Music: Why did music drop in quality during the 1980s?

[Jussi]

Wanted to comment on these groups per 80s/90s output.

Rolling Stones-Late 70s/early 80s was more polished but pretty decent. The release of albums started to grow in distance. But pretty much everyone says Voodoo Lounge>80s Stones

Black Sabbath -They were running out of steam with Ozzy in the late 70s and the separation actually helped both for a bit. Dio injected new life into them and the two early 80s albums he did with them were great and very good. Ozzy's early solo stuff thanks to Randy Rhoads was very good.

Fleetwood Mac -The remind me a bit of The Who in quality of output and how different they sounded. I think Tusk was kind of the end of their peak but the album with Gypsy had a few hits and that was like 1983. Mid-late 80s Fleetwood Mac people don't like to talk about.

AC DC - They kinda had the Metallica/Allman Brothers thing where they got really popular after an original member died. The went slightly more commercial in the 80s and even though the albums were much better with Bon Scott, Who Made Who, Thunderstruck, and the 90s stuff was pretty good.

KISS - Kiss before taking off the makeup and Lick It Up/Put The Z In Sexx was a pretty good pop rock band, after...not so great but they had their moments here and there.

Rush - Grace Under Pressure is a fine album. That's their 80s peak. They'd get really good again once Roll The Bones came out in 1991.

Pink Floyd - The tension between Waters/Gilmour post Wall killed them.

Aerosmith - 80s weren't very kind to them besides the Run DMC crossover although Pump has some really good album cuts. Get A Grip is a fine record, and Nine Lives had its moments. Afterwards it became the pure cartoon and Tyler/Perry show.

THey had probably their biggest hits with Tango In The Night, at least in Europe.

Pink Floyd also had a big hit in Europe with Learning To Fly from Momentary Lapse Of Reason.

 

[Big McLargehuge]

THey had probably their biggest hits with Tango In The Night, at least in Europe.

Definitely not the case in the US. Rumours is the 7th best selling album of all-time stateside and had their two highest charting singles (including their only #1).

 

[hototogisu]

The 80's gave the world the Big 4 Thrash bands, Ministry got their start, Skinny Puppy did too, Trent Reznor got his foot in the door just at the end, Jane's Addiction released Nothing's Shocking, The Cult released Love and Electric, 60% of Van Halen's first six albums were released in the 80's, Soundgarden released Louder Than Love in 1989, Mother Love Bone hadn't disbanded yet...

Clearly fallacious thread title.

10 bands doesn't really make a decade, and no one is saying that no good bands came around or made good music in the 80's...

 

[Roo Returns]

THey had probably their biggest hits with Tango In The Night, at least in Europe.

Pink Floyd also had a big hit in Europe with Learning To Fly from Momentary Lapse Of Reason.

Oh I definitely remember Learning To Fly. That was literally right after Touch of Grey by Grateful Dead. LTF was a cool track and I was about 6 when it came out, but I remember adults back then even complaining calling it Pink Floyd light and 1/2 Pink Floyd because Waters was gone and the legal battles with Richard Wright during that whole period.

Tango In The Night was a hit indeed, but it was one of those under the radar hits, similar to ZZ Top's Antenna album in 1994. There was so much going on during that 87-88 Era with hair metal, thrash metal, hip hop, and alternative music from East and West Coasts, and UK so it was definitely over shadowed. I even remember bands like Depeche Mode, U2, INXS, Love and Rockets, and The Cure getting much more attention than Fleetwood Mac during that period.

 

[Roo Returns]

The 80's gave the world the Big 4 Thrash bands, Ministry got their start, Skinny Puppy did too, Trent Reznor got his foot in the door just at the end, Jane's Addiction released Nothing's Shocking, The Cult released Love and Electric, 60% of Van Halen's first six albums were released in the 80's, Soundgarden released Louder Than Love in 1989, Mother Love Bone hadn't disbanded yet...

Clearly fallacious thread title.

To me the 80s is a decade of 3 stories; the beginning had the new wave, older bands on their last legs and origins of MTV/underground of punk/hardcore hip hop, the mid 80s was about mega stars like Michael Jackson/Madonna/Prince/INXS/etc. and the late 80s was the hair metal boom, hip hop becomes main stream, and the very beginnings of all the alternative bands in the US and UK that would be huge stars by 1992.

