2020s are rubbish, so were the 1980s any good?

[ZombieCake]

This decade is looking a bit naff. So I was wondering about the 80s, which were nice, to compare and contrast.  I'll start with a summary.  As ever thoughts and contributions welcome.

[pwhole]

Well, much as I miss Debbie Gibson, the 1980s was when I grew up and found proper music. Like this, from..erm..1980!:

[Fjell]

In 1980 we had Debbie Harry. Still unsurpassed in any respect worth bothering with. Although I have a soft spot for Annie Lennox my kids will tell you.

Honestly, it’s been shit since the 1980’s for everything except cash flow. Back then we watched Threads and most assumed we were about to be vaporised, so fuck it. Or not vaporised, which was apparently worse. Kids these days think pronouns are edgy. There has been a noticeable drop off in more risky sport activities, and it’s not just demographics.

[AR]

Debbie Gibson? Now I'm hearing the voice of Bill Hicks tearing into her "get back to the mall that spawned you!" As for Threads, I seem to recall the choice you got  in that was being incinerated in the blast or staggering around the Peak District in a nuclear winter, gnawing bits off a dead sheep while you slowly died of radiation sickness - cheery stuff! Since we're covering both 80s music and nuclear annihilation, we get to choose between OMD's "Enola Gay" and Nena's "99 Red Balloons"...

[Simon Beck]

[mikem]

Well, much as I miss Debbie Gibson, the 1980s was when I grew up and found proper music. Like this, from..erm..1980!:

Apparently she had a top 5 single in US Dance chart last year! (or there were the Mega Shark movies - Mega Python even included Tiffany...)

[Mark Wright]

Not quite the 2020’s but I saw the Cure’s Glastonbury set in 2019 and I’ve got to say they were even better than they were in the 80’s.



Mark

[pwhole]

Well how about some 1980s nostalgia for 1950s nuclear paranoia? And you get to test your audio system while you're at it. The ultimate hi-fi shop demo album, though that's no criticism - and a joy on DVD-Audio (on now):

[ZombieCake]

Didn't Threads get banned or something like that?  Pretty good film as I recall. Is it OK to go to Sheffield these days?  Most scary thing I read was 'Protect and Survive', makes the current stuff look rather interesting in context of the communications.
Of course in the 80s Hair Metal also destroyed the ozone layer...

[pwhole]

Well I'm in Sheffield all the time, only half a mile from the nuclear epicentre in fact, and I'm still here. Maybe suffering a bit of fallout damage, but otherwise intact.

Another good thing about the 1980s was the rise of On-U Sound Records, which was the perfect blend of black and white street consciousness and stoned humour rendered with the heaviest dub imaginable, all produced by Adrian Sherwood. Mark Stewart, late of The Pop Group, did a wonderful album, Learning To Cope With Cowardice - I saw him doing this live:

[sinker]

….On-U Sound Records, which was the perfect blend of black and white street consciousness....

On-u Sound Sytem! Gary Clail.

Some things go round in circles, or perhaps never change.

[Graigwen]

I slept through the popular music of the 1980s and 1990s, but enjoyed the 1960s which was more self-referential.

.

[ttxela2]

Debbie Gibson? Now I'm hearing the voice of Bill Hicks tearing into her "get back to the mall that spawned you!" As for Threads, I seem to recall the choice you got  in that was being incinerated in the blast or staggering around the Peak District in a nuclear winter, gnawing bits off a dead sheep while you slowly died of radiation sickness - cheery stuff! Since we're covering both 80s music and nuclear annihilation, we get to choose between OMD's "Enola Gay" and Nena's "99 Red Balloons"...

I rather enjoyed the 80's I only have a faint recollection of 'Threads' I know people often say it really upset them at the time but I don't recall anyone I mixed with taking it particularly seriously  Music was always on but I never got to into any particular artist or style.

