced early years being rubbish and the latter half being exceptionally amazing with some truly classic releases. There were some great singles during the early years though and along with the 60s the production techniques have since been hugely influential right up to present times in how music is recorded and mixed.
For me there are so many albums that could be contenders but there are only 3 albums from that decade that I still listen to on a regular basis, at least a few songs off each every week:
Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique Janes Addiction - Nothing's Shocking Prince - Sign of the Times.
[Post edited 12 Oct 2020 9:22]
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Best album of the eighties? on 09:24 - Oct 12 with 1594 views
Best album of the eighties? on 15:19 - Oct 11 by BrianMcCarthy
Good question that - where does the decade rank?
At the time I was hugely disappointed. I thought that 98% of the music was drab and shallow, with notable exceptions as mentioned on here.
But was it any worse than the 70's or 90's?
Same.
There was an awful lot of shite put out in the 60 and 70s, I remember as a kid in the 70s you'd watch the charts a bit like watching a football match, hoping the cr*p would drop out and the good stuff go up.
Even I'm not old enough to remember the 60s music as it came out, but I heard plenty of it on Radio 1 in the 70s and I reckon the decade got an inflated reputation because the stuff that lasted was, well, the stuff that lasted, not half the dross that was actually played at the time. But I was there for the 80s; I suppose I was comparing the whole lot to the edited highlights of the 70s.
And then there was the sort of music they always played half way through comedy shows (Morecambe & Wise, 2 Ronnies etc) - absolutely effing dire, you can still hear the 60s stuff if you listen to Radio 4 Extra comedy re-runs. Someone must have liked it.
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Best album of the eighties? on 10:16 - Oct 12 with 1580 views
Missed the start of this thread ... heres a few more...
The B-52's - Wild Planet The The - Soul Mining The Kane Gang - The Bad and Lowdown World of the Kane Gang Scritti Politti - Cupid and Psyche Hue and Cry - Remote OMD - Architecture and Morality The Blue Nile - A Walk Across the Rooftops Japan - Gentlemen Take Polaroids Bowie - Lets Dance Frankie - Welcome to the Pleasuredome Heaven 17 - Penthouse and Pavement
[Post edited 14 Oct 2020 10:56]
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Best album of the eighties? on 12:02 - Oct 12 with 1521 views
The 80s were such a huge explosion of creativity across so many genres, the way the long 70s bled in and the long 90s bled out, this is a near pointless task
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Best album of the eighties? on 12:19 - Oct 12 with 1513 views
My tuppence worth. The three albums I remember playing the most in the 80s were these:
The last of these really changed how I listen to music, which has lasted the rest of my life. I turned 16 in 1980. From about the age of 12-13, i started to listen to music to guide me towards the super-smart, hyper-cool person I wanted to become, i.e nothing like the family who had cared for me and been the dominant influences on me up to then. It's no surprise that the music you listen to age 14-18 stays with you - it means so much more to you as an influence on your personality. By the age of 20, you realise that these people generally know no more about life and the world than you do, and what they have to say is often trite and embarrassing, either to fit the rhyme or because the focus group preferred that line. So on that level, the 70s was for me a better decade than the 80s, just because I was more impressionable then.
Jali Musa Jawara, and it might have been anyone, was the first person I listened to without a clue about what he was saying and how he lived. Rather than tap into a higher form of cool, I was listening to the texture and emotion of the music and trying to understand how it made me feel, despite me and him having no cultural common ground. It helps too that it's genuinely amazing (sadly, a long-lost contractural dispute means it's not available for streaming). Listening to music on a purer emotional level led me through abstract electronic music and eventually to classical.
I think there's another factor at work though that makes 70s music generally more interesting than 80s, which I think relates to the musical literacy of the performers and audiences. Mass music-making, whether in church choirs, brass or marching bands, even pub and family singsongs, went badly out of fashion from about 1965. Even if the musicians of the time rebelled against the styles of their childhood, it still formed a bedrock of ability and appreciation, which has faded badly to a time when music is given to people, not made. A combination of the punk do-it-yourself ethic, emphasising expression over craft, and digital technology like sampling and autotune has exacerbated these trends. Perhaps also the higher take for the stars, meaning less for the supporting musicians also squeezed out by the relative decline of live music, but 1980 seems to mark a shift towards thinner, more insipid production styles, less interesting end product. As an aside, I would suggest that the survival of that music-making tradition in Ireland accounts for the prominence of Irish musicians.
I forget who wrote it, but I read an excellent piece illustrating this with the career of Tina Turner. River Deep, Mountain High had massive swoops, grand orchestration and high emotion. Simply The Best, We Don't Need Another Hero, etc were much bigger hits, but plodding insipid synthetic dirges by contrast. As an another example, Prince is undoubtedly as talented as Stevie Wonder, but without the rich ensemble playing of an earlier era, he seems to have much less to say.
Best album of the eighties? on 00:37 - Oct 11 by qprxtc
Kings of the Wild Frontier - Adam and the Ants Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel Like Gangbusters - JoBoxers Steeltown - Big Country Sons and Fascination/Sister Feelings Call - Simple Minds Shakespeare Alabama - Diesel Park West The Colour of Spring - Talk Talk Spirit of Eden - Talk Talk The Best of Altered Images - Altered Images East Side Story - Squeeze This Is The Sea - The Waterboys La Folie - The Stranglers Document - REM Kite - Kirsty MacColl A Walk Across The Rooftops - The Blue Nile Hats - The Blue Nile The Rise and Fall - Madness
All magnificent.
But the Mother, Father and all the saints above, below, sideways, diagonally and horizontally of the 1980’s is the work of f ucking art know as:
English Settlement by XTC.
Beautiful, gorgeous , annoying, too long but just right. It’s not not perfect but it’s The Right Answer.
Thank you and Goodnight.
You've nicked my record collection. Sons and facination/sister feelings call is just an amazing record. The earth you walk upon being one of the great tracks, is in my top 5 songs of all time. The bunnymen rarely made a bad album back in the day as well.
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Best album of the eighties? on 22:11 - Oct 12 with 1402 views
I highly rate most of the Cure's other albums from the decade, in this order: Pornography, Kiss Me x3, Head on the Door, Seventeen Seconds, Faith. (The Top is ok.)
These non-Cure '80s albums are among my favorites:
Duran Duran - Rio Public Enemy - It Takes a Nation of Millions Prince & the Revolution - Purple Rain U2 - The Joshua Tree (nod to OP) Beastie Boys - Paul's Boutique The Stone Roses - s/t The Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good Slayer - Reign in Blood Ministry - The Land of Rape and Honey Prince - Dirty Mind The B-52's - Cosmic Thing Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking Metallica - Ride the Lightning
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