Q: Was there good music in the 1980s? A: YES.

[Dildo Argentino]

Which now makes me want to compile the most accessible Beefheart tracks. 

I'd be interested! Not that it matters.

[LMNO]

I forgot to add some of the hits of 1983:
"Africa" - Toto 
"Come On Eileen" - Dexys Midnight Runners 
"Flashdance... What a Feeling" - Irene Cara 
"Maniac" - Michael Sembello 
"Tell Her About It" - Billy Joel 
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" - Bonnie Tyler 
"Islands in the Stream" - Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton 
"Say Say Say" - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson 


1983 sucked.

[hooplala]

Which now makes me want to compile the most accessible Beefheart tracks.   Or, just revisit "Safe as Milk".

I won't listen to them.

I had a boyfriend (still a good friend) who LOVES Captain Beefheart. He has absolutely everything by them ever. I have heard just about enough.

Totally fair, I never try to push the Beef on people.  Still I say: bah.  But, with love.

[hooplala]

Which now makes me want to compile the most accessible Beefheart tracks. 

I'd be interested! Not that it matters.

I'm suddenly considerably less interested than I formerly was.

[Junkenstein]

I forgot to add some of the hits of 1983:
"Africa" - Toto 
"Come On Eileen" - Dexys Midnight Runners 
"Flashdance... What a Feeling" - Irene Cara 
"Maniac" - Michael Sembello 
"Tell Her About It" - Billy Joel 
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" - Bonnie Tyler 
"Islands in the Stream" - Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton 
"Say Say Say" - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson 


1983 sucked.

Let's consider some other albums and then this statement again.

1983 also saw the birth of Metallica with Kill em all. Also the formation of Megadeth.

I'll try that again.

1983 saw the foundation of Death and the release of Diamond head's "Canterbury" which was yet another solid NWOBHM album though nothing compared to some of the stuff before/after.

Pantera released "Metal Magic". That's quite special and most amusing for anyone who thought Pantera's first album was "Cowboys from Hell"

Ozzy churned out "Bark at the moon" and people seemed to like it.

1983 really did suck.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

I forgot to add some of the hits of 1983:
"Africa" - Toto 
"Come On Eileen" - Dexys Midnight Runners 
"Flashdance... What a Feeling" - Irene Cara 
"Maniac" - Michael Sembello 
"Tell Her About It" - Billy Joel 
"Total Eclipse of the Heart" - Bonnie Tyler 
"Islands in the Stream" - Kenny Rogers with Dolly Parton 
"Say Say Say" - Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson 


1983 sucked.

Let's consider some other albums and then this statement again.

1983 also saw the birth of Metallica with Kill em all. Also the formation of Megadeth.

I'll try that again.

1983 saw the foundation of Death and the release of Diamond head's "Canterbury" which was yet another solid NWOBHM album though nothing compared to some of the stuff before/after.

Pantera released "Metal Magic". That's quite special and most amusing for anyone who thought Pantera's first album was "Cowboys from Hell"

Ozzy churned out "Bark at the moon" and people seemed to like it.

1983 really did suck.

1983 was the year I played a lot of Def Leppard on the jukebox, not because I particularly liked Def Leppard, but because everything else was either Duran Duran or Dolly Parton and blew goats.

[hooplala]

Hey now... no need to diss on Dolly.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Hey now... no need to diss on Dolly.

Yes there fucking is.  Hard Rock Candy Christmas.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

Hey now... no need to diss on Dolly.

Yes there fucking is.  Hard Rock Candy Christmas.

If I started knocking back Jim Beam shooters at about 3 PM, Islands In The Stream was usually tolerable by 8 or 9 PM. But NOTHING worked on Hard Rock Candy Christmas.

[hooplala]

Hey now... no need to diss on Dolly.

Yes there fucking is.  Hard Rock Candy Christmas.

That's like blaming Anne Murray for her Hippopotamus in a Bathtub album. 

Oh wait, I've done that. 

Dammit.