I know it's not really related but I always envision the Art Gallery Scene in Tim Burtons Batman ("Gentlemen, Let's Broaden Our Minds...Lawrence") as the beginning of the whole 89-92 era culturally between music, movies, and sports, Nintendo, WWF, etc.

 

[kingsholygrail]

Metallica released their best albums in the 80s as well.

 

[CycloneLaunch]

Metallica released their best albums in the 80s as well.

They probably have more than one album that would be among the top 50 of the decade as well.

 

[Nalens Oga]

I gotta say that the 90s were far better for British rock but they did get some good pust-punk bands like The Chameleons out of it plus some of the more artsy or innovative pop rock like Cocteau Twins, XTC, The The, and Felt.

Also The Smiths and Stone Roses were like a pre-cursor to Britpop.

 

[Aladyyn]

Metallica released their best albums in the 80s as well.

*their only good albums

 

[Roo Returns]

I gotta say that the 90s were far better for British rock but they did get some good pust-punk bands like The Chameleons out of it plus some of the more artsy or innovative pop rock like Cocteau Twins, XTC, The The, and Felt.

Also The Smiths and Stone Roses were like a pre-cursor to Britpop.

XTC is probably a top 10 underrated band of all time. Amazing guitar work an songwriting. And The Dukes Of Stratosphere album as well.

Also it is technically late 80s but all of that Madchester stuff like The Stones Roses, Happy Mondays/later Black Grape, EMF was a lot of fun.

 

[Eisen]

can we all at least agree that music in general has been progressively worse since the 2000s?

I'll sign that.

 

[Stylizer1]

The record business is run by corporations who manufacture music. The reasons for the quality or lack there of is because of them. They change genres whether for good or bad. As long as it makes a profit it doesn't matter how it sounds.

 

[Osprey]

The record business is run by corporations who manufacture music. The reasons for the quality or lack there of is because of them. They change genres whether for good or bad. As long as it makes a profit it doesn't matter how it sounds.

The record business is run by consumers. They're the ones who determine what's popular, what sells and what the "corporations" produce more of. That's how the system works. Blame the consumers for wanting and paying for particular sounds. It's not the record companies' fault if your tastes aren't mainstream. You can't expect them to produce music that loses them money.

 

[Shareefruck]

Regarding the record companies, I don't think it's quite that innocent, though. There's a bit of a learning process for getting into good music, and the more that good things are exposed and talked about, the more that a big percentage of the mainstream population realizes that it's better. When everything is given a chance, things that are off in the fringe occasionally do explode in popularity.

The record companies did start to get smarter and smarter about figuring out how to exploit the worst instincts in people in the most efficient, formulaic, and soul-imprisoning way (where the fringes are completely snuffed out due to their lower certainty), which helped build bad habits in the general population that negatively influenced what they want to hear. It's partly the consumer's fault for not realizing this and letting their impulses determine everything, but it's a two-way self-perpetuating relationship where they're both at fault in making it get worse and worse. It isn't JUST the consumer doing it.

I guess I think that capitalism, working at its most efficient, is really bad for music/art. And in the 80s, after pop turned into more of a science, it became efficient.

Music is progressively all about feeding impulse/compulsion and ignoring exposure/education now, which is an addiction/disease that the record companies were enablers to.

 

[MarAlain MongYeo]

It dropped in quality because Oasis didn't arrive yet

 

[Stylizer1]

The record business is run by consumers. They're the ones who determine what's popular, what sells and what the "corporations" produce more of. That's how the system works. Blame the consumers for wanting and paying for particular sounds. It's not the record companies' fault if your tastes aren't mainstream. You can't expect them to produce music that loses them money.

You have no idea how the record business works.

 

[Ben Matlock]

MTV.

**** got really bad in the 90's, but it started in the late 80's.

 

[blueandgoldguy]

All the talk about rock and pop music and how it compares through the decades..how about country music? I'm not a fan myself as I only like a handful of songs and artists myself, but for those who have listened to/followed country music these past several decades, how does 70s country compare to 80s, 90s, 2000s and beyond? Which particular decade stands out as the best and worst?

 

[Osprey]

You have no idea how the record business works.

