"First Wave" on Sirius is pretty freakin cool. The "New Wave" channel on Time Warner music aint bad either. They will mix in old punk with it. That's the channel I have playing at my backyard bar when I'm not playing my cd shuffle insanity mix.
I was thinking the same thing. Great list!!! Especially Bolshoi! Here are some that popped in my head- 100 Years - The Hunger Never Again - The Hunger Forever Young - Alphaville Pure - Lightning Seeds Tell me why - Nick Heyward
Here's more: Money - The Flying Lizards In a Big Country - Big Country Under the Milky Way - The Church Great Commandment - Camouflage Life in a Northern Town - The Dream Academy I Touch Roses - Book of Love Have in Mind - Cetu Javu
I was going to reply, "You Suck", but instead I'll add a little music to this thread. Here's a couple of mostly 80's CDs that I've made that are very popular at parties, etc. Most of these were big hits, so I wouldn't call them obscure. But I didn't think that 90% of the songs listed in this thread were obscure, so maybe my perception is off. Dance/New Wave type music: 1. Human League - Don't You Want Me 2. Soft Cell - Tainted Love 3. Yaz - Don't Go 4. Duran Duran - Hungry Like The Wolf 5. After the Fire - Der Kommisar 6. Wang Chung - Everybody Have Fun Tonight 7. Oingo Boingo - Wierd Science 8. Men Without Hats - The Safety Dance 9. a-ha - Take On Me 10. Eurythmics - Sweet Dreams 11. B-52's - Rock Lobster (short version) 12. Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun 13. The Cure - Love Song 14. Devo - Whip It 15. Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party 16. Culture Club - Karma Chameleon 17. INXS - Need You Tonight 18. Peter Schilling - The Different Story More laid back adult contemporary type music: 1. Tears for Fears - Everybody Wants To Rule The World 2. Spandau Ballet - True 3. Wham! - Careless Whisper 4. Crowded House - Don't Dream It's Over 5. Duran Duran - Save A Prayer 6. Police - Every Breath You Take 7. Tears For Fears - Shout 8. Sting - Fields of Gold (admittedly came out in '93) 9. The Cure - Pictures of You 10. When In Rome - The Promise 11. Johnny Hates Jazz - Shattered Dreams 12. The Cure - Lullaby 13. Howard Jones - No One Is To Blame 14. Human League - Human 15. Cars - Drive 16. Breathe - Hands To Heaven 17. Tears For Fears - Sowing The Seeds Of Love
I grew up in the 80's and even I think most of the music was bad. Looking over this list reminds me that the only good thing about 80's music was that Alternative really meant Alternative and bands like U2 and REM were still making music instead of the overproduced artistic masturbation they engaged in when they finally got big.
The "alternative" music of the '80s was much better than the '90s. Early '80s punk was great and the New Wave was ok. Once "punk broke" it wasn't the same. Then pop-punk came along.. blech. Plus you had Prince in his prime in the '80s!
i think the 80's get a bad rap. yes there was lame music, but there is in any era. there was some absolutely amazing music made in the 80's for those who care to look. as meowgi said: punk, prince, not to mention the smiths.
And those rap albums we were talking about the other day: De La Soul Tribe Called Quest Jungle Bros Beastie Boys Public Enemy NWA Fishbone - Truth & Soul etc Chili Peppers Janes Addiction Dinosaur Jr Talking Heads Butthole Surfers I wont even mention the punk bands.. The '80s were great!
It's not that there weren't great things to come out of the 80's. There were. The problem was that the 80's were the transition between the freewheeling rock industry of the 70's where basically anything went and radio was king to the overdone, formulaic music industry that exists today where what you look like is more important that what you sound like. But, that wasn't the main reason the 80's suffered. Two problems essentially cursed the 80's: 1. MTV It altered the music industry for the worst and made music more about looks and less about sounds. The very first bands to exploit this were the one's who were successful and it spawned an entire racy of gimmicky bands. 2. Digital Technology This was the dawn of the compact disc, polyphonic syntesizers and digital recording. Because they were in their infancy, they sounded HORRIBLE, but, because they were new, EVERYONE used them. Those two things caused the business to shift from great songwriting and performance to whatever the fad of the moment happened to be visually and sonically.
Red Hot Chili Peppers - True Men Don't Kill Coyotes Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead The Clash - Car Jam The Clash - Know Your Rights Devo - Snowball Butthole Surfers - Florida Timbuk 3 - The Future's So Bright, I've Gotta Wear Shades Rush - Witch Hunt Genesis - Illegal Alien
I'm not too sure. Let's not forget Disco Duck, Muskrat Love, Convoy, Donny & Marie, Debbie Boone, etc. The 70's had it's crap too. And nothing was more formulated than Disco! The '80s were fine. The '90s - today is what sucked (at least the post-grunge).
To be clear, Jeff didn't mention electronic music (as in the old synthesizers that were used in the 60's and 70's) but it was digital that really flushed music down the crapper. Synthesizers weren't the killer. It was the samplers, loopers, drum machines, computers and the people that abused them that killed it. Some actually used them well to produce good music (nine inch nails), while others didn't. -- droxford
No question, but the industry still had room for all the great music that came out during that period. I mean, really, could Pink Floyd get airplay today? ELO? Supertramp? Kansas? The time was just more experimental because it was dominated by radio and both radio stations and record labels were still predominantly independent meaning who got airplay and who got signed were determined by individuals who loved music and responded to his/her audience. There were crappy, formulaic things too, but there was much more room for flexibility. You could have Disco Duck, but you could also have Dark Side of the Moon, for example. The 80's was the beginning of the end of that mainly because of MTV and secondarily because of the move from analog to digital as a primary format for making music. It allowed a producer who used to just advise musicians and work with them to become a musician himself even if he had no previous skill or musical talent. It's why so many musicians from that era who did synth-based music now work in software or computer games. It was more about the technology than the music.
