Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let there be snark.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

This blog will pay for itself.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are here: Home / Music / You All Asked For It: 80s Music Open Thread

You All Asked For It: 80s Music Open Thread

by | 227 Comments

This post is in: ,

I’ve got nothing really to say right now about what happened in New Zealand earlier today (their time) that I haven’t said too many times before over the past 3 and 1/2 years. I may write something about it in a day or two, but I also may not.

But since you all have been arguing about 80s music in the comments to the previous thread, here’s a post with a bunch of it. Some one hit wonders. Some imported from across the pond. Some of it good. Some not so much.

You can argue over it in the comments. 1/2 the videos/songs after the jump.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x22vqs

And just because it is! Also, the title of my master’s thesis in comparative religion.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

227Comments

  2. 2.

    Brickley Paiste

    Reminder: Do not tip your Door Dash delivery person in the app. Do not give them a cent that way. Tip cash instead. Drivers are paid according to a complex formula, but for an average run they might be offered $8.50. But if you tip $8, their payment from Door Dash might be as low as 50 cents.

    Everytime you tip cash you help force Door Dash and other similar apps to pay a decent wage.

  3. 3.

    Ella in New Mexico

    Ok. For starters Stevie Nicks and Tom Petty do not fall into the category of “One Hit Wonders”.

    But if I remember the early 80’s, Springsteen had his first “Pop” album with Born in the USA and we here in America were being introduced to the awesomeness that was U2.

    Not to mention how George Michael’s “Careless Whisper” will make me stop and become transported. To think a 16 year old boy wrote that song.

    Also, too, everything Peter Gabriel. And the beginnings of the “Lilith Fair” era…

    Take me back to the good old days….

  4. 4.

    Kristine

    REM, Bowie, New Order, Depeche Mode, assorted pop like A Flock of Seagulls. If it was synthy, I liked it. I still listen to it. Can’t believe it’s been almost 40 years for some of this stuff.

  6. 6.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    People were complaining about Phil Collins earlier and I’ve had “Take me home ” in my head for days. Listened to it earlier. I still like it.

  8. 8.

    Brickley Paiste

    ‘Parsifal!’ says X. ‘Die Wunde schließt der Speer nur, der sie schlug.’ ‘Eh?’ (I can read German, but it never seems to sound the way it looks.) ‘The wound must be healed by the spear that made it.’

  12. 12.

    Gravenstone

    Just because I was indulging an 80’s itch earlier*, I offer Send Me and Angel

    * okay, technically still am, I have a stream of Loverboy playing on the Tube at the moment. I’ll move onto something else shortly.

  13. 13.

    mvr

    Tom Petty is great, but where’s the Clash? I know London Calling was 1979, but Sandanista! was 80s.

  17. 17.

    The Dangerman

    80’s Music is warped because of the advent of MTV; American Artists were slow to get on the video train, so imports from Britain filled the TV. Back in the days when MTV actually PLAYED music videos.

    Here’s my contribution from the 80s band that put on the best live show I’ve ever seen (in probably the smallest room; I was wondering about the seismic retrofit, not because of a fear of an earthquake, but this band cranked it to 12).

    There was a lot of good music in the 80’s but there was a lot of crap, but if it had a good video, it got airplay (hell, but for her videos, Madonna might never have gone anyplace).

  18. 18.

    randy khan

    First, two Pat Benatar videos is the right ratio (and both songs are awesome).

    Other nominees: Cyndi Lauper, Eurythmics, Suzanne Vega (not quite a one-hit wonder, since several of her songs charted, but not sufficiently appreciated then or now).

    The ’80s really were peak MTV – so many great videos.

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @mvr: London Calling was released in December of 1979 in the UK but not until 1980 in the US. It makes it on to “Best of” lists for different decades in each side of the pond.

  21. 21.

    Gravenstone

    @The Dangerman: Loudest concert I ever attended was Judas Priest circa 1986. They had the drums amplified so damned loud that my ears were ringing for the next two weeks. And we were standing at the back of the damned coliseum.

  25. 25.

    cain

    Y’all need to play “Goonies are Good Enough” by Cyndi Lauper. :-) I’m listening to old bollylwood music while drinking wine :)

  28. 28.

    JWR

    @The Dangerman:

    Here’s my contribution from the 80s band that put on the best live show I’ve ever seen

    For me, it was Gang of Four at the Raymond Theater in Pasadena.

  34. 34.

