80s Covers Band

[stewblack]

I just completed the 1981 list, once again only drawn from UK charted singles. Already it is easy to see the crap production creeping in, some bands reaching their twilight others at a peak from which they would collapse never to recover. 

I still managed a good long list but it was harder picking over the dross to unearth the nuggets. 

Maybe '83 will see some improvement, but I suspect after '84 it will be extraordinarily slim pickings for my imaginary covers band. 

Popular music has always followed these patterns. Brief spikes when even the top 20 might contain a half dozen decent tunes, followed by long years of drought. 

I suppose there is a reaction from musicians to the dull, conformity of the times, so they shake things up. Then the establishment get hold of what they're doing and gradually wring the life from it in pursuit of sales. Then musicians rebel and the whole thing repeats. 

[dave_bass5]

On 21/06/2020 at 16:19, Lozz196 said:

I’d love to see a band do that 1980 list.

Seeing as ive just brought two keyboards stacked full of 80’s sounds I NEED a band that plays them lol.

I love 80’s music, but not really the pop/solo artist stuff with the backing tracks. TOTP stuff.

There was so much more to the 80’s than the New Romantic movement and SAW stuff. And of course we had the NWOBHM.

[dave_bass5]

14 minutes ago, stewblack said:

I just completed the 1981 list, once again only drawn from UK charted singles. Already it is easy to see the crap production creeping in,  

The production did its job, so it cant be crap 🤔

😂

[stewblack]

15 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

The production did its job, so it cant be crap 🤔

😂

OK, so take out out the word crap and use bland, homogeneous, thin, lifeless, over produced, and gutless. 

Edited June 26, 2020 by stewblack

[dave_bass5]

10 minutes ago, stewblack said:

OK, so take out out the word crap and use bland, homogeneous, thin, lifeless, over produced, and gutless. 

Did the job though 😉

[Rich]

16 minutes ago, stewblack said:

I just completed the 1981 list, once again only drawn from UK charted singles. Already it is easy to see the crap production creeping in, some bands reaching their twilight others at a peak from which they would collapse never to recover. 

I still managed a good long list but it was harder picking over the dross to unearth the nuggets. 

Maybe '83 will see some improvement, but I suspect after '84 it will be extraordinarily slim pickings for my imaginary covers band. 

Popular music has always followed these patterns. Brief spikes when even the top 20 might contain a half dozen decent tunes, followed by long years of drought. 

I suppose there is a reaction from musicians to the dull, conformity of the times, so they shake things up. Then the establishment get hold of what they're doing and gradually wring the life from it in pursuit of sales. Then musicians rebel and the whole thing repeats. 

It's quite fun isn't it, this imaginary setlist stuff?  I've started compiling one for that 80s indieguitarrocktypestuff band I never formed. There's some bloody good stuff out there!

[Rich]

9 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Did the job though 😉

In terms of getting you from A to B, a Trabant does the job. Doesn't mean it isn't horrible, uncomfortable, smoky and gutless though.   

[chris_b]

11 minutes ago, stewblack said:

OK, so take out out the word crap and use bland, homogeneous, thin, lifeless, over produced, and gutless. 

If someone sets out to write and perform a song intending for it to be a hit and it becomes a hit, then IMO that is a job done well.

I don't like a lot of music but I know that my opinion doesn't make it crap.

[dave_bass5]

2 minutes ago, Rich said:

In terms of getting you from A to B, a Trabant does the job. Doesn't mean it isn't horrible, uncomfortable, smoky and gutless though.   

True, but as i said, it still did the job. Im not sticking up for the type of production, i haven't commented on it as such, just that it was very popular for a good few years.

Now i realise those on here look down on what the general public like, as 'we' know better (a room full of people dancing cant be a good thing can it lol), but when you produce something that the masses like, i dont think its hard to say you got it right, even if others dont like it. That is the only point i have to make.

 

[police squad]

5 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

True, but as i said, it still did the job. Im not sticking up for the type of production, i haven't commented on it as such, just that it was very popular for a good few years.

Now i realise those on here look down on what the general public like, as 'we' know better (a room full of people dancing cant be a good thing can it lol), but when you produce something that the masses like, i dont think its hard to say you got it right, even if others dont like it. That is the only point i have to make.

 

yep I'm with you on that

[Dad3353]

33 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

... just that it was very popular for a good few years...

Hmm... Like German politics in the '30s, maybe..? Sometimes, just sometimes, 'popular' isn't 'good'. 

[stewblack]

There's a terrible right wing historian of popular culture who tried to argue that Cliff Richard was more significant and worthy of the attention of posterity than the Sex Pistols. Because he'd sold more records. 

I quietly closed the book and left him to it. 

[stewblack]

4 hours ago, Rich said:

It's quite fun isn't it, this imaginary setlist stuff?  I've started compiling one for that 80s indieguitarrocktypestuff band I never formed. There's some bloody good stuff out there!

Yeah! That's the spirit. You gonna share your list? 

[Beedster]

On 21/06/2020 at 14:20, ezbass said:

.... and the 90s is where, for the most part, music went to die....

