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- Biz Markie, ‘Just a Friend’ Lighters up for the late, great Biz Markie, one of the most beloved music heroes of the Eighties or any other decade. The Diabolical One.
- Nena, ’99 Luftballons’ A German girl sings about nuclear apocalypse in a perky New Wave bop about the end of the world. Yet it’s also a doomy teen romance, at a time when half the hits on the radio were about the end of the world.
- My Bloody Valentine, ‘Feed Me With Your Kiss’ The dawn of the shoegaze era. My Bloody Valentine give an early taste of their power on their debut album, Isn’t Anything: Irish guitar madman Kevin Shields’ tremolo overdrive and feedback-loop noise, Belinda Butcher’s breathy vocals, awesome power-klutz drumming.
- Bobby Brown, ‘My Prerogative’ The sound of New Jack Swing. Bobby Brown dishes the dirt on celebrity gossip, as the young Harlem prodigy Teddy Riley soups up a beat that would rule the radio for the next few years.
- Art Rock/Post-Punk
- Country Music
- Electronic Music
- Hip-Hop / Electro
- Jazz
- Metal/Hard Rock
- Music from (and Inspired by) Jamaica
- Music from Africa
- Music from Japan
- New Wave
Music in the 80s was moving in a number of loosely defined directions, thanks to the emergence of subgenres like new wave, punk, and the end of disco. The art rock and post-punk artists spun out of this confusion of styles, creating an expansive vocabulary built around propulsive drum grooves, arch, snotty lyrics, and a revolutionary interplay betw...
Townes Van Zandt. Guy Clark. Willie Nelson. Waylon Jennings. The 1970s in country music were all about the outlaws. These dudes made poetic tunes about cowboys and federales and great railroad expansions. It wasn’t always the most commercially viable music, but it did dictate the course of the genre. Just 10 years later, stars such as Dolly Parton ...
By the 80s, electronic music was seen as less of a niche and more as the future of music it has now become. Granted, a group like Kraftwerk were still treated as a bit of a novelty during their early years, but that’s to be expected when audiences associated vocoders with alien noises. They helped lay a foundation for the genre to be taken seriousl...
As electronic music was bubbling closer to the mainstream, the early days of hip-hop were incorporating the genre to bolster the backbeat of their hits. Hip-hop stars like Beastie Boys and Slick Rick were incorporating elements of rock and electro on songs like “Fight For Your Right” and “Children’s Story,” Salt-N-Pepabrought a propulsive, groovy f...
Jazz was in a confusing place by the time 1980 hit. The genre was far enough from its peak in the mid to late 60s to echo that era, and the 70s were a strange time; Miles Davis was moving away from straight-ahead jazz towards psychedelic rock and experimental funk, John Coltrane had passed away 15 years before, and Mingus departed the year before t...
Metal acts from the 70s like Black Sabbath and Van Halen inspired a new wave of artists in the genre, groups that would follow a few different paths. There was the hard rock emergence of bands like AC/DC and Bon Jovi, who became superstars in New Jersey and around the world with singles like “Livin on a Prayer.” Ozzy Osbourne departed from Black Sa...
By the time the 80s hit, reggae music was an international sensation thanks to Bob Marley and other acts from Jamaica. Tons of music from the region got wider looks, as did subgenres within that realm, like dub and rocksteady. Marley’s “Redemption Song” was one of the biggest hits in any genre, period, and an act like Junior Reid began to find an a...
The 80s saw a variety of music from Africa finding a wide audience around the world. Folk music from Ali Farka Toure brought Malian folk music to the mainstream, and King Sunny Adewas a pioneer of Nigerian juju music, which blended funk, African highlife, and pop into a miraculously fun enterprise. Perhaps most famously, though, was a revolutionary...
Japanese music in the 80s revolved around iconic stylists like Ryuichi Sakamoto, who helped lead the music in his country both as a solo artist and with Yellow Magic Orchestra. The city pop genre was also monumentally important within the country, and has seen a resurgence around the world thanks to key reissues by American record labels. At the ce...
In the family tree of rock music in the 80s, New Wave made a massive impact alongside post-punk, art rock, and the beginning of indie rock. New Wave blended the aggression of post-punk with pop melodies, and was massively influential in the New York City underground, eventually inspiring bands like The Strokes and Interpol. The B-52’s were a leader...
The 1980s are commonly remembered for a great increase in the use of digital recording, associated with the usage of synthesizers, with synth-pop music and other electronic genres featuring non-traditional instruments increasing in popularity.
Jul 19, 2023 · The music of the 1980s was a vibrant symphony of sound, style, and subculture that captured the mood of a transformative decade. From rock ‘n’ roll’s high-energy performances to pop music’s irresistible hooks, it was an era of musical dynamism and diversity that continues to influence contemporary sounds.
- Tom Eames
- UB40 - 'Red Red Wine' UB40 - Red Red Wine (Official Video) You might not have realised it, but Neil Diamond first recorded this song back in 1967. UB40 feud: Reggae band's complicated history and why the Campbell brothers fell out.
- Phil Collins - 'Another Day in Paradise' Phil Collins - Another Day In Paradise (Official Music Video) This ballad saw Phil Collins sing the tune from a third-person perspective, looking at a man crossing the street to ignore a homeless woman, imploring listeners not to turn a blind eye to those in need.
- Culture Club - 'Karma Chameleon' Culture Club - Karma Chameleon (Official Music Video) This was the song that made Boy George an even bigger star around the world.
- Rick Astley - 'Never Gonna Give You Up' Rick Astley - Never Gonna Give You Up (Official Music Video) If there's one song from the Stock, Aitken and Waterman era that has stood the test of time, it's Rick Astley's international number one smash.
“I Ran (So Far Away)”: The Rise of New Wave. The 1980s ...
Sep 3, 2023 · September 3, 2023. By. Chris Willman. The Cure - Photo: Fin Costello/Redferns. Is it possible to bully a decade? The 80s sure seems to have an eternal “Kick Me” sign on its back. Can someone help...