    Raoul

    Oh, and Peter Gabriel’s 1986 US tour was phenomenal. Saw him in Dallas and I still remember how blown away I was by the sound quality, the minimalist but effective lighting, and I will always love Salisbury Hill (I know, 1977, but I’m yakking about an ‘86 concert so there).

  36. 36.

    The Dangerman

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Vernon Reid is awesome.

    Yup; and their second bassist (Wimbish) is awesome, too.

    Speaking of bassists, I think I caught Bela Fleck and the Flectones in the late 80’s. Maybe 90’s, I don’t recall. But, damn, Victor Wooten. This says 88 so I probably latched on right around that time.

  38. 38.

    Raoul

    My most swoony concert of the 80s was Joe Jackson (though I was deeply closeted then … and also not attracted to him but moved by his music).
    Most fun? Probably DEVO.

  41. 41.

    ThresherK

    I’ve been a member of the Chess cult for…35 years? Thirty-one since I saw it on B’way?

    I feel not-young.

    For other 80s, I tend to go for British tenors with keyboards, and Scottish tenors with guitars: OMD, Big Country, Danny Wilson and Level 42.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    @randy khan: My bad, I knew I was forgetting something – got distracted with an email that I had to respond to. So leaving out Lauper and Eurythmics is on me. And, of course, the Buggles’ Video Killed the Radio Star.

  47. 47.

    The Dangerman

    @Amir Khalid:

    Was rock music “warped” in the 1960s by the British Invasion?

    Definitely not.

    The “warpage” I spoke about was how video pushed bands based on their looks and not their music. Duran Duran comes to mind.

  49. 49.

    eemom

    @Amir Khalid:

    Would this be a good time to start a discussion about how measuring ANY kind of cultural phenomenon in terms of base 10 numerical decades is the stupidest thing anybody ever did?

  52. 52.

    Gravenstone

    @mrmoshpotato: First saw Maiden in ’87. Band stopped the show after like the third song because some moron threw a bottle at the stage and nearly brained Dave Murray. Venue lights came up and everything. Just as we thought it was done, Dickinson came out and laid into the crowd with some of the most inventive invective I’ve ever witnessed. Then the band came out and they finished the show.

    And the Toledo Sports Arena was an absolute shithole of a venue. *spit*

  53. 53.

    eemom

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I said some were one hit wonders, not all of them. And certainly not Stevie Knicks.

    OR Tom Petty. omfg.

    I adore Tom Petty. Never been as sad at the passing of a famous person as when we lost him. ?

  56. 56.

    Steeplejack

    @Amir Khalid:

    Not true. By definition “the ’70s” are the years 197n. It’s not like, say, “the 20th century,” which began in 1901 and ended in 2000. False equivalence.

  63. 63.

    lamh36

    Goodness feels like I’m already at work listening to the adult contemporary “all the hits” radio station I’m forced to listen to.

    Not enough Soul, R&B and/or Hip Hop in the mix for me.

    I would love to add a bit more seasoning to the mix, but I’m off to bed…for another work weekend, but I’m sure I’ll be hearing these songs on the radio station at work tomorrow.

  64. 64.

    CatFacts

    There aren’t nearly enough arguments about disco, cheesy pop, and rap in this thread. Can’t have a thread about 80s music without those ;) So let me just say it: Duran Duran’s Rio and De La Soul’s Three Feet High and Rising are two damn fine albums from the 80s.

  65. 65.

    Wayne Marks

    @Kristine: Agreed on all. I would add the Gang of Four. Most especially, “Essence Rare.” secondarily, “Damaged Goods”

  66. 66.

    PJ

    Re: the Hooters, I can only quote the Dead Milkmen: “Hooters suck!!” (Now chant this for two minutes).

  69. 69.

    Jay Noble

    Looks over Talent gave us Milli Vanilli but the backlash gave us the real Weather Girls. And there wasn’t any auto-tune yet so most of the artists could actually carry a tune

  74. 74.

    trollhattan

    @Gravenstone:
    Did nobody take the lesson from Bob’s Country Bunker in “Blues Brothers”? Chainlink, people–a chainlinked society is a safe society.

  75. 75.

    Inventor

    Cabaret Voltaire, Late Joy Division / early New Order, Violent Femmes. Also tons of indies in the early ’80s like ‘Shoes for Industry”, Crispy Ambulance, 23 Skidoo, Eyeless in Gaza, Theater of Hate, Stockholm Monsters, and a lot more. Joe Jackson, Devo, Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Durutti Column, and a whole lot of “post-punk” and “goth” bands like The Virgin Prunes, Sisters of Mercy, Killing Joke. Industrial pioneers like Einsturzende Neu Bauten, Throbbing Gristle, Factrix, and the Uns.

