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in hindsight,
the 1980s were a terrible decade overall for established artists and their material...
the likes of McCartney, Elton, Rod, Neil Young, Dylan, Bowie to name a few put out arguably the weakest material
of the careers during this time, theyre music really was hit or miss between 1980-89,
can anyone offer opinion as to why this was so?
my thoughts are that they were trying to keep up with new generation of musicians to keep relevant but failed
because they sacrificed their own sounds to 'fit in' and 'compliment' what was going on around them?!
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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totally agree mate
but I was thinking you were an 80's decade guy
I blame disco
I always blame disco
why are there wars? I blame disco
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yup, lets blame disco...
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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Folks were hooked on mindless dance music as they are today for the most part.
For me a good female acoustic guitar singer song writer is the ultimate joy for me!
The ultimate connection is between a performer and its' audience!
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Although I agree with this I think it started in the latter 70's. On the other hand this is what got me into the jazz genre because I couldn't stand what was happening in the rock world
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I think there’s a theory floating around somewhere about any artist/band not actually having more than 5 really great albums in them, but I might have the wrong end of the stick! Mind you, applying that idea critically to some that immediately spring to mind actually makes sense – Alan Parsons Project, Camel, Supertramp, Pink Floyd, CSN, Jackson Browne, Strawbs, Jethro Tull, etc, etc. Not a hard and fast rule, obviously there will be exceptions, but yeah – there’s definitely filler out there! And there might be something to be said for the fact that creative juices flow best when there’s impetus and motivation in which case you’d expect good things earlyish on, but that’s not necessarily the case either. Difficult to say!
Maybe 80’s music didn’t carry much weight because new ground was being explored - there was also quite a lot of change in the terms of the production of music and although some artists had the right ideas, there mightn't have been the technology to carry it off properly at that stage – CD’s had only just been produced and digital music was in its infancy – that sort of thing. Pure speculation on my part and some of them got it right regardless - R.E.M, Talk Talk, and so on. The shape of music has changed though, that’s for sure – such a muddle – brilliant stuff in amongst the utter crud that has no right calling itself music IMHO – but I expect that’s what the classicists said about the impressionists in visual art – and they’d have been wrong. Can’t help feeling that now we are mostly going backwards (in so-called popular music at any rate) - be nice to see a renaissance!
"The surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that it has never tried to contact us." ~ Bill Watterson
