I never realized how great old music was when I was younger. I wasn’t really paying attention to what music i liked. I just kinda listened to what was on the radio when I was in the car driving with my parents. Whatever was catchy was what I would listen to.
But then one day I saw a pattern. The songs my parents knew by heart were the songs that caught my ears. They were glad that I had the same taste in music as them because they aren’t really fans of today’s music. They explained the type of music as music from the “80’s”.
I realized that I had a desire to look for more of this style of music, mostly 80’s classic rock and folk rock. From the day I realized what music I like in 2011 to now, I’ve been trying to look for more songs I like from the golden age of music. I’ve been pretty successful in my efforts because my iPod is FULL of music, (I’m almost out of storage).
Anyway, that’s the story of how I figured out how great the 80’s were and it inspired me to make this blog!
The debut album of the Nine Inch Nails was one from the books. They took a lot of musical risks as pertaining to their genre at the time. I couldn’t even define this genre of music myself so I had to look it up. According to Wikipedia, it says the album is “industrial rock” which is odd to me, but I accept it. Apparently Marilyn Manson was an industrial rock bad too (another weird one). Anyway, onto the music!
The album was released October 20, 1989, containing 10 tracks. The leader of the band and basically the only performer of the band, Trent Reznor, recorded the album almost entirely by himself. Working as a handyman and a janitor, he spent his free time making music and Pretty “Hate Machine” was the result. He was barely accepted by a label and his album got popular instantly.
The Rolling Stones and Q have done reviews on the album, giving it 4/5 and 4.5/5 stars, respectively. It peaked at 25 on the Billboard 200 and received gold status. Because of the riskiness of the music genre, it wasn’t immediately accepted by everyone with open arms. Since Reznor’s tone in the album was sort of the edgy “anarchy and betrayed by god” kind of theme, it didn’t help its popularity either.
It isn’t my favorite genre, but I’ll give it a 7/10
Time for some Alternative Rock. A good place to start in this genre would be The Replacements. But there are still hints of punk rock in all of their works because they were initially a punk rock band.
Their 5th album “Please to Meet Me” was released on the 17th of June, 1987. The album peaked at 131 on the Billboard 200 and it sold over 300,000 copies. But, in 2008, the album was remastered and re-released with studio edits and extra demos in it. There were 11 more tracks on the remastered version. The original had a total of 11 as well. With 4 included singles, “Alex Chilton”, “Can’t Hardly Wait”, “The Ledge” (which had a music video banned from MTV, whoops), and “Skyway”.
My favorite is definitely Alex Chilton. It just gives off the rebel without a cause vibe and I love that a lot. But the actual song is about a guy in Memphis who just walks around observing everyone and chilling out which is the complete opposite of the mood of the song. Somehow it works with it though and thats why I like it.
“Appetite for Destruction” was released on July 21, 1987 on the label of Geffen Records. The album only took 2 months to actually record. It immediately reached No. 1 on the US Billboard 200. It became 18x Platinum in the United States alone and it went on to sell over 20 million units.
The members of the band, Axl Rose, Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Steven Adler, and Duff McKagan, were all featured on the cover of the album in skull form. The picture will be below at the end. The original vinyl did not have labeled A and B sides, but G and R sides. The G side (The guns side) had songs all about the hard city life and drugs. The R side (The roses side) has more to do with sex and relationships.
The songs are all classics. Most people know “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, “Paradise City” and “Welcome to the Jungle”. These titles helped Guns N’ Roses get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2012. My favorite is Paradise City because I used to play a video game with that song in it and I would play it on repeat.
Hip hip hooray! More Def Leppard! Coming in as my second favorite album of all time, Def Leppard’s Hysteria is one of the most riveting and iconic rock albums of all time. I wanted to pick an album that I actually enjoy this week because it makes the work more bearable.
For the statistics, Hysteria was Def Leppard’s highest gross album, selling more that 25 million copies worldwide. It was released on August 3, 1987 as a follow to the band’s breakthrough album, Pyromania. It reached No. 1 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the UK Top 40, which is pretty impressive.
Written, produced, and performed by Joe Elliot, Rick Savage, Rick Allen, and Phil Collen, the album got instant fame because Def Leppard was popular at the time. This album has so many classics like “Pour Some Sugar on Me” (their most popular song of all time), “Hysteria”, and “Love Bites”. “Gods of War is my favorite song though. It’s because I was raised listening tot that song to hype me up before my football games. It was a combination go that and “Eye of the Tiger”… Anyways the genres that this album is considered are glam metal and hard rock, both of which I love so much.
Some people think that the new era of music is the best, but I prefer the music from the good old days, the 1980’s baby. I wasn’t even alive then but I’ve been raised to love and enjoy the sound and feel of the era. Everyone is entitled to their own taste in music and I’m entitled to dispute who’s taste is better. The new era of music appeals to the millennial so I understand how they relate. It’s rhythmic and relaxing which goes along with today’s regular life. I will say this cliche, but only because I think its true. I was born in the wrong generation.
In my opinion of course, music circa 1980 is the best because of multiple reasons. The themes of most music in the 1980s were much better than the ones now. It’s not all about codeine and sprite. My kind of music is about the escape from reality where you can rock out and have fun with your friends and express yourself through the music.
