The Soundtrack of Your life. - a Blog Post by khuXBFXM8u

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1/28/2016 5:39 pm

The Soundtrack of Your life.

Recently Blog friend Redrockrascal, (I know you don’t mind me pimping you), penned a nice post called, The Soundtrack of YOUR Life What Is Yours, and somehow I missed it. I kept tripping over other blogger mentioning the post, so I went back found it, and decided to add my contribution to this theme. My contribution is a little different… I have kind of a mashed together collection of some thoughts, a half-baked post I had laying around, a trip down memory lane, and an opportunity to school my friend TC

This post is a little on the long side… so if you’re not into music… there’s nothing for you here.

If I asked you, “What is the greatest decade in music?” What would you answer be? Was it the 60s (which many experts will tout as the best decade)… music became a form of protest, and there was arguably the greatest collections of bands ever? Bands like the Stones, Beatles, Doors, Yardbirds, Cream, the Supremes, Temptations, Ike and Tina, etc., and the great individual artists (Hendrix, Joplin, Redding, James Brown and Dylan), came out of. The 50s, that took Rock and Roll from a black-sub culture music form and brought it to the masses. The 70s, with Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, and Disco (that’s a peace offering for you TC). So if you were asked the question, what is the greatest decade in music, would you choose one of the aforementioned, or the 80s, 90s, 2000s or this current decade?

My Two cents, it’s the 80s, that’s the best period of music. Now I wouldn’t go as far as saying the music of the 80s is the soundtrack of my life. There is just too much good music before and after the 80s I have enjoyed to be stuck in one period. The 80s did have it all (including memorable hairstyle and fashion sense). It was the last time everything came together… the last great defining period of music, so say many musicologists. To a certain extent, in the later part of the 70s, the 70s were seen as a failed period of music. The 50s were the 50s… this “new” music called Rock & Roll, just kind of took over. Then the 60s came along, the art form grew, the personalities of the artist grew, and the music set the cultural tone, rather than just reflecting it. In the 70’s nothing revolutionary happened, the period was like an endless search for the next Beatles... the next cash cow for music. Attempts were made… do you remember the Knack or the Bay City Rollers and their TV show. Music execs did find a cash cow in the 70s… it was called, DISCO. People wanted to dance again, and Disco a fusion of funk, soul, pop and salsa music, allowed people to do that in clubs that kept popping up in major urban centers. Disco had been around since the late 60s, but it was pretty much exclusively played in the underground club scene, never getting much if any radio time. Enter the movie Saturday Night Fever, which alerted the masses to this sub-culture and its music. Dollar signs go off in the heads of record execs… soon everyone is trying to produce a Disco hit… even the Rolling Stones took a run at it… with the 12”, “Special Disco Version” of Miss You. The genre, became watered down with imposters, and seemed to leave as quickly as it came. Out of that whole Disco debacle, the Beatlemania thing, and the death of Sid Vicious (of Sex Pistols fame), Punk Rock’s run at the main stream (with all due respect to Blondie), was at an end, and the 80s was queued up.

The 80s was like the 60s, there was just more. More stuff, bands, sounds, and invasions. It was like trying to herd cats for the music industry. At the beginning of the decade, there was a U.K. band poised to be the next big thing; they had had success in the U.K., and were going take North America like the Beatles did. Only problem was the lead singer of the band, took his own life, in May 1980. And that was that. The singer’s name was Ian Curtis, and the Band was Joy Division. Things just kind of spiraled after that, but in a good way.

Like the 60s, the 80s had music that was politically conscious, and the music covered more topics, more than just a single war… there was opposition to war in general, miscarriages of justice, and the human condition. Artist and songs at the forefront… The Message (Melle Melle with Grand Master Flash and the Furious 5), consider the most important /hip-hop song ever, chronicled U.S. intercity life and conditions, identifying problems long before they ever became 6 o’clock news worthy. The Groups NWA and Public Enemy with their anthems “Fuck the Police” and “Fight the Power”, are legendary for their politically conscious music. U2’s Sunday Bloody, Sunday” chronicled the massacre that took place in Northern Ireland in 1972; The Dead Kennedy’s (one of the last great punk bands), sang about Cambodia; Peter Gabriel, sang about the imprisonment and death (while in police custody) of anti-apartheid activist Steven Biko. Artist banded together to protest injustice… Can you remember Artist against Apartheid (“Sun City”)… and the granddaddy of all collaborations with the songs “Do they Know It’s Christmas” and “We are the World” and other incantations.

