Bands that made it through the 80s unscathed

I’ve been reading the recent Geddy Lee book and was hoping that once he got to the 80s he’d thoroughly explain how a band that made a point to always forge their own path got caught up in all of the same sounds of the time (especially Hold Your Fire era, etc). I’d say he “kind of” addresses the issue — new producer, interest in synths going back to late 70s, etc., but not much that would suggest that they didn’t just use the same gated snares/digital reverb that everyone else was using and that apparently was perceived as the only way to be relevant and modern at the time.

Are there any mid- to big-level bands/artists that had a pre-80s career that actually did stick to their own sound and never dipped into the 80s sound during that decade? Even 80s jazz can be pretty spotty for many of the same reasons as 80s rock/mainstream.

But how many artists escaped the '70s unscathed?

Tom Waits--maybe not big enough?

The Cure?

Idk how robust their pre-80s career was but they made it out and well beyond

Tom Petty?

U2? I don't think any of their '80s output sounds particularly like the '80s, in the sense we are discussing. Unlike, say, Springsteen, however much he bent the '80s to his will.

Tom Petty's Southern Accents and Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) are quite '80s.

U2 debuted in 1980 though.

The thing is, I don't think you can separate writing from process and context. Songs sound they way do because of the times and places in which the artists recorded them; it's what Eno in part meant by using the studio as instrument. I don't think Peter Gabriel would've written "Red Rain" in 1977 because keyboard technology didn't liberate his melodic and arranging instincts, for example.

*because keyboard technology HAD liberated, etc.

As in so many things, the answer is Motörhead.

Was thinking AC/DC

Was thinking AC/DC

― Josefa, Wednesday, February 21, 2024 10:30 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

i was going to say this but Back in Black at the dawn of the decade they change lead singers, definitely refine their songwriting and have Mutt Lange production

Motorhead is a good one, though they do a little gated snare on Orgasmatron but probably as good an answer as we'll find

Public Image Ltd

Billy Childish?

xpost Really? They sounded pretty 80s alt-rock to me by decade's end

Peter Gabriel and U2 and the like are tricky, because in a way they helped *invent* the '80s. That is, a lot of stuff that sounds like "the '80s" sounds that way partly because of them. AC/DC, too, for that matter, or Genesis.

PiL hired Laswell and Hague and had E.T. Thorngren as an engineer.

yeah was gonna say some of the PIL stuff sounds *the most* 80s to me

R.E.M. (but that's pushing things)

xxxpost to myself, Billy Childish is definitely correct but feels like kind of a cheat since his whole deal was being retro in terms of recording

Van Morrison?

^^ he's close. Lots of glassy synths, though, on those beautiful mid/late '80s albums.

While a few other things change, Alex Van Halen's snare retains its open "clang!" right up until the very end.

Black Flag

The Cramps

I think we're really pushing the "70s bands" concept here.

Like if you put out an debut EP in 1979 you're not really a big 70s act.

John Lee Hooker

Jonathan Richman

Van Morrison?

― Kim Kimberly, Wednesday, 21 February 2024 16:58 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Definitely.

Neil

Young?

I mean he essentially went through several different directions over the course of the decade, before winding up back to rock at the end of it with Freedom. But he did embrace a bunch of 80s synth sounds on Trans and Landing on Water, he just never embraced that late 80s gloss.

Tom Waits--maybe not big enough?

His music underwent a significant metamorphosis in the 80s, although it had little to do with the prevailing trends of the decade.

Everybody's Rocking!

from the young ones

Motorhead seems like the best answer so far

maybe Judas Priest? idk their full 80's history

Turbo is definitely pretty full-on 80s

Van Morrison is an interesting one — I never really felt compelled to check him out beyond Astral Weeks which for some reason seemed really meaningful as a teen but then fell by the wayside — might have to see what he was up to in the 80s

His 80s albums are my favorites, and I do think he transcended the decade because, while new for him and adjacent to new age, they don't sound like the 80s.

Common One and Poetic Champions Compose are both great, I haven't heard his other 80s LPs

Wavelength in ‘78 felt like his attempt to be a bit current, but then with Into the Music (1979) he settled into the more meditative style he followed through much of the 80s.

Ramones

Re Van - Feel like Inarticulate Speech of the Heart is very "seduced by the 80s"

Ramones is a good answer!

