Some like it snot
So Andrea and Michele are working the bad-songs-list mojo, and I left this in Andrea’s comments, and on reflection I thought I’d post it here too. I said it, I believe it, that settles it:
The only decent thing to come out of the 70s was Ritchie Blackmore, and where the hell is he now, huh? And now that I think of it, it was Blackmore that unleashed David Coverdale on an unsuspecting world, and on an unsuspecting Tawny Kitaene, too. This might explain where he’s been: in hiding, fearful of somehow being forced to atone for his heinous crime. Bastard.
But you know, IMHO, the 80s were just as bad, if not worse. Hey guys, just because the soundtrack to your high-school-days backseat groping with little Heather Legwarmers or Crystal Cameltoe down the street was Flock of Seagulls and Duran Duran doesn’t mean they were any good, you know. And a fistful of Black Flag in your left hand will never be enough to make up for the A-Ha! splooge dribbling between the skinned knuckles of your right.
Feel free to discuss bad 80′s music all you like in the comments. I promise I won’t look, even to point and laugh. God, what a musical wasteland that decade was. Understand that I’m talking about the charts and not the underground here. Yes, Em, I’m talking to you. And yes, SLF rocks.
Update! I forgot to mention that the 70s also produced Kiss and AC/DC, both of whom I like, for which Emily long ago threatened to beat me about the head and shoulders with a length of rebar. But she’s wrong on that, which is rare.
- Entries
"Summer of '69" - Bryan Adams
"Somebody's Baby" -- Jackson Browne
Anything by The Cars
Several things by David Bowie
Most things by John Cougar
Virtually everything by Dire Straits, especially "Sultans of Swing," "Walk of Life," and "Romeo & Juliet".
A couple of Duran Duran songs, probably, but at least "Rio."
The ZZ Top oeuvre.
Springstein.
Up next - a long article from me on the perfect guitar tone, if I can ever get it finished.
Actually, though, I think "Money For Nothing" supports your case more than mine. I think it's by far Dire Straits worst popular song, and the reason is that that song, more than anything else they did, screams "Eighties".
What he said.
'80s music is fun when Richard Blade plays hours of it every Saturday night. It's fun when you hear it at a wedding reception. But it's not gonna end up in my CD collection. That's reserved for real musicians like Tom Petty, Cowboy Junkies, Simon & Garfunkel, Jeff Buckley and the soundtrack to weekend trips to the desert with my dad: John Prine, Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles.
Wait. I lied. There's a Jesus Jones CD in the collection. Woops.
In other words, I'm willing to spot you Bloodrock, Bobby Sherman, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock if you'll admit that Men Without Hats sucked.
If I say that MWH sucked, then... then... I lose all claim to teenage coolness!
Poof! There it went.
Psst... maybe I was *trying* to make your point for you.
I remember Time magazine touting Duran Duran as the next Beatles. Perhaps my memory's faulty. Bueller? Bueller?
And in defense of Duran Duran, while hardly musical geniuses, they knew how to write a peppy pop song that would make coeds feel like dancing and drinking and shedding their undergarments.
Eighties fashion and music would win a suck fight with a vacuum cleaner - small pockets of quality notwithstanding. I'll leave you with Queen, Van Halen, and Heart to beat me up for.
Oh, and the Misfits, who suck in a completely different way than all the rest of the 70s crap.
And Sig, may we assume from your statement re Misfits that you are not now, nor have you ever been, a member of the Fiend Club? A bud of mine in NYC once described Glenn Danzig as "the fat Elvis after six months of pumping iron," which I thought was hilarious.
I want to ride my bike...
What year did it come from? 1985.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/21/music.worst.songs.ap/index.html
Bwahahah! I hated that song.
The worst thing? Anything Billy Joel did
Oh, Dave Mustaine is prig.
Iron Maiden rules - always has, always will, even Dickinson' solo stuff.
Springsteen is a prig.
I belonged to the Bobby Sherman fan club back in the day.
Cheesy new wave was good. Still is.
Hair metal sucked. Still does.
Now, I'm going to listen to Danzig 4. On repeat. All day.
I happen to love Whitesnake in all its guises, Coverdale has one of the best voices in hard rock. He still does for that matter. Bruce Dickinson is pretty damn amazing as well, partly due to his 3 octave vocal range.
Danzig's first album was very good metal. With the exception of 4 the band never really got close.
