@sns completely agree with the ABC and OMD adds. I continue to listen to OMD fairly regularly. And go to concerts - next up for me is Bring Me The Horizon. Can't wait.
How did 70s rock music transition into 80s music?
80s music appeared to be a re-visitation of the beginning of Rock — when "singles" ruled the AM radio. In those early days, in the event that a craftsman had a hit, he/she could get to record an "collection" (when those modern LP records appeared). A LP could have two hits and 10 tunes of forgettable filler melodies. Most craftsmen were characterized by their hit singles.
The 60s and 70s saw an ascent in FM radio and AOR (Album Oriented Rock) which gave numerous specialists the opportunity to make bigger works, or gatherings of melodies which frequently remained all in all work, and empowered a more extended tuning in/focus time. Beside funk and disco dance hits, the 70s inclined towards Album Oriented Rock.
The 80s saw a swing away from longer works and AOR, and back towards snappy singles. I'd say MTV had a great deal to do with the progress to 80s music. ("Video killed the radio star"):
MTV presented many gatherings who had fantastic singles, yet probably won't have accomplished acknowledgment without MTV video openness: Squeeze, The Vapors, Duran, Adam and the Ants, the B-52s, The Cars — to give some examples. (Note, I said "may" — yet that is my hypothesis.)
MTV constrained many long settled stars — David Bowie, Rod Stewart, even The Rolling Stones — to make video-commendable tunes. (That is — SINGLES.)
Peter Gabriel is a story regardless of anyone else's opinion. He was genuinely known from his Genesis Days — yet those astonishing recordings of "For sure" and "Demolition hammer" certainly kicked him into the super frightening.
MTV — after a ton of asking, cajoling, and dangers — at last changed their bigoted whites-just strategy, and began broadcasting recordings by people like Michael Jackson and Prince — presenting various dark craftsman to a lot bigger crowd.
In outline, I think MTV during the 80s — and later the Internet and YouTube — abbreviated individuals' capacity to focus, made a market weighty on short snappy singles, and made it progressively hard for craftsman to make "collections" which would allow them an opportunity to introduce their bigger vision.
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There must be a dozen ways to look at this. Here’s my take having lived the dream. What’s now classic rock was then just (60’s) rock. Everybody got stoned to the best bands ever to get stoned to. The Beatles came along with electric guitars, talented singing, writing and playing in a time when we were transitioning from doo-wop to Elvis, Herman’s Hermits, Peter Paul and Mary, The Association, Mommas and Papas and the like. We got the Kinks, Zombies, Guess Who etc. We got R + B to die for. There were the Who’s Who of rock - Stones, Who, Moody Blues, Pink Floyd and more. Genius by the bucket load inspired by the new “rock n roll” sound, the new technology (e guitar, Moog) and love, peace and understanding. By the early seventies that sound had degenerated into a directionless, self serving stoner fest with little regard to things that, up to that point made music fun for non stoners. When disco arrived the fun was back. Stoners were too cool to admit it and suffered through with David Bowie, Blondie, Boston, Styx, BTO, ELO and others but the genius had run it’s course. Many, many bands relied on the lead guitar crying full of emotion. Blech. Disco died and fun bands filled in. Devo, Oingo Boing, Cars, Ramona’s, Babys, Jackson, Madonna etc. Great era. Now, how that transitioned to grunge is beyond me. Drugs again? |
Not just disco, though was plenty of fine disco. There was also something called punk rock that happened towards the mid- to late- 70's, and that had quite a bit of influence and caused more than a few changes in the culture. And hip-hop came along and really turned things around and became the dominant genre. And I'm not quite sure that the 60's was all about 'love, peace, and understanding'.... |
@dz13 - great selection!! You've listed a lot of my faves.... |
My take is that the 70s were merely a fallout from the 60s until the Sex Pistols appeared to give rock a back to basics skiffle type shakeup. The introduction of multi-track recording (plus the increasing use of synths) had done a lot to drain the music of a sense of urgency which punk/new wave restored. Like the Velvet Underground before them, countless bands said they had been inspired by watching the Pistols live.
[The 1973 OPEC oil crisis would soon fix all of that]. This ’new wave’ culminated with the music of the Smiths during the 1980s. Of all the 80s bands, none pushed the musical and lyrical envelope in the same way Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce did. After that, it’s difficult to say whether anything new, outside rap, which arguably took getting back to basics even further than punk did, happened.
https://openculture.com/2015/06/the-sex-pistols-1976-manchester-gig-that-changed-the-world.html |
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