Howling At The Moon isn't any poppier than something from End Of The Century

Re Ramones - last time I sat down and listened to the 2CD comp - Mania? - It felt like they were trying real hard to find a commercial breakthrough after those first couple of albums - and I felt like embracing a bit of 80s sheen was definitely part of that - but I am not an expert

that is true to a degree but they had already had a full on effort at selling out with the Phil Spector production on Century and the R&R High School movie, so the 80's sound feels similarly added as an accessory to the core package. I won't deny Too Tough To Die has some sheen but it is also unmistakably a Ramones album (and a classic one imho)

I mean "Pet Semetary" is from 1989 and wouldn't sound out of place on one of their later 70's albums.

They worked with different producers (Graham Gouldman, Dave Stewart, Bill Laswell) but there's really only so much you can do with/to/about a Ramones song.

Pat Metheny sounds the exact same in 1990 as 1979, but he did have that one track from the Falcon and the Snowman soundtrack that Bowie mixed into an 80s song

xp 'I Wanna Live' sounds not very Ramonesy to me (for instance) - like they are trying to get on some kinda commercial hard rock slipstream

you have it backwards... the 80s allowed all these 70s bands to finally sound the way they were supposed to. Rush's best years were 1982-1987, for example

anyway, Fleetwood Mac

The 80s improved Fleetwood Mac no end, culminating in their best album Tango in the Night

Grateful Dead ftw

Pet Semetary is one of the greatest Ramones songs

Chas & dave

although i guess they did have a brief dalliance with hip hop

you have it backwards... the 80s allowed all these 70s bands to finally sound the way they were supposed to. Rush's best years were 1982-1987, for example

anyway, Fleetwood Mac

― the absence of bikes (f. hazel),

otm

their best album Tango in the Night

Spicy take

I thought that was a prevalent opinion

But I guess I hang out on ilm too much

I have never heard it. Better than Rumors? Better than self-titled? Better than Bare Trees or Mystery to Me?

lol welcome to ILM, where Tango In The Night is unironically considered their best by many posters

I have never heard it. Better than Rumors? Better than self-titled? Better than Bare Trees or Mystery to Me?

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux)

Of course you've heard it. "Little Lies"? "Everywhere"?

lol welcome to ILM, where Tango In The Night is unironically considered their best by many posters

― I painted my teeth (sleeve)

it's not MY favorite but is this opinion such a surprise? The level of its singles' ubiquity rivals Rumours. I hear "Dreams" and "Everywhere" in the wild in equal levels these days.

fwiw, it looks like Tusk and Rumours tied for best album in a 2007 poll with Tango in the Night a distant third. In the 2012 artist poll, Tusk bested Rumours by a single point with Tango in 4th.

Of course you've heard it. "Little Lies"? "Everywhere"?

Of course, we played the shit out of it at the record store when it was released, and those two songs certainly have survived. But they don't hold a candle to, I dunno, "Landslide"?

We disagree. They light the room.

Tango was a bit of a staple at rooftop parties in the late '00s and early '10s, "Seven Wonders" and "Everywhere" especially. Those airy synth arabesques slotted in with the contemporary Balearic stuff.

That explains it, I don't think I was ever invited to any rooftop parties in the late 00s and early 10s.

Both Vampire Weekend & Paramore have covered "Everywhere" live.

it is pretty fascinating in the macro how totally the old guard 60s and 70s artists didn't resist the 80s' new fashions and technology but jumped in with both feet

Paramore's cover of "Burning Down the House" is pretty cool, which reminds me, technically Talking Heads were a 70s band that made it through the 80s, not only unscathed but triumphant.

I guess that's one way to describe Naked

The Mac couldn't escape '80s fashion

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/4d/fc/b5/4dfcb51747164c7668110a019c79fc1c.jpg

"Common One and Poetic Champions Compose are both great, I haven't heard his other 80s LPs"

oh please listen to *no guru no method no teacher* its one of my favorite albums of the 80s and not just because i was a big krishnamurti fan at the time.

noted!

> it is pretty fascinating in the macro how totally the old guard 60s and 70s artists didn't resist the 80s' new fashions and technology but jumped in with both feet

That's kinda how it was for those journeymen bands for their first decade too, switching from r'n'b to mellotron psych to heavy delta blues, then some Nashville, then getting funky or proggy etc etc

a.k.a. "the Spinal Tap method"

Both Vampire Weekend & Paramore have covered "Everywhere" live.

