The 80s were life changing. I think that may be why the last 30 years seem to have flown by to me. I got married, had kids, graduated college, started a new career, the internet became a thing, iPhones, etc. All of these changes in the last 30 years happened gradually over 3 decades. The 80s seem like something huge happened every single year. And the differences between 1980 and 1990 were paramount! I'll write more about my life in the 1980s later. This is about music. And in no decade since The Beatles or Elvis were on Ed Sullivan, did music have such an enormous impact on a period of time.
1980 saw the fallout of 1979's "Disco Demolition." Disco was dying. Quickly. At least as a "scene." The same writers, producers, musicians were churning out hits well into the 80s. Since I never had a vested interest in the "scene" of Disco, since I was a wee lad, I never could understand the concept of Disco dying. I kept hearing Barry Gibb's stamp on songs like Barbra Streisand's "Guilty" and "Woman in Love," Dolly Parton's "Islands in the Stream" and Dionne Warwick's "Heartbreaker," for instance. It didn't have colorful lights and dance floors with them, but the songs "sounded" the same, and that's what I picked up on. It was during this time when I really began picking apart sounds and styles. I developed a love for certain styles. I loved perfect pop songs. Melodies. Harmonies.
Early 1981, after my dad's graduation, we moved to Broken Arrow/Tulsa. I keep track of the moves in my life by the grades I was in, and literally the soundtrack of what was going on in not only that time, but also the area. Tulsa was COUNTRY. Disco was never a "scene" in Texas or Louisiana, except for the sound on the radio, but HONKYTONKS in 1981 during the explosion of Urban Cowboy and country music crossover, those were certainly a thing. Western wear stores and skating rink music kept us immersed in it. "Elvira" from the Oak Ridge Boys, "Angel of the Morning" from Juice Newton, "Looking for Love" from Johnny Lee, Kenny Rogers, Charlie Daniels, and, of course, "Tulsa Time" from Don Williams, were such a huge part of this period. 1980-1981 was intensely country.
There was a huge discount department store chain in Tulsa called David's (ala K-Mart) where I was able to see a nice selection of albums and where I first took birthday and Christmas money to buy Urban Chipmunk (don't laugh) and the soundtrack to the 1978 Bee Gees/Peter Frampton movie version of Sgt Pepper's Hearts Club Band. I loved the music, but the movie was pretty much the death knell for that era of music. Enter Urban Cowboy.
But here is what I mean about the 1980s being a groundbreaking period of progress literally every year. Everything I've talked about so far spelled the transition from Disco to a Pop Country fusion scene that itself faded away pretty quickly once August 1981 happened. Our house in Broken Arrow, OK, had cable TV, which I loved. And with that cable TV, I was able to watch so many movies that became a mainstay of my youth, like "Young Frankenstein," "Better Off Dead," "Gotcha!," "Zapped," "Revenge of the Nerds," etc. It was also how I was able to watch the first day of MTV.
"Video Killed the Radio Star." WOW. I didn't realize when I saw this crazy new sound and format for the first time, that it would immerse me even more deeply into music. The Buggles were Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes. That didn't mean anything to me in August 1981. They'd join the band Yes. Geoff would branch out with the supergroup Asia, and Trevor would become one of the best producers for the next several decades with artists like ABC, the Pet Shop Boys, Paul McCartney, Rod Stewart, Robbie Williams, Seal, Clannad and tons more. He's brilliant.
MTV played everything in the early days. New Wave, Pop, Metal, Pop Country, Techno, R&B, etc. The PERFECT incubation for young me. It's why, to this day, I love just about every style (although I still can''t find myself being interested in Reggae). The Urban Cowboy era quickly died after MTV broke. I vividly remember sitting in my mom's car (there are several situations like this as a kid) while she was in a Shepler's Western Wear store (or some kind of Western Wear store) in Tulsa getting something for her and my dad to go out "Honkytonking", when "Jessie's Girl" from Rick Springfield came on the radio. I'd soon see the video for it on MTV.
When you're a kid in 3rd and 4th grade, in 1981-1982, the roller skating rink was the place to be. Sure, when I'm home alone, MTV was on. But at the skating rink, or the pizza parlor, you were exposed to more of the radio favorites of the day. "Love on the Rocks" from Neil Diamond, "Bette Davis Eyes" from Kim Carnes, Air Supply, Styx, Ronnie Milsap, Hall & Oates, Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, etc. There was a direct correlation between the rise of MTV and the fall of Urban Cowboy, though. You saw less and less Kenny Rogers, Dolly Parton, Ronnie Milsap, Anne Murray, etc., and more of the Rick Springfield, Styx, REO Speedwagon, etc.