I am getting bloody sick of indie whingers slagging off hard rock from 80s. Just because they were the miserable smelly wankers who never got laid they have a grudge against the party-hearty hard rockers. I mean even the bloody hard-core goths got laid more than the miserable indie oiks. Blender magazine is full of indie arseholes.
Yes the 80s produce some total bollocks like Poison, most of Ratt's stuff etc. But there was some damn good rock music there even on the radio.
80s hair-rock or Disco? Hrm, which was better and straighter? I rest my case.
Now that we are comparing music...how about we examine some of the utter bilge that came out of the 60s. You know the crap that only works if you are on acid or stoned off your gord?
I personally think one of Dire Straits' better tunes is Telegraph Road, but I have a strong preference for moody stuff. As a body of work, their first album was the best. Clean, and none of that cheesy pop-music sounding crap.
Disclaimer: I really like (and still own) some of the Finn brothers' earlier works. Probably my favorite-band-that-you-never-hear-on-the-radio is The Rave-Ups.
And are there any REM fans here? Their best stuff was done pre-1990--downhill fast after that (with the notable exception of Automatic For the People).
Otoh, I fully agree with all the Springsteen bashing. Yech. Never liked him, never will.
Hm...I also wrote about Springsteen.
/end gratuitous self linking. Because you don't want me to point to my Danzig mp3s.
Ok. Do you have pictures?
I saw U2 in Dallas, in 1985, and was so close to the stage that the PA stacks were actually behind me. Consequently, a great deal of the sound that hit us was from stage monitors. Yeah, U2 is one of my faves...if we're in the '80s.
Ok, don't have those, but somewhere in my box o' photos is a picture of me with Peter Steele of Type O Negative. He's like Danzig without a heart.
I have an autograph of Robert Plant; does that count for cool points? He was at The Ritz in Dallas, all by himself, and my sibs and I stumbled upon him. This was 1983, and he looked mighty...weathered; not going to speculate why. Unfortunately, us bestowing our attention on him clued in the up-until-then clueless, and he was quickly jellyrolled by a suddenly adoring public.
And to think I just listened to those Hillbilly Hellcats downloads you provided and you go and diss my decade? There was some good music from the 80s, though the 70s were better. My taste straddles those decades and includes everything from Rush to AC/DC to Boston to Chicago to Kansas to Journey to Van Halen to Aerosmith to Queensryche. In fact, I mark the end of the 80s / beginning of the 90s with Queensryche's Empire. That's the last time I listened to the radio. It died after that.
My favorite albums, order subject to change at a whim:
1. Layla and other Assorted Love Songs -- Derek & The Dominos
2. From The Cradle -- Eric Clapton
3. Hotel California -- The Eagles
4. Boston -- Boston
5. Leftoverture -- Kansas
6. Back In Black -- AC/DC (I love all of their work with Bon Scott, but this album is the best total)
7. Moving Pictures -- Rush (Again, I love all of their work, period)
8. Van Halen -- Van Halen
I like so much music I can't even categorize myself. I love jazz -- The Jeff Lorber Fusion Band has a great album called Wizard Island and Stanley Clark is the best bassist ever (try School Days). I like some Iron Maiden -- The Trooper is my favorite -- and even some Black Sabbath -- Neon Knights with Dio as the lead.
I could go on for ages. I have over 700 CDs. Actually, it's probably past 800 now.
Hell, I forgot the Doobie Brothers. I'll never be able to list it all!!
Selling the 80's short is like selling the 70's short. Sure, the 70's gave us the Captain & Tenille and Air Supply (and Styx, and the Starland Vocal Band...), but we also got Zeppelin and Steely Dan.
The 80's may have given us more crap than we can unload on a second-hand store, but we also got U2 (everything up to & including Joshua Tree), REM (everything up to and including Lifes Rich Pageant)... London Calling, and Combat Rock... Rum, Sodomy and the Lash... Guitar Town... and is there a more under-approeciated album from the 80's than Fisherman's Blues?
Theodore Sturgeon, 90%, crud. In response to a belligerent type who told him that 90% of science fiction was crud (these were the pulp days), Sturgeon replied that 90% of everything was crud. This is often referred to as Sturgeon's law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Sturgeon
Just so you know.
If you don't have Journey to Love, go buy it right now. Some of Clarke's best work, IMO.