The 1980s

What are you saying…you don’t like my hair?

Key defining pop music styles to consider here, include:

New Wave and Post-punk

Synthpop
Stadium Rock
Hair metal
Dance music – House and techno
Hip-hop & Electro
Dance pop
PRINCE – MADONNA – MICHAEL JACKSON

Other influencing factors include:

LIVE AID 1985

MTV – the emergence of the Music Video
Synthesizers – drum machines - Sampling technology
Developing digital technologies – the birth of the CD

New Wave
During the late '70s and early '80s, New Wave was a catch-all term for the music
that directly followed punk rock; often, the term encompassed punk itself, as well. In
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retrospect, it became clear that the music following punk could be divided, more or
less, into two categories — post-punk and new wave. Where post-punk was arty,
difficult, and challenging, new wave was pop music, pure and simple. It retained the
fresh vigor and irreverence of punk music, as well as a fascination with electronics,
style, and art. Therefore, there was a lot of stylistic diversity to new wave. It meant
the nervy power pop of bands like XTC, but it also meant synth rockers like Gary
Numan.

There were edgy new wave songwriters like Elvis Costello, pop bands like
Squeeze, tough rock & rollers like the Pretenders, pop-reggae like the
Police. This era also spawned a major UK Ska revival, headed by the Specials,
the Beat and Madness.

Synthpop & New Wave

By the early '80s, new wave described nearly every new pop/rock artist, especially
those that used synthesizers like the Human League, the Eurythmics and
Duran Duran. New wave received a boost in the early '80s by MTV, who
broadcast endless hours of new wave videos in order to keep themselves on the air.
Therefore, new wave got a second life in 1982, when it probably would have died
out. Instead, 1982 and 1983 were boom years for polished, MTV-radio new wave
outfits like Culture Club, Adam Ant and Spandau Ballet. New wave finally
died out in 1984, when established artists began to make professional videos and a
new crop of guitar-oriented bands like The Smiths and R.E.M. emerged to
capture the attention of college-radio and underground rock fans. Nevertheless, new
wave proved more influential than many of its critics would have suspected, as the
mid-'90s were dominated by bands — from Blur to Weezer — that were raised
on the music.

KEY NEW WAVE ARTISTS & RECORDINGS

ARTIST KEY RECORDINGS RECORDING
DATE
The Police Every Breath You Take 1983
Duran Duran Rio 1982

KEY SYNTHPOP ARTISTS & RECORDINGS

ARTIST KEY RECORDINGS RECORDING
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DATE
Depeche Mode Just Can’t Get Enough 1981
Soft Cell Tainted Love 1981
The Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) 1983

POST PUNK & GOTH

Post-punk didn't aim for such success, yet it proved to be a mercurial phenomenon
anyway. Many of the groups were short-lived, and those that did continue --
Talking Heads, Adam & the Ants, Siouxsie & the Banshees, The
Cure - altered their sound and attack as they grew artistically. Two other bands,
Joy Division and Bauhaus, continued in new guises - New Order and Love
& Rockets, respectively - and started to explore new stylistic ground. Most of
these groups began moving away from the claustrophobic doom that distinguished
early post-punk, moving toward cleaner, dissonant attacks. Post-punk never died out,
but it faded away in the mid-'80s, as its offspring began making records.

Goth began as a sub-genre of punk but moved in a more experimental direction.

Wailing vocals, angular guitar parts and tribal, tom tom heavy drum betas
characterised the style. Like punk, Goth was a lifestyle. The music featured dark
lyrics and its fans favoured black clothes and took an interest in Victoriana and
horror, etc. Goth faded in the 90s but influenced the Industrial scene and its
offshoots, eg. Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson.

KEY POST PUNK ARTISTS & RECORDINGS

ARTIST KEY RECORDINGS RECORDING
DATE
The Cure The Hanging Garden/Love Cats 1983
New Order Love Will Tear Us Apart 1980
Siouxsie & The Candyman 1986
Banshees

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Stadium Rock
The mighty supergroup rockers of the 1970s continued to draw spectacular
audiences in the 1980s and expanded to include bands outgrowing the post punk and
new wave movement. Pink Floyd had released The Wall in late 1979 which
proved a huge success and resulted in a film and multimedia stage show. Queen
produced hits including Another One Bites The Dust and Radio Ga Ga.
Dire Straits bemoaned the MTV generation in Money For Nothing. The US
rockers Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen and Kiss spearheaded the American
stadium posse.

KEY STADIUM ROCK ARTISTS & RECORDINGS

ARTIST KEY RECORDINGS RECORDING
DATE
Dire Straights Money For Nothing 1985
Bon Jovi You Give Love A Bad Name 1986

Hip-hop
See extensive notes on this subject with the 2009 Special Focus notes.