It was crazy, the progression. When I think of how the styles changed from 1978-1982, my mind is blown. And I was loving it all. From the ashes of punk, you had New Wave, Ska and Post-Punk, like Madness, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Modern English, XTC, Psychedelic Furs, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, The Cure, etc., to American rock transitioning into the video world, like Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, John Mellencamp, Journey, REO Speedwagon, J. Geils, The Cars, Eddie Money, etc. MTV played everything BUT the Urban Cowboy country pop. Others couldn't make the transition from radio and died as a result. And just like that, an improvement in technology wiped out a generation of music and bore a new one. People stopped buying records and 8-tracks, and had moved exclusively to cassettes.
In 1981, I was buying LPs of Bee Gees, Andy Gibb and Captain & Tennille. By mid-1982, I had moved to Ft. Lauderdale after a year in Tulsa and was exploring a mountain of new music, buying nothing really. Just listening to the changing landscape on video and radio, really getting into The Pretenders, The Motels, Pat Benatar, The Cars, early Def Leppard, Journey, etc. That's how fast things were changing.
Merely a year later, in mid-1983, I was crossing the country, moving from Ft. Lauderdale/Sunrise, FL to Los Angeles/Thousand Oaks, CA. I was buying cassettes, relegating the record player I'd so desperately wanted 4 years prior, to the corner of the room. Closed up and unused. Thousand Oaks was the city I lived in where the era of hanging out at the mall had begun. The Oaks Mall was my main haunt, and there were all kinds of music stores, music merch stores, arcades, food courts, etc. One could stay there all day! And many weekends, I did. In LA, and specifically my age and grade in school, what was "cool" came quick and furiously. Within a year, from mid-1983 to mid-1984, I had purchased or been gifted Quiet Riot's "Metal Health," Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil," multiple Duran Duran tapes, Iron Maiden's "Piece of Mind," Def Leppard's "High & Dry" and "Pyromania," Journey's "Escape" and "Frontiers." Such a dramatic change in styles, aggression. The orchestral, R&B-centric funk/disco, or acoustic/electric melodies of Laurel Canyon were long gone. It was all about synths, techno beats, distortion, and flashy outfits. Because of video domination, the look was as important as the sound.
And this is barely 4 years into the decade. It's difficult to properly explain the difference those 4 short years made to the entire industry. And that was just the popular stuff. There was a tsunami of underground stuff coming. Whether it was punk like Black Flag or The Misfits, budding thrash metal, like Metallica and Anthrax, pure pop/R&B like Madonna, Culture Club, and Prince, upcoming LA metal bands, like Ratt, Stryper, and WASP; to alternative bands like The B-52s, REM, Violent Femmes, The Talking Heads, and The Replacements. Night and day from half a decade earlier.
The complete culmination of pop, style, attitude, videos, albums, movies, etc. came in 1984 with Prince's "Purple Rain" and in 1985 with Madonna's "Desperately Seeking Susan." All of the yuppie excesses of the 1980s, the desire for riches and fame, were all at peak form by 1985. I was listening to it all, watching it all. I was a kid, so I was influenced like every kid my age, by what was "popular." That attitude in me changed in 1987, but I'm getting ahead of myself. I was wrapping up junior high at this point, and about to enter high school. I was still deeply into music, but also trying to weed through who I really liked compared to what was popular. Enter, my aunt Carol and uncle Raymond.
Like the influence my uncle Lloyd's music in the car we borrowed from him in Newellton in the late 1970s, I loved talking music with my aunt Carol and uncle Raymond. They were, of course, older than I was, but introduced me to a deeper understanding of Pink Floyd and early Whitesnake. Through them, I started thinking of music again like I had in the 70s, not just a reflection of what was popular amongst my peers. They both had renewed my view into the meaning behind lyrics and put me back in touch with what made me LISTEN to music. I entered high school reading music periodicals and learning about producers, like George Martin, Phil Spector, Quincy Jones, Alan Parsons, and Trevor Horn. I looked into why albums from Prince and Madonna were consistently popular and full of great songs. I learned about Prince producing all of his own stuff and Madonna's long relationship with Stephen Bray and Patrick Leonard. In fact, I conclude that Madonna has done very little worth listening to since "Like a Prayer" because she started working with Dallas Austin, Shep Pettibone (although I love "Vogue") and other "DJ"-driven production rather than focusing on making hit pop music.