As have Hot Chip, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCbRVBd0vBE-

> oh please listen to *no guru no method no teacher* its one of my favorite albums of the 80s

x2. The instrumental arrangements on "Tir Na Nog" are one of the most amazing things ever. Also "A Town Called Paradise", a love song that starts with Van whining about copycats ripping off his songs.

Copycats ripped off my words
Copycats ripped off my songs
Copycats ripped off my melody
It doesn't matter what they say
It doesn't matter what they do
All that matters is my relationship to you

This sounds like a bad translation

omg

The strings on "Tir Na Nog," my god.

Thanks for the information
Subliminal dummy tech or MTV
And with her everything light becomes heavy
And everything heavy becomes light
Ah, they took me down to the watering hole
Because I happened to mention I was dying of thirst
Then they told me he who believes first will be later
And he who heads later will be first

i'd still go with tom petty. yeah, 80s production techniques/gear/dave stewart/don't come around here/mtv/the front cover of let me up BUT some of that 80s-sounding stuff is more jeff lynne than dave stewart and jeff lynne was 80s in the 70s so he couldn't help himself AND if you listen to those heartbreakers albums and the solo album there is sooooo much of it that would have fit on the late 70s albums. total folk rock/country rock/byrds rock just as it ever was. he was so consistent up to the end. even the last dj sounds homespun to me now. would have been cool to see someone like jj cale produce a petty solo album. jj was using drum machines in the early 70s. i am no superfan of lynne/stewart production but i can't hate on them too hard. they didn't make people sound ridiculous. they just used the new tools that everyone was using.
when i think of someone getting out unscathed i think of them just still being themselves. orgasmatron is awesome! it didn't hurt the band to have some laswell mojo on their stuff. nobody was more 80s then bill laswell and i actually think that i don't give him enough credit for putting the 80s clothes on people and not making them look dumb. that's a tough trick! PIL, Fela, Herbie Hancock, Laurie Anderson, Yoko Ono, Sly & Robbie, Motorhead. the list goes on and on. who else could work with all those people? he deserves a medal. one of these days i really need to listen to She's The Boss...
I was a fan of The Burning World too at the time. some people didn't like what he did to Swans.

anyway, my answer is Tom Petty. or j.j. cale. who doesn't really count because he's not famous. but he always sounded like j.j. cale.

Haruomi Hosono and Ryuichi Sakamoto come to mind.

Does Phillip Glass count as a band?

The Philip Glass Ensemble do! Unfortunately I only managed to get through the second half of the complete Music in 12 Parts once, as the shift from beautiful 70s organs to tinkly 80s digital synthesizers was too jarring. So I'd say he fell for the 80s sound in a big way, to the detriment of the music! Luckily he came round and these days it sounds pretty decent again.

wait, duh, the rolling stones. they were just stones records, right? dirty work and steel wheels i don't really listen to but they were pretty normal if i remember correctly. someone will probably give me the production argument but if mick is credited with harmonica or shakers on a stones album then its a stones album.

emotional rescue/tattoo you/undercover is an unbeatable trilogy of awesome. how many olde tyme bands put out three records in a row like those in the 80s? answer me that! love those albums so much.

Leaving your group to avoid the 80s:

“Wolf left the J. Geils Band in 1983 over disagreements on the group's musical direction. Many years later in 2016, Wolf offered the following recollection of the disagreements within the group that led to his departure: "I did not leave the band, but the majority of the band wanted to move in another direction. They wanted to continue in a pop-techno way, and it wasn't my thing."

ha that is very Peter Wolf

Laswell's Mick Jagger album She's the Boss is 1984-1985 wrapped in cellophane.

do the Stones win though? the unscathed award? man, i went to that steel wheels show expecting nothing and i felt like a 14 year old schoolgirl in 1964 when they started playing. omg, they ruled. and how did they do it? they were like in a different area code from me in that stadium and they had me in the palm of their withered hand. it was dark majik.

Liked the opening riff of this very 80s J. Geils banger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289lzL6Eit8

oh man that video got played so much of V66, Boston's short lived local music video channel. Seth did not have the charisma of Peter Wolf.

Copycats ripped off my words
Copycats ripped off my songs
Copycats ripped off my melody
It doesn't matter what they say
It doesn't matter what they do
All that matters is my relationship to you

This sounds like a bad translation

This is about Bruce Springsteen (!), btw.