[LMNO]

1984

Well, it looks like everyone was waiting to see what 1984 had to bring.  And things were brought.  Let's get this one out of the way, so it doesn't trample everything else.  Run D.M.C. was released, and changed the game pretty damn hard.  I don't think I need to repeat how important It's Like That and Rock Box are to the music scene in general; it's in about every documentary about hip hop ever.  I just wanted to point out the date it was released. 

But I wasn't listening to that at the time.  What made this year great for me was the release of three albums.

First, The Minutemen released their greatest work, Double Nickles on the Dime.  A double album, 45 songs in 81 minutes, and holy crap does it go all over the place.  Here's the full album.  From the languid drum opening on It's Expected I'm Gone to the churning Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing, and the sardonic Maybe Partying Will Help, the album is funky, angular, oblique, political, fierce, and altogether wonderful.  Songs like This Ain't No Picnic, a middle finger to middle management, nestle up to the contemplative brooding of Do You Want New Wave Or Do You Want The Truth?  D Boon sums it up best on History Lesson, Part II.  "Our band could be your life/Real names be proof... Punk Rock changed our lives."  This album is on my Top 10 of all time list.  Easily.

Part of what inspired them to make a double album is because earlier that year, Hüsker Dü released Zen Arcade, which was also a double album, only instead of the outwardly political, notebook-poetry explorations of Nickels, Bob Mould and company created a bleak and harsh universe of a young outcast trying to make sense of uncaring world.  Seeing as how Bob was a young, mostly closeted gay man in the heart of the hardcore punk scene at the time, an album like this can be considered slightly autobiographical.  The album starts with Something I Learned Today, and almost never lets up from there.  The mixture of thrashing guitar assaults with social isolation on songs like The Biggest Lie and Pride are heartbreaking, and make the ray of light at the end of it all, The Tooth Fairy and the Princess more of a possibility of hope rather than hope itself.

The first album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, From Her to Eternity, does away with that possibility entirely.  They start with a cover of Leonard Cohen's Avalanche, which was a bummer to begin with, but now there's a greasy layer of junk-sick seeping into its bones.   Just by looking over the titles, like Well of Misery, or the ever-inspiring Wings Off Flies, you can tell that Nick isn't feeling so hot.  The crowning gem on this album, even though some argue is the epic Trashed Americana poem Saint Huck, for me it has to be the pulsing title track, also used in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire.  A desperate tale of a man obsessed with the woman upstairs who is always weeping.  It's haunting, powerful, and when I saw them play this live, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Hmm.  Can you tell I was really into depressing music back then?

Three more records came out that year of note, for one reason or another.

The Smiths dropped their self titled album, with all that entails.

Skinny Puppy made what's largely considered the first techno-industrial album, so you can go ahead and blame them if you want.

Spinal Tap went up to eleven.

And for the rest of the charts...

"Owner of a Lonely Heart" Yes 
"Karma Chameleon" Culture Club 
"Jump" Van Halen 
"Footloose" Kenny Loggins 
"Against All Odds (Take a Look at Me Now)" Phil Collins 
"Hello" Lionel Richie 
"Let's Hear It for the Boy" Deniece Williams 
"The Reflex" Duran Duran 
"Ghostbusters" Ray Parker, Jr. 
"Missing You" John Waite
"I Just Called to Say I Love You" Stevie Wonder
"Caribbean Queen (No More Love on the Run)" Billy Ocean
"Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" Wham!
"Like a Virgin" Madonna

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I relistened to "Karma Chameleon" a few years ago, and was surprised by how good it was. Somehow, I seriously underrated it, probably because it was presented in the shit showcase of pop top-40 radio when it came out.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

[LMNO]

It does appear we are entering territory that many clubs stripmine when they're doing an "early 80s" night.  Pop music certainly was changing since the beginning of the decade, some would say for the better.  Some.

[P3nT4gR4m]

The smiths. Goddamnit, the smiths. On one hand you have Johnny Marr doing something godlike on a Rickenbacker and on the other hand you have fucking Morrisey making me want to grind his smarmy pretentious shit under the biggest, spikiest boot I can fit on the end of my leg