80s shite!

[formigo]

Gracious me! But I've been playing a lot of The Cure and New Order in my DJ sets recently.

In fact I'm even known to drop "Under Pressure" by Queen from time to time.

I think a little bit of this kind of 80s shite in a mix is kinda dope.

Discuss!

[Nick Cope]

Yeuch.

[Mr_Hopkinson]

Have you heard DJ Spinbad's Rock The Casbah '80's Megamix ?

DJ Yoda certainly has

     

[jammin]

Quote[/b] (formigo @ 12 July 2003,06:35)]Gracious me! But I've been playing a lot of The Cure and New Order in my DJ sets recently.

In fact I'm even known to drop "Under Pressure" by Queen from time to time.

I think a little bit of this kind of 80s shite in a mix is kinda dope.

Discuss!

LEAVE IT

[formigo]

Quote[/b] (Mr_Hopkinson @ 12 July 2003,11:30)]Have you heard DJ Spinbad's Rock The Casbah '80's Megamix ?

DJ Yoda certainly has

     

No, I've never heard that megamix but I have heard of it, and even ripped it off to a greater or lesser extent without ever having heard it.

You see it was the inspiration for a mix I did at an 80s party (is any party theme more tragically played out? not my idea y'unnerstan) - lots of trashy 80s songs mixed very quickly with scratching, beat-matching etc. However it seems that the many hours of preparation caused some sort of mutation in my DNA raising my tolerance for 80s music to levels that may be considered super-human or sub-human depending on your perspective.

Anyway, judging from the response from the floor it's up to me to congratulate myself for my open-mindedness.

Hotness:

[ladyboygrimsby]

I'd be interested to know - from those that think the 80s are indeed shite - what it is that makes it shite? Anyone want to give their view on why it's crap?

[Belson]

Quote[/b] (ladyboygrimsby @ 14 July 2003,08:51)]I'd be interested to know - from those that think the 80s are indeed shite - what it is that makes it shite? Anyone want to give their view on why it's crap?

Probably the same thing that is going to make the noughties crap, if the charts keep going on the way they are.

There was undeniably some great music in the 80's - but have a squint at what made the charts week in week out, and your percentage of quality against chart moderated big wigs-gotta-getta-hit S.A.W. dirge is considerably low....to the general buying public, at any rate.

The NOW documents are obviously good reference points. As we all know, they only categorise the Pop music of our times - music that the music company executives have decided you are going to listen to when you switch on every commercial radio station - 90% of which I generally find horrifically formulaic for my tastes.

Gimme a dose of Kraftwerk, Jesus & Mary Chain, Bauhaus, Bowie, Eno etc etc any day of the week.

The quality was there, just it's appeal was 'slightly more selective'......and probably intentionally so.

[Matt Hero]

Quote[/b] (Belson @ 14 July 2003,09:16)]The quality was there, just it's appeal was 'slightly more selective'......and probably intentionally so.

I think that this probably exists in *every* decade, look at the charts during the 1970's and I'm sure the same things exists.

I'd always but the dislike of the 80's down to purely down to people of.... erm 'my generation' (?) being slightly misenthropic about the music that they grew up with.

The difference now is that it is becoming far enough in the past to be seen 'misty eyed' through reminiscence. Hence the general reappraisal of some of the predominant sounds of the time.

[emperor tomato ketchup]

10 years ago there was pretty low tolerance for the "pop crap" from the 70's. Even allowing for Denim or the "Alvin Lives In Leeds" comp.

Now you have cherry Redputting out lovingly Compiled reissues of Showaddywaddy and Bob Stanley doing a Nuggets type job in "Velvet Tinmine". 80's revivalism will be around for another while yet but its already producing plenty of crap - I saw Ladytron yesterday, they've got the image and the sound but no memorable tunes. A big mistake.

[wayne]

Matt may be right re: the generational thing: maybe older/younger folks than myself can separate the music from its context, but as someone who left school in 1981, into the worst recession since the 1930s, too much of that 80s 'party' stuff sounds like a sick joke even now...so to that degree it's definitely personal.

That said, I also think that if you separate out the very early 80s (where new wave hung over from the late 70s) & the post '88 sounds (where the dance stuff kicked into the mainstream) the 'high' 80s was pretty much a desert: even the better stuff hasn't aged well, which I put down to the kinds of production used - all that metallic/hollow DX7 & wafer thin soft synth/drum machine stuff...

