X-rated Bob wrote:
Not sure that's all 80s. London Calling certainly wasn't, and I remember having a beer and an argument with Benji Mudi (then working for WEA iirc) about whether or not Gary Numan was a Bowie clone. I said he was, Benji said he wasn't. I thought about it and decided it was a bit unfair and a couple of months later ran into Benji again at an early Asylum Kids gig and he was told me I was right. Go figure. But all that would have been about '79.
The matter of who is and isn't 80s is so arguable it's hardly worth arguing about. Dave Stewart and Annie Lennox had been in another band before they made it big. Numan might not have done "Cars" in the 70s, but he was certainly a biggish name by then. Billy Idol was active in punk rock (70s!). Robert Palmer had a sort of middling career before he started having hits in the 80s. U2 released their first record in the 80s, but were active before then. What's an 80s band? I don't know.
Prince rose to prominence in the 80s. I actually didn't like Purple Rain very much (the album, the song or the movie), but some of his subsequent stuff was pretty good IMO and there's surely no denying his all-round talent (singer, player, songwriter, performer, producer).
I guess this just supports the opening point that most of what was good in the 80's actually was born in the 70's?
Having said that though, I would describe an 80's band as being a band that reached its pinicle of interest, or at least its initial height of recognition, within the 80's. As mentioned in my earlier post, the bands that mostly defined my preferences for taste were all considered 90's, yet most of them were already active during the late 80's.
I remember that Prince's Purple Rain album was probably my most listened to album at the time, yet now it does nothing but makes me cringe, like most of his stuff. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that he actually has talent, unlike so many nowadays, but for me his 'weirdness' over ran his musicality.
But to get back to point, in a fashion, it can be very difficult to define what band defines the 80's, as some effectively paved the way for the 90's movement of indie rock sounds, so do they take the title for being 80's pioneers? Or do we give that honour to bands that were distinctly trapped in the 80's pop genre, and for all intents and purposes died out at the beggining of the nineties, when their sound was no longer acceptable?
And as for Stryper! Yeeooooow!! How could I forget them?
Cheers
G!