You shouldn't pretend like you do. You'd have more to say than that if you did. You've just given vague comments like "corporations manufacture music" (how?) and "the reasons for quality or lack there of are because of them" (how?). You haven't demonstrated nearly enough knowledge to tell someone else that he has no idea how the industry works. It appears that you simply have a cynical opinion (probably born from lack of understanding) that you've convinced yourself is how the industry works, perhaps so that you can be bitter because your tastes aren't being catered to, and you're confusing that for truth.

All the talk about rock and pop music and how it compares through the decades..how about country music? I'm not a fan myself as I only like a handful of songs and artists myself, but for those who have listened to/followed country music these past several decades, how does 70s country compare to 80s, 90s, 2000s and beyond? Which particular decade stands out as the best and worst?

Country is kind of hard to compare to rock/pop, since it's always been a "popular," hits-driven genre. You've always thought about country by its hit singles, not by its albums, which you particularly do when it comes to post-60s rock. Country is also, probably not coincidentally, a very "conservative" art form, so there's very little experimentation. Even to this day, the same 4 or 5 instruments make up the "country sound" that was established over half a century ago. Finally, country artists tend to not go through the same highs and lows that more mainstream artists do. If you like an artist, you'll generally continue liking him/her indefinitely, since his/her music won't change enough for you to stop being loyal. Of course, you can still compare decades to one another (though I'll maybe leave that for others to do). I'm just suggesting that it's harder to analyze country in the same way that the OP is doing with rock and pop.

 

[Shareefruck]

I think it's a fatal mistake to compare genre to genre when determining the better music decades.

Even if, completely hypothetically, everything after the 80s is inferior when it comes to Pop, Rock, Punk, Country, Jazz, and Blues, it's entirely possible that Metal, Hip-Hop, Ambient, and Electronic more than make up that difference.

If you're going to compare, you'd have to compare whatever you think the best stuff is before the 80s, regardless of genre, w/ whatever you think the best stuff is after the 80s, regardless of genre.

Specifically comparing how much worse rock has gotten, as if that means something, would be indicative of a person stuck in the past.

 

[Jussi]

MTV.

**** got really bad in the 90's, but it started in the late 80's.

Most people would say MTV was good in the 80's and early 90's but went to **** in the mid-to-late 90's.

 

[GlassesJacketShirt]

So many factors involved in changes (within the confines of subjective quality): production, artist running out of steam, trends, etc.

I myself like 80s music a lot, though a lot of it does sound dated. I love synths, and modern synthwave is my "jam" as the kids say, but I cannot deny that this piece of technology can make something sound dated in a way no instrument can.

One thing I can say though: while I haven't loved the 2010s when it comes to music, I think 2016 in particular terrified the heck out of me. It has gotten to the point where unfinished garbage is topping the charts and is ultimately affecting music for the worst. That is not hyperbole.

 

[Ben Matlock]

Most people would say MTV was good in the 80's and early 90's but went to **** in the mid-to-late 90's.

Yeah the music was still fine in the early 90's. But I see a few problems with MTV that goes a bit further back than the really ****** music.

Music videos was THE way to success. It feels like at one point it was more about the videos than the music. And which artists had the resources to produce impressive music videos? Established ones (usually on the decline during that time), and artists the record companies wanted to push for whatever reasons. I also find it hard to believe the music was chosen by DJ's that thought it was good. There were other motives.

Like with so many other consumer products, music became something you used a few times and then threw it away. Fans of these artists usually didn't remain fans for very long. They moved on to the next big thing.

 

[Goldenshark]

The Truth About Pop Culture:

https://youtu.be/lyLUIXWnrC0

skip to 7:20 to see a good explanation of why music in general has declined in quality.

 

[Shareefruck]

In line with my 90s were overrated thing, I've always felt that the bands that received alot of the acclaim during that time stunk in comparison to their influences. Blur, Oasis, and early Radiohead stunk in comparison to The Smiths and The Stone Roses, Nine Inch Nails felt pedestrian compared to Foetus, and Nirvana felt like pretenders compared to Pixies/REM, to my ears.

The guys that impressed me in the 90s were more the pioneers of Hip-Hop/Electronic/IDM. THOSE guys were brilliant, IMO. Public Enemy, Erik B and Rakim, Nas, Tribe Called Quest, Aphex Twin, Orbital, DJ Shadow, The Orb, Autechre, Boards of Canada, etc.