Search results
- The 1980s saw the emergence of electronic dance music and new wave, also known as Modern Rock. As disco fell out of fashion in the decade's early years, genres such as post-disco, Italo disco, Euro disco, and dance-pop became more popular. Rock music continued to enjoy a wide audience.
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › 1980s_in_music
People also ask
Was rock music heyday over in the '80s?
What genre of music was popular in the 1980s?
What was rock like in the '80s?
How did rock evolve in the '80s & '90s?
- Sonic Youth. You generally think "'90s" when you think of Indie music. And while that genre certainly exploded in that decade thanks to Oasis, Blur, and a whole slew of other, lesser known artists (this list by NME is a great starting point if you want to dive in), the roots of the genre's massive success then can arguably be traced to the prior decade.
- Journey. Stadium rock crooners Journey are almost synonymous with their most famous single, and one of the most instantly recognizable songs of all time: "Don't Stop Believing."
- Bon Jovi. While they were never the most revolutionary trend setters, New Jersey stadium rockers Bon Jovi arguably perfected '80s style arena rock more than any of their contemporaries.
- Mötley Crüe. Van Halen's virtuosic musicianship and party rock performances, along with Def Leppard's infectious, earworm hooks, helped bridge the gap between glam rock and heavy metal, and thus played huge roles in the formation of what would become pejoratively described as hair metal.
- Overview
- Digital technology and alternatives to adult-oriented rock
- The global market and fragmentation
The music industry was rescued from its economic crisis by the development in the 1980s of a new technology, digital recording. Vinyl records were replaced by the compact disc (CD), a technological revolution that immediately had a conservative effect. By this point the most affluent record buyers had grown up on rock; they were encouraged to replace their records, to listen to the same music on a superior sound system. Rock became adult music; youthful fads continued to appear and disappear, but these were no longer seen as central to the rock process, and, if rock’s 1970s superstars could no longer match the sales of their old records with their new releases, they continued to sell out stadium concerts that became nostalgic rituals (most unexpectedly for the Grateful Dead). For new white acts the industry had to turn to alternative rock. A new pattern emerged—most successfully in the 1980s for R.E.M. and in the ’90s for Nirvana—in which independent labels, college radio stations, and local retailers developed a cult audience for acts that were then signed and mass-marketed by a major label. Local record companies became, in effect, research and development divisions of the multinationals.
The radical development of digital technology occurred elsewhere, in the new devices for sampling and manipulating sound, used by dance music engineers who had already been exploring the rhythmic and sonic possibilities of electronic instruments and blurring the distinctions between live and recorded music. Over the next decade the uses of digital equipment pioneered on the dance scene fed into all forms of rock music making. For a hip-hop act such as Public Enemy, what mattered was not just a new palette of “pure” sound but also a means of putting reality—the actual voices of the powerful and powerless—into the music. Hip-hop, as was quickly understood by young disaffected groups around the world, made it possible to talk back to the media.
The music industry was rescued from its economic crisis by the development in the 1980s of a new technology, digital recording. Vinyl records were replaced by the compact disc (CD), a technological revolution that immediately had a conservative effect. By this point the most affluent record buyers had grown up on rock; they were encouraged to replace their records, to listen to the same music on a superior sound system. Rock became adult music; youthful fads continued to appear and disappear, but these were no longer seen as central to the rock process, and, if rock’s 1970s superstars could no longer match the sales of their old records with their new releases, they continued to sell out stadium concerts that became nostalgic rituals (most unexpectedly for the Grateful Dead). For new white acts the industry had to turn to alternative rock. A new pattern emerged—most successfully in the 1980s for R.E.M. and in the ’90s for Nirvana—in which independent labels, college radio stations, and local retailers developed a cult audience for acts that were then signed and mass-marketed by a major label. Local record companies became, in effect, research and development divisions of the multinationals.
