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Rock the house: Classic versus New Wave
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by ArtsEtc. Staff
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Steve Lampiris
Ah, the ’70s, the definitive decade of rock’s decadence. The ’60s may have taken “rock ‘n’ roll” and turned it into “rock,” but the ’70s perfected it. Perfection is indeed better than originality, and this is why the ’70s was not only better than the ’80s for music but the best decade in popular music’s history.
Let’s start with David Bowie. While the ’80s may have Bowie just as the ’70s did, the ’70s didn’t have “Labyrinth.” Sandwiched right between Bowie’s Tonight and Never Let Me Down, it was not the best time to be a Bowie fan. Sure, he released one of his best records in the ’80s (Scary Monsters), but nothing compares to his ’70s classics like Ziggy Stardust and Low.
Speaking of classics, the ’70s gave us two of rock’s greatest albums (among, literally, countless others) in The Who’s Who’s Next and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. In fact, Moon may well be the greatest album qua album ever recorded. Even my colleague acknowledges that. The album as an entity was certainly perfected in the ’70s. After being “invented” as a whole in late ’60s with Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper’s, the concept album really was a ’70s thing. Look at any Zeppelin record as further proof of that.
The ’70s also perfected the live album. The big four that have defined the live album, and have shown everyone else how it’s done, are Cheap Trick’s At Budokan, Allman Brothers’ At Fillmore East, Kiss’ Alive! and Peter Frampton’s Frampton Comes Alive!. The live album of today is, as Mr. Merline stated, “synonymous with ‘cash grab.’” Live albums are just not like they used to be, but I suppose when bands recorded albums during a period known as the “Me Decade,” nothing would compare in terms of live performances, anyway.
The production of ’70s albums is also where this decade overtakes the production of ’80s albums: warm and inviting versus cold and alien. ’70s records have a very personal quality, a kind of welcoming sound to them — everything is crystal clear. Granted, ’80s records are just as clear, but they sound unfamiliar and overproduced.
The ’80s was the decade where album mixes started to become instruments on top of each other as opposed to next to each other. As a result, the instruments sound piled up and buried underneath each other — it’s just not all that pleasant. And let us not forget that the drum machine hit its height of popularity during the ’80s, as well. Never has there been an instrument as cold-sounding as the drum machine. Sure, it can create “rad” beats, but can you really compare it to John Bonham, Keith Moon or Carl Palmer? I think not.
Of course, one cannot speak of the ’70s without mentioning funk. Funk was “the rawest, most primal form of R&B,” as Allmusic.com put it — a genre where the groove took primacy over the actual song or song structure. Sure, Sly and Family Stone and ’60s James Brown may have stumbled upon its formula, but it was not until Brown’s 1970 classic single (and also live album) “Sex Machine” that perfected funk as a genre. After Brown came George Clinton and his bands Parliament and Funkadelic (later Parliament-Funkadelic), which is arguably the best funk band since the King of Funk.
Funk then gave way to disco. Many hate disco, but I just don’t get it. Disco was, for just a couple years, the premier source for pop music in the ’70s. The “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack proves this, pure and simple. This was the height of disco and had the Bee Gees’ best material in their whole catalogue with “Stayin’ Alive,” “Night Fever” and “Jive Talkin,’” not to mention the fact that it won Album of the Year in 1978.
The disco song was an extended yet repetitive song that simply “kept the beat going,” as Allmusic.com states. Disco gave way to the techno and house music templates (and even the rave scene) by “mutat[ing] into a variety of different dance-based genres.” The reason for this is because “disco emphasized the beat above anything else, even the singer and the song.”
When it comes to punk, it may have been invented as a genre in the ’70s but it wasn’t perfected as a culture until the ’80s — I give the ’80s that. While ’70s classics like the Sex Pistols and the Clash got their start in the ’70s, it wasn’t until the ’80s when punk was really “punk” as a way of life. Sure, the ’70s has Never Mind the Bullocks and London Calling (in the U.K., anyway) and those are all-time masterpieces, but the ’80s had punk culture: the Mohawks, the Doc Martens, etc. That said, the ’70s had The Stooges (for two albums, anyway). At best, this one is a tie.
Finally, there are the competing drug cultures. The ’70s had marijuana, while the ’80s had cocaine. This, of course, explains the difference between the sounds of the respective decades: laid-back and “way out there, man” versus “holy shit, more drum machines, and make it faster!” Although marijuana may be the more creativity-biased drug, I do have to give the ’80s credit for still making great records while using that white powder.
And coke was arguably more fashionable at its height than cannabis ever was. Even today, the quintessential comedy sketch of this decade wouldn’t have produced one of its most famous lines had the line been “Marijuana’s a helluva drug.” Cocaine, then, is the more interesting — perhaps more fun — drug of the two. That said, had the Doobie Brothers called themselves the Blow Brothers, they probably wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.
So I guess it all comes down to one question: Does it really matter that the ’80s created so many new genres and wasn’t like any other decade of popular music if it all sounded like garbage? Yeah, I thought so.
