Why do the 80's get such a hard time?

even Poison had some good stuff, lol.

as for every era having both innovators/exellence and trash, that's true...but I'd say as far as rock guitar playing goes, no decade advanced it as far as the 80's. the only thing even close might be recent history, but as many great players as there are now, not many of them are making interesting music, they are just astounding musicians. (for the most part, obviously some are)
 
There was some amazing and cool stuff. As for the reasons behind the cheese allegations:

Hard rock sounds were appealing to the mainstream which pulled a lot of bands into mainstream lameness.
MTV was THE way to make a band. Image was at a premium much as it is with today's pop tart divas. Style was emphasized over substance.
Faux virtuosity wasted 10-20 minutes of a concert with solo guitar wanking. Obligatory wheedly wheedly in every song was a waste of time as well.
A general lack of lyrical depth. You can only say so much about chicks and parties.
 
jlynnb1 said:
even Poison had some good stuff, lol.

as for every era having both innovators/exellence and trash, that's true...but I'd say as far as rock guitar playing goes, no decade advanced it as far as the 80's. the only thing even close might be recent history, but as many great players as there are now, not many of them are making interesting music, they are just astounding musicians. (for the most part, obviously some are)
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I'd say the same thing about the 80s though.

I mean, honestly, the 90s, when guitar virtuosity was kind of thrown by the wayside, was really the only decade when we haven't gotten inundated the guitar wanking.
 
i'd have to disagree, but you seem to have quite the distasted for certain type of music/guitar playing so i'm not going to try and persuade. we can agree to disagree....different trikes and all that, lol.
 
Ben.Last said:
There was some awesome stuff that got thrown into that genre too though.

Look, the thing is, the 80s don't get "such a hard time," every "generation" of music eventually wears out its welcome with the unwashed masses, at which point they turn on it and talk about it like it's the worst piece of shit to ever be shitted. Then, about 10 years later, people start saying to themselves, "Hmmm X band from that period was pretty decent." Lather, rinse, repeat. It's kind of depressing how predictable people are, but... well... they are.
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Yup, no argument from me there!

I was looking at the stuff that people think of as "bad" or would cause someone to give that era a hard time not withstanding the other eras of music.
 
We are all looking at this from a guitar player perspective(understandable.) Take a look at the bigger picture. Look up the no. 1 hits of 1980 through 1999, I dare you. The general public was nowhere near what we listened too. After looking at the Billboard lists, Hair band cheese seems fairly easy to stomach. Before the 90's guys get all high and mighty, remember those years gave us New Kids, Marky Mark,Vanilla Ice, Wilson Philips, Nelson, The Macarena(Holy Hell!) and countless other atrocities.

The 80's may have been limburger in cheese terms.(some people like a stinky cheese.)
The 90's was an over-microwaved bubbling bowl of Velveeta.(After you scorch your tongue, you can't taste anything.)
;)
 
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The older I get (48 in Oct) the more I like the 70's axe slingers -Gibbons,...Page,...Montrose,.. Allman's slide and harmony stuff. Of course EVH came from this era as well. Then there are the current guitarists who are morphing the 60's-80's like Bonamassa! He has taken BB with a heavy dose of Eric Johnson and blended it amazingly well!
 
Ben Randolph said:
Honestly I think a lot of the excess of the 80's styles comes from cocaine. A lot of these players were coked up and into coke culture and fueled the excess in the styles of the era.
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It was cheap back then.... seriously I am so glad I was not a fiend back like other band mates who left their amps at the dealers until they got paid the following Friday. I just w
anted to get laid.
 
luke said:
My 80s look, LOL

rockstar.jpg
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Are you Brad Gillis? :D
 
Ben.Last said:
Grunge didn't kill rock; that 80s rock that some of you remember so fondly did that. Grunge brought back rock from the brink of death.

For the record, I'm old enough now that I'm not really fully on board with a lot of the rock/metal out there right now. I enjoy some of it, but I find myself listening to stuff from the 90s much more. That has nothing to do with musicianship though; it's purely because of stylistic preferences.
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It killed the guitar solo.

Look at it. (Pokes at it, props it up, it falls over. Jabs at it from the other side...)

Dead as a doornail.


Aside of some niche markets like country and prog rock it never recovered.
Is that a bad thing? Did it deserve death? There was some overindulgence, I think it could have used a hair cut and a belly trim, but the death sentence was a bit harsh...

The more extended musical interludes, bridges, "the chord less used" all died along with it. And that saddened me.

In the 80s, at least here in NL, radio was less segregated. We had a couple of stations and they played sort of everything. Everyone was exposed to most every kind of music. Ok, classical did have their own station... I know in the US it's always been more local and more targeted, but here it wasn't. Then there came the formatted stations and a lot of the diversity was lost...

Discuss all you want, disagree, whatever. This what the thread is about and I was there and this is how I feel about it.
 
If Grunge killed the guitar solo, Pantera brought it back to life with a shock from the defibrillator and 10mg of adrenaline directly to the heart :)
 
Rook said:
If Grunge killed the guitar solo, Pantera brought it back to life with a shock from the defibrillator and 10mg of adrenaline directly to the heart :)
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Yeh.

What I said. Niche markets.


(Runs and ducks for cover. Again)

No Pantera on Dutch radio anywhere to be found. We're talking the pre-internet days here.
 
cragginshred said:
There will never be another era that produces all the guitarists named in this thread. Of course if you were not into it, you will not get it.
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This^^.
Except for guys like Page and Hendrix if you look at say a top 50 revered guitarists list, probably 75% of them came out of the 80's. Call it what you will if you don't like it that's cool because it's a personal preference (I hate the sound of country music that doesn't make it bad) but that decade advanced guitar playing more than any other IMO
 
Ben.Last said:
Grunge didn't kill rock; that 80s rock that some of you remember so fondly did that.
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In particular, the power ballad. It got to where every band had to have one or two. THAT is what killed "80's Hair".

My teen years were in the 80's and that's when I started playing. The one thing I noticed during the 90's was: no guitar solos. There simply weren't any guitar "heroes" in grunge. Laugh all you want at the teased hair, spandex, and guy-liner. The guitar work during the 80's pushed the envelope. We're only now starting to get back to that.
 
Karl Houseknecht said:
The guitar work during the 80's pushed the envelope. We're only now starting to get back to that.
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As someone who couldn't give less of a crap about flashy solos, not so much. Any time I hear the verses from popular 80's metal bands, I just go, "Wow, this is some of the most boring and inane shit I've ever heard."
 
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