Back then BMX was my main concern. I was no good at fancy tricks and stuff, we mainly used to line each other up and see how many of our mates we could jump over with ramps made of old doors and concrete blocks.

from 13 onwards we all had Saturday jobs at various places and therefore what seemed at the time like quite a bit of cash. I worked in a builders yard washing vans and helping in the joinery machine shop. Various pubs in the village would serve us providing we were discreet and on one memorable occasion we bought an old Honda Civic MOT failure in exchange for a couple of packs of fags and my mates brother drove it onto the dump at the back of the factory where his dad was manager, we used to race it around imitating the Saturday teatime heroes from the A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard. Sadly we got too cocky and tried to jump it off the lorry loading ramp with 4 of us in it. Somehow we didn't die but all 4 tyres burst and the engine mounts broke so it wouldn't drive any more - it's not like that on TV 

[sinker]

Sadly we got too cocky and tried to jump it off the lorry loading ramp with 4 of us in it. Somehow we didn't die but all 4 tyres burst and the engine mounts broke so it wouldn't drive any more - it's not like that on TV 

I did exactly the same thing with a 1972 Datsun 1200 B110 Coupe, back in 1980.
Bought by me and my mate for £50 all in, aged 12 we ragged it around the fields all summer, rolled it and then jumped it off a loading ramp and killed it. Then we tipped it over the edge into Pant Gwyn slate mine, which was where all dead cars ended up back in those days, here:

https://www.aditnow.co.uk/Mines/Pant-Gwyn-Slate-Mine_1291/

Current value of a Datsun 1200 Coupe? Around £12k for a nice one.

The previous year we had done the same thing with a 1957 oval-window VW Beetle.
Current value....£25k for a nice one.

Then there were the countless Minis and Escort Mexicos that we bent. Oh god, the waste!!

[SamT]

Back then we watched Threads and most assumed we were about to be vaporised, so fuck it.

My sister was an extra in Threads.. so there you go.

[pwhole]

1987 was a good year. Best played loud

[ZombieCake]

Not having anything much better to do these days just dug out Threads from the DVD pile (it was released a few years ago) and re-watched it.  Still the cheerful programme I remember.  I'm off to dig a bunker. 

[sinker]

1987 was a good year. Best played loud

I never really "got" the whole "Prince thing" at the time.
Talented writer I'm sure and guitarist definitely but it all just seemed a bit too contrived at the time, like he was trying a bit too hard.
Or maybe I was just more interested in Wendy & Lisa back then.... 

[pwhole]

I too was more interested in Wendy & Lisa if I'm honest - their first album was fantastic. That's kind of what I liked about Prince though - he had a good team together and loads of spin-off bands came out of his projects. Madhouse was his backing band doing a jazz thing - 2 albums:



The Black Album was the last one I got though - it seemed to go rapidly downhill after that, especially when he started telling folks not to buy it as it was evil! That didn't go as planned

I thought A.R. Kane were a phenomenal British band, and they've recently half-reformed - from 1988:

[ZombieCake]

Wendy & Lisa

The Bangles and Belinda Carlisle caught my eye back then.

[sinker]

Wendy & Lisa

The Bangles and Belinda Carlisle caught my eye back then.

Oh yeah, now you're talking! 

[tamarmole]

Definitive proof that the 80s were better than the 2020s

[pwhole]

This was originally from 1981, but this live version from 2009 is so damn good I thought it might be better:

[sinker]

This was originally from 1981, but this live version from 2009 is so damn good I thought it might be better:

Good that. So.… Tom Tom Club or Talking Heads?

I always thought Tom Tom Club were obviously a bit more commercial than TH, but they were very much "of their time", early to mid-eighties, very synthy and poppy, drum machines, poppy graphics and pastel colours and all that wazz. When their earlier stuff is played live 20+ years later and remixed it always sounds much fuller and more mature.
That ties in with your comment that the 2009 version is better that the 1981 version 

[pwhole]

I wouldn't like to compare the two really as they seemed to be very different beasts, both fabulous. I actually met Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth backstage years ago when they played The Leadmill in Sheffield, and they were lovely people and very funny - not that it makes any difference of course, but that incarnation (must have been mid-90s) was much tougher and far less poppy/silly than the original - they all dressed in black, had a brutal edge and played for what seemed like hours. Of course the original 1980s line-up also featured Adrian Belew, fresh from playing with Frank Zappa and Bowie, who then of course joined the revamped King Crimson after Tom Tom Club. Now that was a good '80s' band, hahah.

David Byrne's career since Talking Heads has also gone in many directions. This could go on for ever