Yes, there was some talent around, and I'm happy to give props to truly great stuff like The Triffids (even if everything but the 'woolshed' record is hamstrung by bad 80s production), Eric B & Rakin, 'Licensed To Ill', Run DMC and the rest. Compared to every other decade, though, the 80s is a bloody thin haul, is it not? Yes, the 70s had crap charts (lest we forget the Wombles, Lynsey de Paul, etc) and yes, at the height of Psychedelia & early funk Ken Dodd was bagging the number ones in the UK, but the crap just went so much deeper in the 80s, & even the good stuff ain't aged too well:

Still, my tolerance increases as my girlfriend canes her Madonna 'Imaculate Collection', her Grace Jones rekkids & her 'Electro Dance' comps, (not to mention that, OK, Duran Duran's 'Planet Earth' & 'Girls On Film' sound good these days, too) & I am starting to feel the recent likes of Ladytron (no memorable choons? '604' is full of 'em&#33/Stereo Total/Black Box Recorder, so who knows how that might lead back to the hard stuff...

But it still comes with Thatcher/Reagan associations, so there's a hell of an obstacle there to it gaining my full acceptance, let alone love...

[emperor tomato ketchup]

Ladytron may not come across well live. i've a friend who raved about the album but walked out of them at Sonar - and he's generally very open minded and enthusiastic.

[Hadrian Elephant]

At the end of the day Formigo, my view is if you like it, buy it and play it.

Music is always going to be subjective.
I myself have a great love of 80's soft rock such as Toto,
Reo Speedwagon and Foreigner, which I'm sure most of you (all?) will think is the biggest pile of shit going.

However as one of my best mates at the time was into this and older stuff like Boston & Journey and I was
an avid viewer of Jonathan King's 'Entertainment USA' (though my memories are now tarnished by the thought of the 'entertainment' Jonathan went looking for after filming) which was certain to feature something like 'Centerfold' by the J.Geils Band every episode, I got into it.

I'm also partial to a bit of the Cure, Bauhaus etc as my mate was a Goth - who, funnily enough also bought lots of early UK released house stuff on Kool Kat and Jack Trax in 86/87

I've long since stopped worrying about justifying liking stuff like the above - lifes too short mate!

Now, where's my Greatest Hits Of Chicago LP gone?....

[jammin]

Quote[/b] (Hadrian Elephant @ 14 July 2003,22:12)]At the end of the day Formigo, my view is if you like it, buy it and play it.

Music is always going to be subjective.
I myself have a great love of 80's soft rock such as Toto,
Reo Speedwagon and Foreigner, which I'm sure most of you (all?) will think is the biggest pile of shit going.

However as one of my best mates at the time was into this and older stuff like Boston & Journey and I was
an avid viewer of Jonathan King's 'Entertainment USA' (though my memories are now tarnished by the thought of the 'entertainment' Jonathan went looking for after filming) which was certain to feature something like 'Centerfold' by the J.Geils Band every episode, I got into it.

I'm also partial to a bit of the Cure, Bauhaus etc as my mate was a Goth  - who, funnily enough also bought lots of early UK released house stuff on Kool Kat and Jack Trax in 86/87

I've long since stopped worrying about justifying liking stuff like the above - lifes too short mate!

Now, where's my Greatest Hits Of Chicago LP gone?....

i think were losing the point here.....

what formigo is asking (i think) is what do we think
of playing this sort of tripe in our sets.
it's not about what were listening to in our living rooms (is it)?

once again "leave it" is my opinion.

[Hadrian Elephant]

I think I've found out why you never invite me to play records at your club Jammin!

Are you sure this funk music policy isnt a bit limiting for your punters?

'Africa' by Toto got to number 2 in the Netherlands in 1982, as did 'Eye Of The Tiger' by Survivor

I reckon I could get them all on the dancefloor with a blast of 'Love Is A Battlefield' - Pat Benatar (number 1 in 1984)

[wayne]

Every time J Geils Band's 'Centrefold' comes on the car radio my girlfriend says "I really shouldn't like this because it's a load of sexist crap..." then turns it up. The number of records I have to pretend I never see while out digging is rather long, in fact... "ooh no, you won't want that, it's in terrible nick, a better copy'll turn up" works if she's actually with me from time to time as well. Failing that, she can be appeased with/redirected to disco records (which I happen to like as well...). It's a minefield out there...