Just like the 60s there were lots of great bands covering many different genres: U2, N.W.A, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, Van Halen, Guns N’ Roses, Def Leppard, Bestie Boys, Eurythmics, Duran Duran, Inxs, Culture Club, Eurythics, (the ladies favourite) Bon Jovi, Tears for Fears, R.E.M., Talking Heads, and on and on. Sampling, a technique from the early days, became more common place, more and more artist from different genres collaborated, artist like Eric B & Rakim were highly sought after. If you are a post-punk fan, can you remember John Lydon (of Sex Pistols and Public Image Limited fame), teaming up with Afrika Bambaataa to bring us “Time Zone”. Just like the 60s, there was also a litany of individual artist, Madonna, Prince, L.L. Cool J, Michael Jackson… how many of you can remember exactly where you were the night the thriller video premiered? There was also, Lionel Richie, Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, George Michael, Don Henley, and lots of other artist who went solo, after successful stints with great bands.

What really separates the 80s from the 60s and gives it an advantage are 2 things; music videos and the number of genres. The explosion of music video changed everything… things changed for the good, some for the bad. In the 60s, you had mainstream genres consisting of Adult contemporary, Pop, Rock & Roll, Folk, Motown and Soul. The 80s, Adult contemporary, Rock, Pop and Soul are around for the masses, but coming out of the 70s punk rock had had an influence on what was popular… remember Adam Ant or Devo? Also, as a result of Bob Marley’s influence, Reggae had a growing following. Although Disco was bastardized by quick buck attempts, dance music was alive and well, just the funk sound became dominant as it returned underground. Still to this day, you can hear the influences of a George Clinton/Bootsy Collins groove in music. You also have this massive group of artists doing something new. The sounds are so different; no one knows how to categorize it, so it’s coined with the term “New Wave”. Within the “New Wave” Genre, you have sub-genres… the post-punk genre, featuring groups like P.I.L. (Public Image Limited), the Dead Kennedys and the Violent Femes. More main stream rock style artists, like U2, then groups influenced by varying level of synthesizer involvement like New Order (the remaining members of Joy Division with a female addition), Vasage, Depeche Mode, Simple Minds, the Cure, and Psychedelic Furs. Groups that are more of a Rock/Pop jazz fusion, like the Style Council, Swing Out Sister, or Matt Bianco; Latin/Pop fusions like the Miami Sound Machine; then there were bands that brought Ska music into the mainstream, most notably the Specials and the English Beat. Metal spins off from mainstream Rock music, and produces its litany of sub-genres. Industrial spin off from post-punk, there was glam Rock, “traditional” , and the new coined “Hip/Hop”, which was given its name by Afrika Bambaataa to explain the mash up of genres that was happening. Then there was “House”… house music that is. You have probably rocked out to “The 900 Number” and “Pump up the volume” a few times in your life. It was a free for all…create a dance track off an Operatic sound (Malcom McLaren’s madam Butterfly); Drop in some Synthesizer over top of some classical piano, “I like Chopin” (Gazebo), or “The First Picture of You” (The Lotus Eaters). The 80s was all about mixing it up, and tossing it up, the rules kind of when out the window… It wasn’t about sticking to narrow genre definitions so you could get some radio time.

And, I nearly forgot… then there was Country. The 80s was also the when Country music, became not just for country folk again. The genres expanded beyond its traditional rural base, taking the urban centers by storm. There is a whole post there in itself…. This post is long enough, so I’ll end it here.

The 80s, the last great defining period of music… until the next one comes along.

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