Funny how my immediate response was to agree. But sitting with the family having a BBQ this evening, with phone playing random tunes, I realised that with Nirvana (Teen Spirit), Chilis (Under the Bridge, Californication), Prodigy (Firestarter, Breathe), as well as loads by Pearl Jam, Oasis (I know....), Lenny Kravitz, Faith No More, Supergrass, it perhaps wasn't such a bad decade, especially when you also factor in the great hip hop that was coming from Dr Dre etc?

[Maude]

59 minutes ago, Beedster said:

Funny how my immediate response was to agree. But sitting with the family having a BBQ this evening, with phone playing random tunes, I realised that with Nirvana (Teen Spirit), Chilis (Under the Bridge, Californication), Prodigy (Firestarter, Breathe), as well as loads by Pearl Jam, Oasis (I know....), Lenny Kravitz, Faith No More, Supergrass, it perhaps wasn't such a bad decade, especially when you also factor in the great hip hop that was coming from Dr Dre etc?

Phew, for a minute there I thought you forgot about Dre! 🙄😁

[dave_bass5]

5 hours ago, Dad3353 said:

Hmm... Like German politics in the '30s, maybe..? Sometimes, just sometimes, 'popular' isn't 'good'. 

No, nothing like this. We, or at least I, am talking about music production, what the heck has German politics got to do with it? 

Thats a ridiculous argument. Might as well say using loads of reverb and chorus is the same as Hilter invading Europe.  Get a grip. 

 

Edited June 26, 2020 by dave_bass5

[Beedster]

1 minute ago, dave_bass5 said:

Thats a ridiculous argument. Might as well say using loads of reverb and chorus is the same as Hilter invading Europe. 

 

Seems reasonable 

[Dad3353]

5 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

No, nothing like this...

S'nothing to do with politics, nor '80s music, but it is to do with the notion, in whatever sphere, that 'popular' means 'it must be good'. I maintain that this ain't necessarily so, and used this as a striking example, s'all. I could have mentioned public hangings, bear-bating or tauromachy; maybe I should have. 
If it causes offense, strike it from public view; the notion remains valid, in my view. 

[Ricky 4000]

I read somewhere that somebody smart once said that all analogies are faulty. 

[stewblack]

The 90s saw the cycle grind around again. I clearly remember a mate running up to me, dragging me back to his place so he could play me the first Oasis album. 

It may be fashionable among the sneering set to denigrate them now , but when they landed it was so refreshing. 

As my friend put it that day, people are making pop music with guitars again, they actually sound like a band! 

[Dad3353]

1 hour ago, Ricky 4000 said:

I read somewhere that somebody smart once said that all analogies are faulty. 

Yes, it was me (and less of the 'smart', if you will..!  ...).

[Maude]

10 minutes ago, stewblack said:

The 90s saw the cycle grind around again. I clearly remember a mate running up to me, dragging me back to his place so he could play me the first Oasis album. 

It may be fashionable among the sneering set to denigrate them now , but when they landed it was so refreshing. 

As my friend put it that day, people are making pop music with guitars again, they actually sound like a band! 

Funnily enough we went out in the kayak today and paddled up the creek off the River Fowey to Sawmills Studio where that album was recorded, it's only accessible by boat, a very long woodland footpath or a quick run down the railway line from the nearby village of Golant, where after a couple too many in the village pub, a member of Supergrass (can't remember which one) slipped and cracked his head open on said railway line. The joys of recording in Cornwall. 

[Beedster]

9 hours ago, stewblack said:

The 90s saw the cycle grind around again. I clearly remember a mate running up to me, dragging me back to his place so he could play me the first Oasis album. 

It may be fashionable among the sneering set to denigrate them now , but when they landed it was so refreshing. 

As my friend put it that day, people are making pop music with guitars again, they actually sound like a band! 

Totally agree, although 'grind' sounds a bit negative! I remember the 90's as a decade of huge energy in music, of live bands playing live (I saw a few in the 80's who certainly weren't), and of bands pushing boundaries, as opposed to extending cliches (80's hair metal being the best example; where did the genre end and the parody begin?). I was living in LA in the early 90's, albums such as BSSM, Nevermind, Shake Your Money Maker seemed to herald a revival of all that I had seen as important in music, but which IMO HAD been largely lacking in the 80's. There was some dross in the 90's for sure, but that's true of each decade, but IMO the high points of the 90's were as high as any other decade, something not true of the 80's by a long shot  

[Lozz196]

10 hours ago, stewblack said:

The 90s saw the cycle grind around again. I clearly remember a mate running up to me, dragging me back to his place so he could play me the first Oasis album. 

It may be fashionable among the sneering set to denigrate them now , but when they landed it was so refreshing. 

As my friend put it that day, people are making pop music with guitars again, they actually sound like a band! 

Agree, it was refreshing to see new bands made up of scruffy kids with guitars again. As music seems to repeat on cycles like this I wonder how long it will be before another punk/Brit a Pop type genre comes along, certainly needs it now imo.

[Rich]

1 hour ago, Beedster said:

There was some dross in the 90's for sure, but that's true of each decade, but IMO the high points of the 90's were as high as any other decade, something not true of the 80's by a long shot  

Funny how subjective it all is, innit? For me it's vice versa -- the highs of the 80s were very high, whereas by and large I hated much of the music of the 90s.