Dirty Work sucked, and the cover art is pure 80s, but yeah, it definitely didn't give in to any of the prevailing musical trends.

Counterpoint: Dirty Work is mostly wonderful and it yields to prevailing musical trends. Listen to the synths on "Back to Zero" and "Winning Ugly." And that walloping drum mix? Steve Lillywhite.

still think they were mostly unscathed as far as the decade goes. mick's on his own with the solo stuff nobody wants. and they ended the decade with a massive big money tour that was as trad as you get.

love this question because it's so difficult. the stones or petty seem to totally miss the point given the sound of the drums and keyboards on those records.

i think the best answers are 70s acts that predicted the 80s and made great 80s records in the 70s, and their only flaws in the 80s was less great songs, what they were doing was eclipsed by their followers, and maybe some overly tinny drum sounds.

besides motorhead and tom waits already mentioned, i'd add kraftwerk, niles rogers and nick lowe, whose 80s records do sound pretty 80s, but that is exactly what they were doing in the 70s.

i can't think of anyone who stayed the course from the folk or punk world who was popular enough to count (i've never listened to joni's 80s stuff but i imagine it has the same wispy synth issues van's do), but there are probably a few candidates from the world of country music who i'm just not familiar enough with their 80s stuff. george jones or johnny cash or somebody like that.

i can't think of anyone who stayed the course from the folk or punk world who was popular enough to count

Talking Heads

Kind of. They did have Lillywhite producing Naked.

i was looking at the bigger picture i guess. kinda hard to avoid an 80s recording studio in the 80s. they were everywhere! and everyone was buying all the new gear. some of which was fine and some of which sounds bad now. but i don't think the stones or whoever went into a studio and said "make us sound like spandau ballet!" or "quick, let's write songs that sound like U2 songs!". they let producers and engineers do their thing. plus, they were all deaf. the MUSIC was mostly the same. was my point.
so, yeah, i guess i decided to ignore the geddy lee gated drum thing or whatever.

1984 always seems to be my dividing line. the before/after. so much after 1984 had that big dumb echo-y drum sound that was so loud and yet so weak and anemic in a weird way. all my fave hardcore and new wave. lots of stuff. everything went all don dixon on me. i blame it on money.

in addition to naked, i think the drum sound on wild wild life and several other songs from true stories are terminally dated and 80s-scathed.

I was thinking of Richard Thompson but he did have something of an 80s production going on in, er, the 80s. Never got into the synth / LinnDrum thing though as far as I'm aware. And the ubiquitous echoes of Mark Knopfler in the guitar style are more of a reverse inspiration, I'm pretty sure Knopfler was a fan.

the fall? pere ubu?

The Fall went '80s in the best way, right?

The Fall are a pretty good answer altho not "popular", 1989's Seminal Live even has a version of 1980's "Pay Your Rates" that sounds largely the same, with two key bandmembers still on board

Springsteen bested the 80s by incorporating and escaping it

I can hear some 80s production on the drums of Pere Ubu's Cloudland LP. I guess if you hire the guy who produced the Pet Shop Boys hits you're gonna sound like the 80s a bit.

That explains it, I don't think I was ever invited to any rooftop parties in the late 00s and early 10s.

haha yeah that explanation is bound to what I think is an very narrow and specific experience.

Everywhere gets played around all the time these days I think because it got used in a Kohl's commercial (and it got some increased interest after McVie died).

There was also some talk about Tango in the Night around the time of the first Haim album.

Legendary Pink Dots formed in 1980 but it's safe to say their 80s output had like no relationship whatsoever with 80s production norms

For a certain segment of Fleetwood Mac fans, this album is as important as "Rumours." In fact, the LP is a sonic touchstone for modern production, particularly in the way pop-leaning acts seamlessly combine electro and rock influences. HAIM's soft-glow synth-rock, Best Coast's lush production and the plush approach of countless electropop acts all nod to "Tango in the Night."

yeah I thought about the Dots but they really have no pre-1980 music, they have basically been unscathed for 45 years now!

xpost

one thinks of bands like them or the Residents, but they're so much doing their own thing that it doesn't seem in the spirit of the original question (the Fall, on the other hand, I think were noticeably reacting to 80s stuff in the 80s)

the fall's john leckie produced beggars banquet albums and hits are so different from their first 7 years, i can't accept them as an answer here. ghost in my house / hit the north / victoria are great, but lost them a lot of their hipper fans i think. big crisp drums, instruments recorded separately and sometimes direct to desk, garish synths, etc.