This renewed view into music, and being friends with other like-minded music lovers, like Charles Boyett and Scott Greer, made it easy to hear music the way I always should have.
By 1986, MTV had solidified itself as THE source for new music. There was no YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, SiriusXM, etc. Just radio and MTV. But radio was just playing what was popular on MTV, and MTV had more narrowly focused their core rotation and then had specialty shows, like 120 Minutes for more alternative selections. Unfortunately, that meant those bands weren't being played regularly anymore. MTV wasn't taking a lot of chances and throwing stuff against the wall to see what stuck. In fact, they'd even begun a second station, VH-1, in 1985 to start running the more soft rock and adult contemporary music, relegating MTV to truly image-conscious popular music. They'd lost their edge. As a result, 1986 music was pretty generic and dull.
To top it off, Compact Discs (CDs) began to really start making their way into retail options for music around 1986, into 1987. For Christmas in 1987, my dad had purchased me a big wood-rack home stereo system. My mom had purchased me a CD player that I could hook up to it. I was awaiting the release of Def Leppard's "Hysteria" for my first CD (August 1987), but lost my patience and bought Great White's "Once Bitten" CD as my first (June 1987). Guns N Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" came out in July 1987, and I'd read about how great it was going to be in Circus Magazine for about a year prior. I piggy backed on Charles buying the vinyl version first, then soon bought the CD, followed quickly by Def Leppard's "Hysteria" and Whitesnake's self-titled 1987 CD. All of these albums fed my desire to listen deeply to what made them unique and qualitative. The quality of the sound coming from CDs were unlike anything I'd ever heard, especially cassettes. I was "hearing" albums for the first time ever.
I'd noticed over the years that Def Leppard had a specific sound that I thoroughly enjoyed, prior to "Hysteria." I'd picked up on during "Pyromania," but heard it even more prominently during "High & Dry." hard rock, but groove-driven, primarily by the bass. And twin guitars bending the same notes, but at different octaves, in syncopation. While it wasn't ground-breaking stuff, it made for taking a harder sound and commercializing it for radio. This is something I found fascinating because Quiet Riot had done anthem-like Slade covers and achieved the same thing, but rarely got their own stuff to have the same reaction. Same with Motley Crue. While they had underground fame that had bubbled up to the surface with their harder stuff, when they tried to do something like "Too Young to Fall in Love," it pleased their fans and MTV, but it never got past #90 on Billboard's Top 100. And absolutely nowhere near the Top 40.
Conversely, "Photograph" and "Rock of Ages" found the same success among hard rock fans and MTV, but crossed over, achieving #12 and #16 on the Top 40, respectively. Why? At first, I was thinking, "Well...maybe Motley was just too heavy." But...while "Hysteria" achieved a much more polished, radio-friendly sound for Def Leppard, "Pyromania" was every bit as heavy as "Shout at the Devil." In fact, when Motley's "Theatre of Pain" came out and they had the very radio-friendly "Home Sweet Home," while it achieved the same love among rock fans and MTV, it still sat in limbo at #89 in the Top 100.
Now, of course, I wasn't aware of the impact of A&R people at the time, which absolutely could have played a part. However, I was deep into my study of production by this point and looked deeper into Mutt Lange, which wasn't easy considering the lack of Internet. It took going to local drug stores and such to read Circus magazine, Metal Edge, RIP, etc. to learn as much as I could. And I did.
I heard the same note-bending against the drive of the bass on AC/DC's "Back in Black" and "Highway to Hell" albums. But these were different bands?? AC/DC was Australian. Def Leppard was British. Nothing before "Highway to Hell" and nothing after "For Those About to Rock" in AC/DC's catalog had those note bends. Angus' guitar was more chord-driven before that. And more riff driven since. Those three albums had a different sound, while still being AC/DC-enough. Sure enough, Mutt produced them.
What else had Mutt produced? Wait..."Heartbeat City" from The Cars? Well, aside from it being the most popular Cars album, which matches Mutt's propensity for making hit albums, WHY??? It sounded nothing guitar-wise like Def Leppard or AC/DC. Did he KNOW somebody? Why did he have the Midas touch??? The songs were still written by Ric, so true Cars songs. But...hmm...those electronic drum machine triggers. Those layered background vocals. The Cars have never done that, and I hear those same drum triggers on Def Leppard's "Coming Under Fire" and "Billy's Got a Gun" on Pyromania (and a million times on "Hysteria"), as well as the vocals. But why do those help make a song more popular??
