Why Is 80s Music THAT Good?

[Decodekid 27,034]

I can't grasp my mind around the serve this era of music was and why it sounds so different from everything tbh, there's just something so unique and full of life about the sound. I was born in 2000 so I have no experiences tied to this music rather than growing up and listening to what my parents did, and now that I'm older it just sounds even better. 

I don't know if it's just me romanticising it but it really evokes something that today's music lacks, so cinematic, complex, dreamy, eventful. Whenever I listen to it I feel so nostalgic, but about what exactly? 

And I'm not only talking about American 80s synth pop, I'm also speaking about rock, indie, music from my own country, etc.

The ATE'ties indeed

[The Fame 4,124]

I adore 80's music!!! 

In my mind it just sounds so ****ing POWERFUL. Like everything is BIG and just makes you want to go on a rampage!!!!

[RAMROD 105,090]

I mean yes. But need to specify which part of 80s music? Cos there are a lot of embarrassing ones too.

[Catnikko 13,993]

Just now, RAMROD said:

I mean yes. But need to specify which part of 80s music? Cos there are a lot of embarrassing ones too.

very this

i think it's just because the really good 80s music is what we judge and remember as literally all 80s music now  when that's not the case

[Bronco 6,953]

If your talking about the synthesiser pop & rock music from the 80s.

I think its just because it was the first generation of synthesiser music. All the Blitz Kids/New Romantics & New Wave pop acts were trend setters and truly revolutionary pop acts. 

Plus they had all these new synthesisers which had no rules on how to use them, but were still recording in the same formats as older acts. And I think since then production has gotten too slick, too processed and over enginered that its lost a degree of real feeling to it.

Plus I feel like 80s pop & rock music was the first "recession" pop before we got the 2008-2010 era and the new resurgence of recession pop lol

[PartySick 146,880]

This is a bit related. It's an interesting watch though and absolutely validated why I prefer certain types of music over others despite not having literal genre preferences

 

[TEANUS 13,014]

53 minutes ago, Bronco said:

If your talking about the synthesiser pop & rock music from the 80s.

I think its just because it was the first generation of synthesiser music. All the Blitz Kids/New Romantics & New Wave pop acts were trend setters and truly revolutionary pop acts. 

Plus they had all these new synthesisers which had no rules on how to use them, but were still recording in the same formats as older acts. And I think since then production has gotten too slick, too processed and over enginered that its lost a degree of real feeling to it.

Plus I feel like 80s pop & rock music was the first "recession" pop before we got the 2008-2010 era and the new resurgence of recession pop lol

This!

All the new technology and capabilities of electronic music making just spurred creativity, output, and invocation

[Lucas 24,542]

Catchy melodies, raw vocals, PASSION in the voice, most songs were about happy stuff and enjoying yourself, and of course that nostalgia effect... 

[Killa 15,954]

Well coke obviously.

 

[Stefanotta 734]

They weren’t generic as contemporary music is, sampling was minimal almost there was none, think originality and pure talent - from vocals and real music. Songwriting was written “from heart”, and because of that every single song from that period is just pure perfection. IMO

[fede ARTPOP 6,239]

 Mostly because in that time you needed to be a real musician, know how to play real instruments, have good voice with originally, and in the production area you needed very smart people. 

[Togekiss 2,354]

Because only the better stuff kept getting played?

[Cavadour 2,033]

Thanks @PartySick for posting that video ^^^ which resumes pretty well all the technical reasons why todays music tends to sound the same.

I began to play music in the 70's alone and with my first band. Today I also work with ProTools on DAW. So believe me I can relate. Copy-paste is now everywhere, dynamics are brickwalled, drum beats are quantized and vocals are autotuned. Add to this the now spread out use of sample packs in every studio and music production. No wonder that the result is sounding samey.

In 2040, people will ask why 2020 music was sounding so fresh and inventive, because in 20 years from now, GP music will be totally produced by IA. What a nightmare.

 

 

Edited 2 hours ago by Cavadour

[mightyriverz 1,744]

listen to Sheena Easton's A Private Heaven. you're welcome.

[King of the Fall 3,822]

the 80s was definitely a golden age for pop music, lots of innovation in sound going on and the spirit of rock bled over into pop when it came to lyrics and the spectacle of the live performance.

that being said, we tend to remember the good stuff from each decade and forget all the garbage. other genres suffered in the 80s too, rock took the form of hair metal and became a sad shadow of it's 60s and 70s glory days and singer-songwriters found it hard to adabt to 80s trends in production and used it all over their albums in a negative way.

I think you could make the argument that the 70s and the 90s were the all time strongest decades in music while the 2000s was an all time low point. In the 70s you had the greatest singer-songwriters and rock bands/artists of all time at the height of their powers and in the 90s, rock corrected itself in the form of punk and grunge while pop was still great and hiphop was becoming a major force. The 2000s suck because pop was becoming stale and regressive while rock had all but died.

Today we are in the position where a lot of good mainstream pop is being made but very little of it is actually innovative because it's appeal is nostalgia while rock seems to have made a bit of a comeback in the world of alternative music and even had a mainstream moment when Olivia Rodrigo released Guts which has a strong punk influence. Country music has also been improving as it moves out of the wretched bro country era and embraces more classic folk inspired sounds with an emphasis on storytelling in the lyrics 

Edited 22 minutes ago by King of the Fall