    There’s lots of great ’80s music; at least until about ’87 or so.

  78. 78.

    trollhattan

    The kid shops my clothing and unearthed the Clash tour t-shirt from I believe their final N American tour. Kid at her school offered her a hundred bucks for it.

    What’s up with these kidz?

    It was one of my ’80s musical highlights, to be sure. Then there was that X and Nina Hagen show….

  81. 81.

    Mandarama

    @ThresherK: It’s very sad to see the ancient and distinguished game that used to be a model of decorum and tranquility turn out like any other sport, a battleground for rival ideologies to slug it out with glee. :)

  86. 86.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Omnes Omnibus: the Femmes were definitely a “you had to be there” band. Wife and I go nuts when we hear them and the kids look at us like…we look at them when we hear their shit music

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Good, informative documentary about Foley artists, Actors of Sound, on Amazon Prime. Now, sadly, a dying skill, subsumed by digitization.

    For those who didn’t already know,

    While you may not know Jack Foley, Hollywood will never forget him. It was Jack Foley who saved the production of the movie Spartacus with a simple set of keys. The film had lost the sound of a massive march of thousands of armored extras and was forced to recreate the sound in Foley’s studio. Using sound effects, specifically heavy marching a set of jingling keys to approximate the moving armor, Foley seamlessly rescued the expensive scene and from then on, sound effects artists were known as Foley Artists. Source

  89. 89.

    Adam L Silverman

    After rewatching Mexican Radio I’ve come to the conclusion that if Ben Shapiro was a real sized human and not a homunculus he’d look just like the keyboardist.

  92. 92.

    mvr

    @eemom: Yeah, still not over that. Muddy Waters and Joe Strummer before that also sent me into a sort of tailspin when they died. But I had seen TP twice the summer before and three summers before he had given me free tickets to a show which I then drove 500 miles to see. So his death has been pretty hard to take, which seems foolish when you don’t know someone.

  93. 93.

    opiejeanne

    Terence Trent Darby. wishing well.

    Ok, that may be a bit obscure.

    I’m sitting in the ER of the hospital that mishandled my dad’s illness at the end of his life. I was referred by an urgent care facility for a CT scan because I bumped my head and my mom died of a subdural hematoma, so everybody is focusing on that. I’m probably fine, just bored.

  94. 94.

    Peale

    @Steve in the ATL: your kids are probably popular and everyone they ask instantly and enthusiastically agrees to dance with them.

    Wonder what they’d think of Rock Lobster.

  108. 108.

    Inventor

    @Ivan X: There are some holes in my album / tape collection. I went to college in a rather isolated community in the late ’70s and early ’80s. My friends and I would make bulk orders to Rough Trade in San Francisco based on their catalog listings. We often made selections based on the band’s name because there was no way to hear it beforehand. We learned to get everything from Industrial Records and Les Disques des Crepescule

    One vinyl, many tapes.

  109. 109.

    Ivan X

    @Omnes Omnibus: nope. I think With Sympthy is a classic of its genre, which just happens to be a different genre than Ministry’s other records. (I don’t consider anything after Psalm 69 of much merit, though.)

  113. 113.

    trollhattan

    @Steeplejack:
    Saw Bow-Wow-Wow in a little club and they killed. Almost literally because their kit and amps were scaled for a much larger venue. “See jungle”

  116. 116.

    JWR

    @Inventor:

    My friends and I would make bulk orders to Rough Trade in San Francisco based on their catalog listings.

    Some friends of mine were a bay area band signed with pitch-a-tent/rough trade records from the mid-80’s til the early 90’s. Anyone here ever heard of Spot 1019?

  118. 118.

    Ivan X

    @Inventor: That’s excellent. I was privileged to have the Rhino Records store in L.A. two blocks from me when growing up, and I gave many a used record a spin on their in store turntables. It was a great way to discover stuff. You were braver, though!

  120. 120.

    opiejeanne

    @Yutsano: they have a charging station in the waiting area.
    Just had the CT scan, waiting on the doctor’ Evaluation

  122. 122.

    Mainmata

    The Cure, The Motels (“Only the Lonely”), REM, Dire Straits, Roxy Music, The Pretenders among others. The’80s was a really great, diverse music decade.

  137. 137.

    Steeplejack

    @Petorado:

    Oh, yeah.

    I think I’m out. I pulled a muscle dredging up the Go-Betweens. A haunting song that I can never remember all the details of.

    Let’s go out with some flash: Spandau Ballet, “Gold.”