House and Techno

Many music fans were happy to see disco die in 1980, but the truth is that disco
never passed on. It spawned a new generation of dance music that branched out and
evolved into the global phenomenon known as house music. So how exactly did
disco give birth to house music? Here's the story…
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* Larry Levan started spinning disco records together at those crazy

Paradise Garage parties in New York.

* Soon after Disco Demolition Night (when white kids killed disco at a White Sox
game), Chicago started developing a new, electronic, drum-machine happy sound.

* Frankie Kunckles brought his gay-friendly crate of thumping disco tracks to

Chicago and the kids got into it. Stuff like "Let No Man Put Asunder" from First
Choice rocked the Warehouse in 1983.

* Soulful, bangin' disco tracks collided with what-the-hell-sounding beats from

Jesse Saunders, Farley Jackmaster Funk and a bunch of other DJs, remixers
and record producer types in Chicago.

* All the kids wanted to buy the records that were playing at the Warehouse in
Chicago, and after some abbreviating -- the house music label was born.

• In Detroit, Juan Atkins (/Cybotron), Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson

originated a techno touch alongside the Chicago house music sound.

House music is uptempo music for dancing, although by modern dance music
standards it is mid-tempo, generally ranging between 118 and 135 bpm. Tempos
were slower in house music's early years.

The common element of house music is a prominent kick drum on every beat (also
known as a four-to-the-floor beat), usually generated by a drum machine or
sampler. The kick drum sound is augmented by various kick fills and extended
dropouts. The drum track is filled out with hi-hat cymbal patterns that nearly always
include an open hi-hat on eighth note off-beats between each kick, and a snare drum
or clap sound on beats two and four of every bar. This pattern is derived from so-
called "four-on-the-floor" dance drumbeats of the 1960s and especially the 1970s
disco drummers. Producers commonly layer sampled drum sounds to achieve a
more complex sound, and they tailor the mix for large club sound systems, de-
emphasizing lower mid-range frequencies (where the fundamental frequencies of the
human voice and other instruments lie) in favor of bass and hi-hats.

Producers use many different sound sources for bass sounds in house music, from
continuous, repeating electronically-generated lines sequenced on a synthesizer, such
as a Roland SH-101 or TB-303, to studio recordings or samples of live electric
bassists, or simply filtered-down samples from whole stereo recordings of classic
funk tracks or any other songs. House bass lines tend to favor notes that fall within a
single-octave range, whereas disco bass lines often alternated between octave-
separated notes and would span greater ranges. Some early house productions used
parts of bass lines from earlier disco tracks. For example, producer Mark "Hot Rod"
Trollan copied bass line sections from the 1983 Italo disco song "Feels Good
(Carrots & Beets)" (by Electra featuring Tara Butler) to form the basis of his 1986
production of "Your Love" by Jamie Principle.

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Electronically-generated sounds and samples of recordings from genres such as jazz,

blues and synth pop are often added to the foundation of the drum beat and synth
bass line. House songs may also include disco, soul-style, or gospel vocals and
additional percussion such as tambourine. Many house mixes also include repeating,
short, syncopated, staccato chord loops that are usually composed of 5-7 chords in a
4-beat measure.

Techno and trance, which developed alongside house music, share this basic
beat infrastructure, but they usually eschew house's live-music-influenced feel and
Black or Latin music influences in favor of more synthetic sound sources and
approach.

Pop Trends – solo artists

The 1980s also saw the rise of three major solo pop artists: Madonna, Michael
Jackson and Prince.

Madonna quickly became the pop queen of the decade with Michael Jackson as
King. Jackson’s Thriller album (produced by the legendary Quincy Jones) became a
huge overnight success producing hits including: Beat It, Billie Jean and Human
Nature. Madonna’s Like A Virgin and True Blue also produced worldwide hit
records, she was soon to become the biggest selling female artist ever.

Prince produced some of the most stylistically varied and interesting pop music,
drawing on Funk, Jazz, Pop and Rock influences to create major hits including:
Purple Rain, Kiss and I Would Die 4 U.

KEY POP ARTISTS & RECORDINGS

ARTIST KEY RECORDINGS RECORDING
DATE
Prince Sing O The Times 1987
Madonna Like A Virgin 1984
Michael Jackson Thriller 1982

Further important bands/artists to consider include:

Bananarama
(they were huge – biggest selling girl group)
Wham!
The Police
Simply Red
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Phil Collins
Culture Club
Grace Jones
(check out Living My Life – one of my favourites)

British SKA REVIVAL:

The Specials AKA, Madness, The Beat

LINKS:
http://techno.org/electronic-music-guide/ - FABULOUS guide to
dance music styles, history etc.