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Unbelievably, people are still trying to defend the 80s.


Happy Jack
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[quote name='barneyg42' timestamp='1495514981' post='3304300']
He should have left his VISOR on!!
[/quote]

I thought he had the visor fitted after that music vid as a direct consequence of retinal trauma from seeing that huge red codpiece!

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[quote name='Grassie' timestamp='1495511491' post='3304288']
I loved the 80s. I was 4 when they started and 15 when they ended, didn't have a care in the world, loved every minute. Yes the fashion was shocking at times but certainly not a patch on the 70's. Music was everywhere, pop stars had actual talent and the bass was always high in the mix. If someone does manage to invent a time machine, send me back ASAP. 😊
[/quote]
Can I come? I loved the 80s, had a whale of a time.

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As a teen in the 80s I have nothing but fond memories of the music even the cheese. It was the decade that spawned hip hop ( a very good thing IMO :rolleyes: )when electronica took another quantum leap (another very good thing), when it was fun to go clubbing, when metal didn't take itself too seriously and when the general public realised the bass is a proper instrument requiring some talent to play.

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[quote name='Barking Spiders' timestamp='1495526723' post='3304390']
As a teen in the 80s I have nothing but fond memories of the music even the cheese. It was the decade that spawned hip hop ( a very good thing IMO :rolleyes: )when electronica took another quantum leap (another very good thing), when it was fun to go clubbing, when metal didn't take itself too seriously and when the general public realised the bass is a proper instrument requiring some talent to play.
[/quote]

Well said!! Every decade has its plus sea and minuses - even the 60s.

Whilst the 60s was a great decade to grow up in and was very different to what went before many of the abominations of the decade are overlooked by the rose tinted spectacles brigade.

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[quote name='NancyJohnson' timestamp='1495470693' post='3303975']
......Bananarama (and I suppose Kim Wilde et al); has anyone really noticed that there was a degree of chaste about their (very) public persona? They didn't have to get their kit off to garner interest. Different times and probably better for it, really.
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I loved the 80's - it was my era, musically. It's when I grew up, it's when I learned so much, it's when I regularly went to gigs & events, it's when I bought most of my records. It's when I saved every penny to buy another record - heck, I even walked 6 miles home to save the bus fare, so I could buy another 7" single... many times.

My own fashion was (more than probably) a bit dodgy at times too - but you didn't have to spend as much money on clothes. I never had to live in a time where, like my son, you were an outcast if you didn't have a certain pair of Nike trainers, or a coat that didn't have a huge brand name emblazoned across it.... In fact, for many bands, looking like you were wearing hand-me-down clothes or charity shop fashion was their style, rather than some uber expensive gear

You can pick the worst 10 acts of any decade and hold them up as an example of derision. The 80's also spawned some brilliant music and musicians. And actually, Nancy Johnson has a really good point (above)

Edited by Marc S
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If you concentrate on the pop stuff then inevitably you will come up with a lot of cack. There were loads of great rock and neo-prog bands knocking about in the 80's. Some of them even charted. Eg you won't see Gillan on that link - 5 top 20 albums and 6 top 30 singles just between 1980-83. ACDC, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Guns n Roses. Colossal album sales in 80's and they were just the commercial acts. Lots of musically interesting stuff with narrower appeal too. A whole different 80's to the one represented in the BBC link.

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I saw both Bauhaus and Classix Nouveaux at the Ad-Lib club in Nottingham within a couple of weeks of each other in 1980 and from what I recall both bands looked a lot weirder than their record company approved sanitised publicity shots shown in the link.

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Shouldn't it be more distressing that fashion is so bland and uninspired now? I weep for a decade whose biggest fashion is a beard. OK there are folks in the 80s who looked a tad odd and you certainly wouldn't wear it in Sainsburys, but come on surely we want some fun back in music. I wanted to start pllaying an instrument to be in a band and play live, not because I thought it was going to make me a superstar over night. It is a massive shame that musicianship and ability has been replaced by prepackaged dross whose sole motivation is are you pretty enough to warble into Autotune? I know a lot of people blame Simon Cowell and the crappy talentless shows we have to suffer, but ultimately it's the buying public who are at fault here, if noone bought the crap, it wouldn't be made.

Even the subculture these days is stale. There doesn't seem to be the room for any individuality, you just go into your local 'alternative' shop and buy your new look off the rail; no thought required.

I have an acquaintence of this younger generation (used to work with him) who told me that the current generation is known as Generation Y, I couldn't think of a more apt title.

But if I had to choose one thing why the '80s was better it would be the gigging experience. Back then people would leap about and have fun down at the front and not be this static group of knob heads watching the gig through their phone, annoying the crap out of everyone behind them. I liked actually seeing the band, not waiting until I got home to see if they were any good. Oh and f**kin' selfies.

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For me the 80s was also when alternative rock peaked, when former punk bands started to get interesting and when' indie' really meant independent labels and not used as a euphemism for the types of dreary and earnest beardy guitar bands who crop up all the time on Later With..

The 90s also threw up a lot of good stuff so music was dead then as many would have you believe, not by a long chalk. For me the rot set in across the board from about 2003, not just rock but also dance/electronica, hip hop / rap, r n b and even chart pop.

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[quote name='KevB' timestamp='1495529105' post='3304416']
If you concentrate on the pop stuff then inevitably you will come up with a lot of cack. There were loads of great rock and neo-prog bands knocking about in the 80's. Some of them even charted. Eg you won't see Gillan on that link - 5 top 20 albums and 6 top 30 singles just between 1980-83. ACDC, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Guns n Roses. Colossal album sales in 80's and they were just the commercial acts. Lots of musically interesting stuff with narrower appeal too. A whole different 80's to the one represented in the BBC link.
[/quote]

Come on though, it is dear old Auntie Beeb. You know, the one who let Musical Youth sing "Pass the Dutchie", the cleaned up version, on Blue Peter. Impartial programming at all times of course. Yeah right.

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Personally i thought the 80's mainstream music was the worst decade ever....but been an old fart born in the early 60's i was privileged to have been brought up on some superb bands and music the late 60's and early 70's music was just a brilliant time to be around.

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[quote name='barneyg42' timestamp='1495485669' post='3304180']
80s at its best imho!!


[media]http://youtu.be/MZjAantupsA[/media]
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Any excuse to give Mr Blackmon another boost. first saw them late night on MTV when they dressed up in Miami Vice style pastel coloured "cool" suits - love the sound but not the look. Then came the second album which of course blew everyone away.
A very talented chap indeed.

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[quote name='thebigyin' timestamp='1495602384' post='3305148']
Personally i thought the 80's mainstream music was the worst decade ever....but been an old fart born in the early 60's i was privileged to have been brought up on some superb bands and music the late 60's and early 70's music was just a brilliant time to be around.
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Hm. I was born in 1944 & the whole of the sixties was a mixed bag - an awful lot of the seventies was positively dire and/or self-indulgent.
You should have been around in the fifties if you wanted exciting music. We were suffering through the early Billy Cotton Band show era and then all of a sudden in came acts like Tennessee Erie Ford, Fats Domino followed by the early rock and rollers. Talk about " and now for something completely different"....

AFN and Luxembourg turned my world around.

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I gave up worrying my pretty little head over 'looks' at the age of about four or five, probably as a result of bathing on a public beach wearing swimming trunks knitted by our dear mother. One quickly throws pride to the wind in such garments. :mellow:

Edited by Dad3353
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