  142. 142.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, I hope that puts paid to the vicious canard that the ’80s were a musical wasteland.

  150. 150.

    Petorado

    @eemom: The REALLY official start of sucky 80’s songs was Meatloaf singing about doing anything but not doing THAT, if memory serves.

  151. 151.

    HumboldtBlue

    And just because it is! Also, the title of my master’s thesis in comparative religion.

    I have a colleague who got his doctorate in theology (I believe) by studying hip-hop and using that as his thesis.

  153. 153.

    Ninedragonspot

    The evergreen 但願人長久 by the greatest Taiwanese diva Teresa Teng 鄧麗君. The words are taken directly from a Song Dynasty poem of the 10th or 11th century (I’m not looking it up). Very wistful.

  155. 155.

    tobie

    @eemom: Holy smokes, I go out for a few hours and the earworm of Phil Collins singing Sue-sue-sue-me-one is still irritating the Balloon Juice collective ear. Among the stupidest songs from the 1980s I can remember is “867-5309.” Apparently a poor woman had to change her phone number because of that clunker of a song.

  158. 158.

    CaseyL

    The 80s were the last time I really paid attention to music. The 80s were also the last time I did any serious clubbing. And, yeah, MTV was gold back then.

    *sigh* Remembering the younger me, in skintight spangly shirt and parachute pants with a chain belt. Big, big hair. Lots of makeup. Lordy lordy.

  161. 161.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @eemom:

    I seem to remember Baud asking if there was any bright side to ’80s music, and the discussion went downhill from there. And Subaru Diane just had to ask which Phil Collins song.

  162. 162.

    Adam L Silverman

    @HumboldtBlue: Technically the title was It’s the End of the World as We Know It: Millennialism, Terrorism, and Political Violence at the End of the Second Millennium.

  165. 165.

    CapnMubbers

    @NotMax: Minority of two? Koyaanisqatsi…Early to mid 90s I drove from Paradise to UC Davis for the movie, backed by Philip Glass and his ensemble live. Other presentations at other times, same live music with Glass conducting and playing: Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast, and Anima Munda.

  178. 178.

    Craig

    Slayer, Metallica, Exodus, Sonic Youth, Butthole Surfers, Chrome, PIL, the Bangles, the Three O’clock, Dream Syndicate, Lets Active, REM, minutemen, Replacements, Melvins, The Cows, Frankie goes to Hollywood, the Cure, the Jesus and Mary Chain, the soundtrack to Repoman, the soundtrack to Decline of Western Civilization, Black Flag, DK, Caberet Voltaire, Alien Sex Fiend, Gang of Four, Swans, The Church, madonna. And HipHop.

  185. 185.

    Guam Guy

    While some good ones have already been mentioned (X, Go4,…), surprised no one has yet noted bands like the Smiths, and Echo and the Bunnymen

  188. 188.

    Arclite

    No one brought up Bon Jovi, Def Leppard, Guns n Roses, Van Halen, AC/DC, The Police, or INXS? Were guys even alive during the 80s?

  189. 189.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    Is this the saddest thread in the history of Balloon Juice or the history of music?

  193. 193.

    opiejeanne

    I finally got word from the doctor that I’m ok, relatively speaking. All the excitement was a big nothing, for which I am grateful. I can feel the goose-egg on my forehead but I almost can’t see it in the mirror. I’m going to be sore for a few days, mostly my neck, but I’m fine.

  195. 195.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:
    It’s all part of the same numbering system. Without a year 0, the first decade CE began with year 1 and ended with year 10. So the 1970s began in 1971 and ended in 1980.

  196. 196.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Subtle shift in meaning, “The decade of the 1970s” is unquestionably ’71 through ’80, whereas “the 70s” is generally interpreted to refer to the years beginning with 197.

  197. 197.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    Shall posit an example which may highlight the difference. Any editor worth his or her salt would look askance at this sentence:

    Ronald Reagan was first elected president at the tail end of the 70s

    and reach for the nearest blue pencil.

  203. 203.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Amir Khalid:

    But the decade of “the ’70s” is not denominated from some distant starting year, like the centuries are. It’s simply a term for a 10-year period.

    @NotMax:

    And you are quite mad.

  206. 206.

    J R in WV

    @eemom:

    WE got to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers WITH Bob Dylan on tour together, as the opening act for a pretty good Greatful Dead show at the Rubber Bowl in Akron. It was a great night of music, and yes, Tom and Bob did play with the Dead for their first long set.