The radical development of digital technology occurred elsewhere, in the new devices for sampling and manipulating sound, used by dance music engineers who had already been exploring the rhythmic and sonic possibilities of electronic instruments and blurring the distinctions between live and recorded music. Over the next decade the uses of digital equipment pioneered on the dance scene fed into all forms of rock music making. For a hip-hop act such as Public Enemy, what mattered was not just a new palette of “pure” sound but also a means of putting reality—the actual voices of the powerful and powerless—into the music. Hip-hop, as was quickly understood by young disaffected groups around the world, made it possible to talk back to the media.
The regeneration of DIY paralleled the development of new means of global music marketing. The 1985 Live Aid event, in which live television broadcasts of charity concerts taking place on both sides of the Atlantic were shown worldwide, not only put on public display the rock establishment and its variety of sounds but also made clear television’s potential as a marketing tool. MTV, the American cable company that had adopted the Top 40 radio format and made video clips as vital a promotional tool as singles, looked to satellite technology to spread its message: “One world, one music.” And the most successful acts of the 1980s, Madonna and Michael Jackson (whose 1982 album, Thriller, became the best-selling album of all time by crossing rock’s internal divides), were the first video acts, using MTV brilliantly to sell themselves as stars while being used, in turn, as global icons in the advertising strategies of companies such as Pepsi-Cola.
The problem with this pursuit of a single market for a single music was that rock culture was fragmenting. The 1990s had no unifying stars (the biggest sensation, the Spice Girls, were never really taken seriously). The attempt to market a global music was met by the rise of world music, an ever-increasing number of voices drawing on local traditions and local concerns to absorb rock rather than be absorbed by it. Tellingly, the biggest corporate star of the 1990s, the Quebecois Céline Dion, started out in the French-language market. By the end of the 20th century, hybridity meant musicians playing up divisions within rock rather than forging new alliances. In Britain the rave scene (fueled by dance music such as house and techno, which arrived from Chicago and Detroit via Ibiza, Spain) converged with “indie” guitar rock in a nostalgic pursuit of the rock community past that ultimately was a fantasy. Although groups like Primal Scream and the Prodigy seemed to contain, in themselves, 30 years of rock history, they remained on the fringes of most people’s listening. Rock had come to describe too broad a range of sounds and expectations to be unified by anyone.
- Glam Metal Was Scary Important. The sub-sub-genre of glam metal -- you know, the guys with the makeup and teased hair who somehow got laid more than any man who ever lived -- became the “largest, most commercially successful” genre of music in the late ‘80s.
- Rock Music Divided Into Ever-Narrowing Subgenres. In the ‘70s, everyone knew what you meant by “rock” music: guys with long hair and tight jeans rambling on or dreaming on or generally being on stuff, with a smattering of spiky leather jackets on the outskirts.
- Alternative Rock Goes Mainstream. Alternative rock emerged in the ‘70s as, well, an alternative to the arena rock of the era, but in the ‘80s, major labels started recognizing the enormous fanbases patiently built by bands like R.E.M.
- The Birth of Techno. It’s rare that an entire genre can be traced to such a specific place and time, but techno was born in the Detroit suburbs in 1981, birthed by a trio of teenagers known as the Belleville Three who bonded over being the only black kids in their school.
May 15, 2024 · Following the trends of rock music in the '80s is an interesting way of tracking the general music habits of the time. And here, this list will be talking about the most rock impactful...
Jan 18, 2024 · The 80s rock music era was a pivotal time in the history of rock music. Bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and Black Sabbath laid the foundation for the genre, while the introduction of punk rock and new wave in the 1970s shaped its sound.
The 1980s saw the emergence of electronic dance music and new wave, also known as Modern Rock. As disco fell out of fashion in the decade's early years, genres such as post-disco, Italo disco, Euro disco, and dance-pop became more popular. Rock music continued to enjoy a wide audience.
Dec 9, 2022 · Rock continued to evolve in the following decades, having as its main protagonist the Alternative Rock that emerged in the ’80s, but which achieved unprecedented popularity in the ’90s with bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Radiohead.
