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

[Muad'zin]

As a European I'm always bewildered why the 80's are so much associated with hair metal bands. That genre never caught on on this side of the Atlantic. Only occasionally did one of those band score a hit here. When I think of 80's metal the classic thrash metal bands come to mind, Iron Maiden, that sort of thing. It was the time that U2 joined the ranks of the Rolling Stones as a stadium super group, also the last decade the Stones were still relevant. I have many good memories of the 80's, also bad ones, as it was also the decade that the Cold War reached a peak and we all thought that Crazy Ronnie would push the nuclear button at any moment. It really created a depressing vibe in the first half of the 80's, at least in Europe it did. The one thing I still like about the 80's is that musicians were forward looking, instead of backwards looking. They were seeking new tones and embracing new technologies, rather then try and copy old tones. Digital was not a curse word yet, it was an actual selling point.

The hairstyles for girls in the 80s.....whoever invented them will not get into heaven.

I remember being in high school and seeing a perfectly attractive girl come to class one day with her beautiful hair now looking like a French poodle was sitting on her head. I died a little when that happened.

The 80s were not a good decade for hair.

I'll take your dig about 80's hair and raise it with today's Skrillex haircut. I saw a fine young lady this weekend, then she turned her head, I saw that shaved side of her head and I not just died a little, my family jewels actually retreated back inside. It was like the equivalent of seeing a fine young lady from behind at a bar, but when you approach her or she turns around she turns out to be a he. I'll take any 80's haircut over the Skrillex abomination.

As for 80's lead guitar indulgence, where the lead guitarist would wank for 15 minutes during a show, go listen to 70's concerts, where bands basically turned every song into a 15 minute improvisational wank fest. Where a band would play for two hours and still only play like 8 songs in total.

 

[ChristThePhone]

Looking back at the guitar magazine covers from the late 80s hair metal was obviously the same over here in Europe. OMG, what a bunch of f*****g ugly a******s back then with their pointy guitars (that's the part I still like), spandex pants, eye liner, ...

 

[Muad'zin]

Most guitar mags from that time were from the US. Speaking as someone who lived in those days as a teen I can say that hair metal was not a thing in Europe. I barely even knew it existed until later.

Don't forget logistics. There were a shitload of American acts that never even bothered to tour Europe. For them the US market was big enough. And no European act could ever hope to aspire to become a world class act without becoming big in the US first. So they did their utmost to make it big in the States, often neglecting their original European market. U2 has always spent more time touring the US then they do Europe. Ozzy even barely bothered to tour Europe in the 80's, even though he's from the UK. And a big part of this was that the US was a huge internal market, all with a single currency, whereas Europe, just as populous, was internally divided into smaller markets with separate currencies. I find it telling that as Europe became more integrated in the 90's and zeros, it became more interesting for American acts.

 

[lauke-lux]

Most guitar mags from that time were from the US. Speaking as someone who lived in those days as a teen I can say that hair metal was not a thing in Europe. I barely even knew it existed until later.

Don't forget logistics. There were a shitload of American acts that never even bothered to tour Europe. For them the US market was big enough. And no European act could ever hope to aspire to become a world class act without becoming big in the US first. So they did their utmost to make it big in the States, often neglecting their original European market. U2 has always spent more time touring the US then they do Europe. Ozzy even barely bothered to tour Europe in the 80's, even though he's from the UK. And a big part of this was that the US was a huge internal market, all with a single currency, whereas Europe, just as populous, was internally divided into smaller markets with separate currencies. I find it telling that as Europe became more integrated in the 90's and zeros, it became more interesting for American acts.

Oops that's a bit fast...
I think great music was made in Europe in the eighties like the Smiths, Stones, Clapton, etc and that for that simple reason there was less interest for that era US music. Hair rock just wasn't the thing for Europeans, and still isn't BTW. In France for example there were great popular rock acts with Telephone, Johny Halliday, etc. not to forget Serge Gainsbourg. That American acts didn't make it to Europe was for 2 reasons : no interest here and Reagan having decided to flood the world with dollars, by breaking the Bretton Woods act, caused a big inflation of the dollar...it just got way to expensive to make an European tour for US acts, and inversely it got more easy for European acts to get to Europe.
I still rediscover some of my old cassettes with eighties independent bands, there really was a great lot of unknown artists in that time with a very wide musical horizon. Good sound quality also.

 

[Brownmatthall]

The one aspect of 90s that I appreciated was the reintroduction of organic drumming. The rest of the band was generally shit, but the drums were real, in a real space, with real tone and groove.

This is something I'm more than happy to see coming back now as well, samples can only carry you so far...