Then I read somewhere that Mutt produced "Do You Believe in Love?" from Huey Lewis and the News. A more un-Def Leppard or AC/DC like song there could not be. Then it hit me. It's the melody, the harmonies, the structure of the song, combined with the polished sound elements that made the songs more radio friendly. THAT IS WHAT A PRODUCER DOES! The producer takes the artist(s) sound and planned theme for how they want to write and record a new album and, using proven techniques, skills, equipment and guidance, steers their sound into a unified thematic sound based on the producer's vision of how to get the best (hopefully) out of the artist(s).
I became. completely obsessed with this, as well other magical components like mixing, engineering, etc. By the time I got into radio at 17 (actually ON my 18th birthday in 1990), I had access to, and spent an insane amount of time, IN the studio. Learning. Playing. But more on that in the 1990s.
This brings me to 1987, which I mentioned earlier had me at a different place as a consumer of music. The combination of more qualitative media, like CDs, more understanding of how albums are constructed, like how I mentioned above with Mutt, and a bit more maturity, I simply started hearing albums differently. And considering what a phenomenal year 1987 was in the making of seminal albums, which hadn't been duplicated until 1991, and then never again, the timing for how I was listening to music, and the source material given to me to study, couldn't have been more perfect.
Instead of simply buying/listening to damn near everything that came out from specific genres I was enjoying, while listening took place via the nearly released Headbanger's Ball, as well as 120 Minutes, both of which encapsulated my taste at the time, I only purchased CDs of albums I'd already listened to and studied. Well, and liked. One will notice that the albums I loved during this year are essentially albums I still listen to today. My study and casual enjoyment of them has never waned. Conversely, bands I was listening to before this change in me, ones that didn't meet my interest in its structure, production, lyrical content, etc., became bands I rarely, if ever, listened to again. Bands like Poison are a great example. I listened to quite a bit of "Look What the Cat Dragged In" in 1986. By this change in me in 1987, I rarely, if ever, listened to Poison again. I realized how untalented, lyrically and musically, that band really was. The sheer quality of music that came out in 1987 was a big help in taking that leap.
Guns N Roses, of course, made the biggest impact in 1987's class. They took the simplistic, pretty-boy nonsense of bands like Poison, Kik Tracee, Tigertailz, etc., etc., etc. and made everyone realize you could make quality blues-based, riff-based, non chord-driven pure rock albums (complete with cursing) and look like complete heroin-esque dog shit. MTV would still play you and you can crossover. Heavier than anything Motley Crue had done, GnR hit #1 with "Sweet Child of Mine" and #7 with "Welcome to the Jungle." This was an anomaly and, frankly, I don't even want to count them here because they were ahead of their time.
As crappy as 1986 was, 1987 was NOT. Here are some of them:
- U2 - "The Joshua Tree"
- Heart - "Bad Animals"
- Whitesnake - "Whitesnake"
- George Michael - "Faith"
- Prince - "Sign O' the Times"
- Fleetwood Mac - "Tango in the Night"
- Michael Jackson - "Bad"
- Bruce Springsteen - "Tunnel of Love"
- Lou Gramm - "Ready or Not"
- Guns N Roses - "Appetite for Destruction"
- Aerosmith - "Permanent Vacation"
- Whitney Houston - "Whitney"
- Def Leppard - "Hysteria"
- The Smiths - "Strangeways Here We Come"
- The Smiths - "Louder Than Bombs"
- Depeche Mode - "Music for the Masses"
- REM - "Document"
- INXS - "Kick"
- The Cure - "Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me"
- Dokken - "Back for the Attack"
- The Cult - "Electric"
- Pet Shop Boys - "Actually"
- Carly Simon - "Coming Around Again"
- Level 42 - "Running in the Family"
- Prince - "Sign O' the Times"
- Prince - "Lovesexy"
- The Smiths - "Louder Than Bombs"
- Guns N Roses - "Appetite for Destruction"
- Blue Murder - "Blue Murder"
- Whitesnake - "Whitesnake"
- Mary My Hope - "Museum"
- Jane's Addiction - "Nothing's Shocking"
- The Pretenders - "The Pretenders"
- Def Leppard - "Pyromania"
- Madonna - "Like a Prayer"
- Pixies - "Doolittle"
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