the residents and richard thompson are good answers apart from the never having a hit, they are full cult artists. i suppose tom waits is in that category really.

does 80s fall sound more 80s than 80s mekons? i think they might. mekons always sounded a little out of time. brix fall did go for the mtv ring a bit. saying that as someone who is a way bigger brix-era fan than a fan of the original recipe. mostly because of my age at the time. if i could have gotten a cruisers creek tattoo when i was 16 i totally would have. 90s mekons on the other hand...they were practically sigue sigue sputnik! kidding...

fear and whiskey is easily a top 100 80s album but compared to all the other cowpunk bands, it does sound super 80s and modern, the drums on chivalry sound like a dude imitating a drum machine.

my first fall record was shift-work, not the ideal introduction. in retrospect that's a bit like starting gravity's rainbow halfway through.

that might be my personal favorite!

Coming from The Soft Boys, Robyn Hitchcock didn't make an 80s-sounding album, other than Queen Elvis having Peter Buck-produced 1989 "college rock" touches.

I always felt that Hitchcock made two 80s albums in the 90s (Perspex Island and Respect)

Steely Dan

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.
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lol

XTC perhaps? Escaping the 80s by making 60s albums?

The Big Express definitely embraces the 80s sound, but they back off on it a bit after that. before that Drums and Wires and Black Sea were both engineered by Hugh Padgham and you can hear maybe some of the beginnings of what would become 'the 80s sound' on there, before it had actually become the 80s sound?

Talking Heads

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:42 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Kind of. They did have Lillywhite producing Naked.

― Beyond Goo and Evol (President Keyes), Friday, 23 February 2024 19:54 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

in addition to naked, i think the drum sound on wild wild life and several other songs from true stories are terminally dated and 80s-scathed.

― mig (guess that dreams always end), Friday, 23 February 2024 21:38 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Little Creatures and True Stories were both recorded by this guy called Eric “ET” Thorngren, who also produced Babylon and On and Frank by Squeeze, and I get the impression that at the time he was kind of understood as a 'counter-80s sound' producer, I think Glenn Tilbrook said that after Squeeze's had made Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, which is another quintessentially 80s maximalist thing, that they wanted something more stripped back and less fussy, but all those four Thorngren albums sound instantly identifiable as being from the 80s in retrospect.

Those albums aren't the worst example, but I think there's a particular sounding kind of 80s album that was consciously trying to avoid the prevailing 80s style and do something more 'rootsy' or authentic etc, but that still sounds very 80s in retrospect, particularly with the big thudding drum sound, that sounds way worse than albums that really embraced the 80s sound

I remember Thorngren on several early Eurythmics albums, specifically the 1984 “soundtrack” which does stand up well (despite its problematic relationship with the film).

I mentioned him upthread. He also worked with Robert Palmer.

oops...

https://scontent-bos5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/428597339_812864884208406_5432735731279317647_n.jpg?_nc_cat=106&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=3635dc&_nc_ohc=p5ymxce7_70AX9RB40m&_nc_ht=scontent-bos5-1.xx&oh=00_AfBWPNOSvW92Fx2NhGLsnVAi2CbQUvNo5u_xrPV-q882Uw&oe=65E16852

pretty good unscathed percentage though. showing the classic rock cockroach-like ability to survive against all odds.

I cannot understand that cover concept at all. A 37-year-old person is not "approaching 30."

In any case, Johnny Cash lived well into the 2000s and survived past age 70.

I guess they ran out of young rock stars who did drugs so they had to use an older Country singer.

Also, no Keith Richards? I feel Jagger was the least likely of these people to O.D.

don't look at me i only started reading circus in, like, 1977. i remember my brother getting mad because he finally got a subscription to circus and they started putting pictures of movie and t.v. stars on their covers. he was pissed.

https://images.wolfgangsvault.com/m/xlarge/ZZZ014487-MZ/circus-vintage-magazine-apr-17-1979.webp

i remember laughing when i saw a mork & mindy cover.

Cash was probably at his peak across-the-board fame then: he'd just put out the two prison live albums; "Boy Named Sue" was huge; starred in his own weekly variety show etc.

And let's not forget that Columbo episode

That didn’t make him 29 though