Michael Merline
Three years following his bittersweet pre-recording hiatus album, Scary Monsters, David Bowie released Let’s Dance — an album of remarkable pop sensibility — to eager ears. Perhaps it was the Chameleon of Rock’s subtly evolving songwriting in the ’70s that made the record so popular and readily accepted. Regardless of whether this was the case, Let’s Dance remains an icon of what music in the ’80s is known for: experimentation, unique creation and utterly daring reinvention of traditional artistic expectations.
While Bowie himself often disparages his output from the decade of Reaganomics and big hair, his intent to focus on writing hits wasn’t necessarily unique. Other notable groups found great commercial success making music that could be described as fun and glossy. One of these was The Cars, which, like the new music from Bowie, sounded entirely different than what radio junkies had been hearing in the past. In fact, many weren’t sure what to think of The Cars’ eponymous debut which fell somewhere between rock, pop and a sound other bands would develop into New Wave. The Cars was the first of many albums that separated ’80s music from that of the ’70s in a new way than just who was performing it; the decade proved to herald the birth of exciting genres that would transform both popular and independent music forever.
The Cars sensibilities were very much pop-rock but suggested the artiness that would come to be associated with New Wave, a rocking, electronic, socially relevant and sometimes nerdy new artistic movement more synonymous with the cocaine-addled chic of the late ’80s than the roots-rock of the ’70s. Punk’s edge played a role in the stylized work of Blondie, the loser-cool persona and sound of Elvis Costello, and the genre-bending antics of David Byrne and The Talking Heads. And fashion was just as much a part of the genre as a mere mention of New Wave often prompts instant recollection of a loud-colored, suit-wearing art student sporting Flock of Seagulls or Robert Smith locks.
Of course, New Wave wasn’t important merely because it was spontaneous and fundamentally different than the rock of the ’70s (which is what led to the movement’s name). Like the best inventive music of the ’80s, New Wave was a part of the culture, an artistic reflection of the decades’ popular style and a reaction to its beliefs and fears. The Talking Heads’ “Once in a Lifetime” famously asks about the commercial social standards of beautiful wives and large automobiles before the satirical refrain states, “Into the blue again/ After the money’s gone/ Once in a lifetime.” And the music video of the same band’s “Wild Wild Life” parodies ’80s musicians from the likes of the Annie Lennox and Billy Idol to Hair Metal and Prince.
And speaking of Prince, pop music certainly had a better showing in the ’80s then the ’70s. Rod Stewart and Wings both had their moments, but Prince, Madonna and Michael Jackson out-sang, out-danced, out-performed and out-dressed the ’70s — a decade known much more for producing the ever-static singles of “classic rock” stations — all while defining musical creativity for today’s artists. Michael Jackson’s Grammy Winning Thriller — as my supposedly pro-’70s colleague wrote earlier this year — sold millions of copies for a reason, namely due to the seven top 10 singles and Jackson’s trademark moonwalk the album introduced to the world.
And if all that wasn’t enough, the ’80s didn’t just spawn the artists that defined pop music for today’s best of the best, every indie and alternative band with an ounce of “cred” today cites ’80s alternative bands as influences. The Pixies, a band that enjoyed modest success during their original incarnation, was cited by Kurt Cobain as a primary influence and praised by some of today’s alternative figureheads, like Thom Yorke. The quartet recently reformed for a reunion tour which sold out soon after it was announced.
And R.E.M. was born in the early ’80s, releasing their shockingly good trio of Life’s Rich Pageant, Document and Green by 1988. Even Rolling Stone’s No. 8 album of all time, The Clash’s London Calling, was released in 1980. Well, at least the U.S. version.
Over in the U.K., Morrissey and his fellow Smiths showed the world how much fun sadness can be for the ears. The Cure may have outlasted what could be called ’80s mope-rock and the U.K.’s neo-psychedelic movement (known best for Echo and the Bunnymen), but they are yet another fitting example of how artists of the ’80s created music that — effectively — sounded nothing like what came before it and continue to define both today’s alternative (like Goth rock) and pop music. Just count how many times “Friday I’m In Love” plays on mix stations and then consider how far from radio-friendly The Cure’s best albums, Pornography and Faith, for example, remain.
To insinuate what occurred in the ’70s had no effect on today’s musical atmosphere would be ludicrous, but the ’80s had a far more dramatic effect on the best of modern musical culture. Critics might say that reinvention and innovation don’t make the decade worthy because uniqueness doesn’t necessarily merit respect — and they would be right. But, ultimately, the music that has a place in history as artistically important and influential challenges convention and normality while still remaining enchanting today. And from New Wave to “Like a Virgin,” the music of the ’80s did just that.
But then again, this might be looking too much into the debate. Maybe it’s just fair to say without the ’80s, the world wouldn’t have Straight Out of Compton. And a world without culture-critiquing hip-hop would be a world that could merit a mournful and beat-less return to the ’70s.