But I understand how people like new music because some may not pay attention to the lyrics or what the song’s message is trying to relay. Lots just like the beat and the rhythm and “turn up” as they say. That isn’t me though. I look for more than a good rhythm. There is a lot more than just hip-hop and rap though. Much more, at that. So many of these songs constantly give references back to the golden age of music and the 80’s so I understand other peoples’ liking of the new music. Catchy and new trends are also easy to bandwagon on and the music now is more of an escape from regular life.
But I will still always love the old 80’s music because of the sentiment and the quality. It is just more pleasing to the ear. I also like older music because it can help us better understand the past. It is just plain better than what we have today. Look at the facts! All and all, it does come to a matter of taste and opinion and I won’t take that away from anyone. I simply have a strong preference of one over the other.
I wouldn’t consider this album as one of the most popular albums of the decade, but I would put it in the top 10 for most popular of 1985. I love this album so much because it has so many good songs that other people don’t know. The average joe only knows songs like livin’ on a prayer, dead or alive, etc. But this one has jewels like In and Out of Love, Only Lonely, and Silent Night.
Album history time! This album brought Bon Jovi some well deserved exposure to the hard rock scene. They proved their worth and got high on the charts for their first time as well. This was their first album to receive gold awards in the US. The album only took 6 weeks to record and as a result, they though of it less because most of the members of the band didn’t “like the feel” of the album. After its release on March 17, 1985, they rarely preformed it and almost never performed it on other tours after it.
As for personal preference of the album, I think the album should be more popular and more looked into by the public because there is a lot of good songs to be heard. As stated before, my favorites are In and Out of Love, Only Lonely, and Silent Night. I could classify this albums genre as hard rock or light metal because it is in between the two genres on the “crazy scale” in the 80’s.
Whenever I’m listening to Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel I can’t decide wether I’m becoming more depressed or finding more meaning in life because the tone of their music and the words they say are complete opposite. It’s something original that I enjoy listening to, so this week is Paul Simon’s Graceland.
For history, this album was released about two years after him and Art Garfunkel has gotten back together to play again; but still he decided to release a piece without him. The album was released in 1986. He wrote the majority of the songs in Johannesburg and after the album was released he was accused by “The Artists Against Apartheid” that being a resident of the country he was doing nothing to prevent the pro-apartheid feelings in South Africa and that it was his moral duty to do so. The most impressive accolades of the album would be the x8 platinum in Australia, the x7 platinum in the UK, and the album of the year as rated by the Village Voice. The song Graceland also claimed the title of record of the year.
The most popular song on the album was obviously the one with the same name as the actual album, Graceland. It has the same vibe as most of the other songs but its different because it speaks about an actual issue in his life: his failure to his one year wife and actress Carrie Fisher. (Fun fact her life was saved by Dan Ackroyd at a party because he preformed the Heimlich maneuver on her while she was choking on a brussel sprout) The rest of the album isn’t very special except for a few tracks that highlight his relationships with others. The album was remastered after the 25 year anniversary and it was put onto many of the musical applications we have nowadays.
This week, we’re going into 80’s rap. It’s gonna be a bumpy ride. Imagine the most high hats and cowbell in a song, then times that by about 6. You are then imagining 80’s rap which includes this album.
Run DMC is a rap group from New York consisting of 3 members, Darryl McDaniels, Joseph Simmons, and Jason Mizell. They released this album in 1986 and it became x3 platinum in the United States alone.
This album is most known for its two songs “Walk This Way” featuring Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith and “It’s Tricky” both being in top 5 of the Billboard 100 at the time. The album got #1 in the Billboard best hip-hop albums of the year as well.
The album has a great balance of slow groovy songs and hardcore New York street rap, as well as the Tyler-DMC lovechild which people loved so much. I would consider that one a rock-rap conjoining. Songs like “Perfection” balance out the hardness of songs like “Hit It Run”
Overall if you wanna cruise down the streets of the city, roll down your windows, and enjoy the ride, put on this album for a good time and some mad respect.
This week, I’m going to stem away from harder rock and review a more alternative album of the 80’s. Synchronicity – The Police. This album was more of a new-wave or possibly late-punk album. It was more of a western spin to reggae. The album was released in 1983 and was nominated for the award of Album of the Year during the 1984 Grammy Awards, only to be surpassed by Micheal Jackson’s Thriller. Their song “Every Breath You Take” became the best selling record of the year and was number 4 in the decade. It received x8 Platinum in the United States alone.
This album has the most notable and recognizable song on it; Every Breath You Takewhich gave the rest of the songs a lot more exposure. This single was probably on every teenagers radio when they were ready to take that special someone out onto wherever “makeout point” was in their area. You can get an idea of the mood and reception of the song. But there were others too, such as Wrapped Around Your Finger, which kind of gave off the same vibe as the the song before it, but there was definitely a lot more reggae influence. These two songs accounted for the majority of the albums popularity, with the addition of “King of Pain”
This is one of my favorite relaxing albums of the 1980’s because Sting is really good at creating upbeat relaxation. But, to this day, you can ask almost anyone who the artist is to their hit single and they would know
Throwback Thursday 