    That was in the 80s. My buddy was doing his residency at Akron City Hospital after completing med school. In the end, his back went out, so he was put to bed on serious pain killers while his wife and we went to the show.

  208. 208.

    Ramalama

    @Noskilz: I was a closet Big Country fan. None of my friends cared for them. I had all of their albums. And even saw them when they OPENED (which shocked me) for Bloody Roger Daltry in Boston. Stuart was a yuge talent who kind of wasted it by going into country music. He threw the band away and I never got why. Other than being an alcoholic. I still watch the youtube videos of them live all the time. An amazing guitarist, that voice, those songs. Just a feckin waste.

  210. 210.

    Another Scott

    @J R in WV: We saw Dylan and The Dead at RFK stadium in DC in the 90s (shortly before Jerry died). J had been going to see The Dead for decades, it was my first show with them. She got so very excited when they started playing Box of Rain. She loves, loves, loves that song and had rarely if ever heard them play it live.

    Dylan was good; of course his voice hasn’t aged well. But that’s Ok!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  212. 212.

    laura

    @Amir Khalid: both Roadie brothers worked for Weird Al Yankovich -and hold him in high esteem today for his professionalism and deep, deep kindness. A true mensch.
    Weird Al Sawed me in half with a chainsaw!
    (I got to be a prop during Like a Surgeon).

  214. 214.

    Barbara

    @Another Scott: In the summer of 1982 I was working at a window factory and a friend of a friend was scheduling his annual trek to a Dead concert, which had to be on a weekend so as not to interfere with his vastly more prestigious summer job. The closest location he could find was Troy, Wisconsin, which is — only — a 10 hour drive from my home town. So we left late Friday night and rolled into Chicago to see the sun rise, spent the whole day kicking around and drove north for about an hour in time for the concert. The band parachuted into the outdoor arena and started playing. Honestly, I found the extended riffs to be so monotonous I fell asleep within about 20 minutes. At around 3:00 am it started raining so we all got up and got into the car and drove home. What else I remembered was hearing the ‘little ditty” about Jack and Diane about a hundred times on the radio, i.e., WOWO! both on the way there and back. Later discovered at least two law school classmates who were also there. Only Dead show I ever went to.

    @eemom: Now I know Petty was popular by the end of the 70s (I mean who cares right?) because the single fraternity bash I ever went to was to see a band that did covers of tunes like American Girl. I left when I realized that they had chained a lot of the exits shut to keep people from avoiding the various charges they were imposing for cover and beer, and I couldn’t stop obsessing about what would happen in case of fire. This whole discussion also jogged my memory about going to see Suzanne Vega sometime during law school with someone who was even less cool than I was (hard to imagine, I know) in Raleigh. I was not overly impressed. Also, if you read about my little Dead experience one of those classmates who I realized had been there had the initials CB — quelle shoque — and to this day I think it’s probably the only thing we ever had in common.

  217. 217.

    Chris Johnson

    @tobie: Are you kidding, that song is awesome. (interestingly, it’s one of the songs where a shaker ties the song together so much that it’s unthinkable without that element, yet you don’t even notice it unless you’re deconstructing the thing. (Another famous shaker-percussion song is Tom Petty’s ‘Refugee’)

    Tommy Tutone, 867-5309 (Jenny)

  218. 218.

    EthylEster

    Murray Head was the rockin’ Judas in the original JC Superstar production. And he was excellent in the John Schlesinger’s Sunday Bloody Sunday, one of my all-time favorite movies. But the video here is unknown to me and after viewing half of it, i understand why.

  220. 220.

    EthylEster

    OK, if we’re listing songs from bad 80s groups….I offer: We built this city on rock and roll.

  222. 222.

    Chris Johnson

    But I can even top that: Der Kommisar (After The Fire)

    warning: contains a tarantula in the video, if that bugs you
    warning: contains After The Fire’s Der Kommisar video :D
    (I do seriously adore this mix even though I’m joking about it)

  223. 223.

    eemom

    @Barbara:

    If it’s the CB I’m thinking of — later to become CM — wasn’t she your roommate first year?

    Was never impressed with Suzanne Vega either, though likewise turned on to her by one of our classmates. But he was way COOLER than I was — also not the highest hurdle to clear. ?

    Initials of RK. He practiced law for exactly one year and is now a theatrical director/professor in upstate NY. With
    wife #2 and a one year old baby.

  224. 224.

    Barbara

    @eemom: Yep, CB = CM. Remember that RK was interested in theater way back when and actually went to see True West or Fool For Love at a local stage with him and can’t for the life of me remember who else. One year old baby. Yikes.

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