Music Trends of the 80s

Last of all

Electronic music

In the 1980s, dance music records made using only electronic instruments became increasingly popular, largely influenced from the Electronic music of Kraftwerk and 1970s disco music. Such music was originally born of and popularized via regional nightclub scenes in the 1980s, and became the predominant type of music played in discothèques as well as the rave scene.

House music is a style of electronic dance music which originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA in the early 1980s. House music was strongly influenced by elements of soul- and funk-infused varieties of disco.

Hip hop

Encompassing graffiti art, break dancing, rap music, and fashion, hip-hop became the dominant cultural movement of the African American and Hispanic communities in the 1980s. The Hip hop musical genre had a strong influence on pop music in the late 1980s which still continues to the present day.

During the 1980s, the hip hop genre started embracing the creation of rhythm by using the human body, via the vocal percussion technique of beatboxing. Pioneers such as Doug E. Fresh, Biz Markie and Buffy from the Fat Boys made beats, rhythm, and musical sounds using their mouth, lips, tongue, voice, and other body parts. "Human Beatbox" artists would also sing or imitate turntablism scratching or other instrument sounds.

Country music

As the 1980s dawned, pop-influenced country music was the dominant style, through such acts as Kenny Rogers, Ronnie Milsap, T.G. Sheppard, Eddie Rabbitt, Crystal Gayle, Anne Murray and Dolly Parton. The 1980 movie Urban Cowboy, a romantic comedy starring John Travolta and Debra Winger, spawned a successful soundtrack album featuring pop-styled country songs, including "Lookin' for Love" by Johnny Lee, "The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by the Charlie Daniels Band, "Could I Have This Dance" by Murray and "Love the World Away" by Rogers. The songs, and the movie itself, resulted in an early 1980s boom in pop-styled country music, and the era is sometimes known as the "Urban Cowboy Movement".

By the mid-1980s, country music audiences were beginning to tire of country pop. Although some pop-country artists continued to record and release successful songs and albums, the genre in general was beginning to suffer. By 1985, a New York Times article declared country music "dead". However, by this time, several newcomers were working behind the scenes to reverse this perception.

Other trends

Massively successful hard rock band Led Zeppelin disbanded after drummer John Bonham's 1980 death, while contemporaries AC/DC continued to have success after the death of former frontman Bon Scott. Country rock saw a decline after Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1977 plane crash and the 1980 disbanding of the genre's most successful band, the Eagles. The Grateful Dead had their biggest hit in band history with Touch of Grey. The Who managed to provide the hit songs You Better You Bet and Eminence Front before burning out after the death of drummer Keith Moon.

Hardcore punk flourished throughout the early to mid-1980s, with bands leading the genre such as Black Flag, Bad Brains, Minor Threat, Suicidal Tendencies, amongst others. It began to wane, however, in the latter half of the decade, with the New York hardcore scene dominating the genre.

Various older rock bands made a comeback. Bands originating from the early to mid-1960s such as The Beach Boys and The Kinks had hits with Kokomo, Come Dancing and Do It Again. Bands with popularity in the mid-1970s such as the Steve Miller Band and Steely Dan also had hits with Abracadabra and Hey Nineteen. Singer-songwriter Bruce Springsteen released his blockbuster album Born In The USA, which produced a record-tying 7 hit singles. Stevie Ray Vaughan and George Thorogood sparked a revival of Electric blues and Blues rock.

Soft rock and singer-songwriter

In the late 1980s, the term was applied to a group of predominantly female U.S. artists, beginning with Suzanne Vega whose first album sold unexpectedly well, followed by the likes of Tracy Chapman, Nanci Griffith, k.d. lang and Tori Amos, who found success first in the United Kingdom, then in her home market.

By the late 1970s and early 1980s the original wave of singer-songwriters had largely been absorbed into a more general pop or soft rock format, but some new artists in the singer-songwriter tradition (including Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Mark Heard, Lucinda Williams, Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Rickie Lee Jones, Stevie Nicks, Cheryl Wheeler and Warren Zevon) continued to emerge, and in other cases rock and even punk rock artists such as Peter Case, Paul Collins and Paul Westerberg transitioned to careers as solo singer-songwriters.

Rock

Beginning in 1983 and peaking in success in 1986-1991, the decade saw the resurgence of hard rock music and the emergence of its glam metal subgenre. Bands such as Queen, Def Leppard, Mötley Crüe, Bon Jovi, Quiet Riot, Europe, Ratt, Twisted Sister, Poison, Whitesnake, and Cinderella were among the most popular acts of the decade. The 1980s saw the emergence of wildly popular hard rock band Guns N' Roses and the successful comebacks of Aerosmith and Alice Cooper in the late 1980s.

Bon Jovi

• By 1980, the disco production of the 1970s, largely dependent on orchestras, is replaced by a lighter synthpop production, which is replaced by dance music. In the second half of the 1980s, teen pop has its first wave.

The success of hard rock act Van Halen spanned throughout the entire decade, first with singer David Lee Roth and later with Sammy Hagar. Queen, which had expanded its music to experimental and crossover genres in the early 1980s, returned to guitar-driven hard rock with The Miracle in 1989. Additionally, a few women managed to achieve stardom in the 1980s' hard rock scene: Pat Benatar, who had been around since the late 1970s, is a prime example of female success in hard rock, and so are both ex-Runaways Joan Jett and Lita Ford.

• It has also made use of technological innovation. In the 1940s improved microphone design allowed a more intimate singing style and ten or twenty years later inexpensive and more durable 45 r.p.m. records for singles "revolutionized the manner in which pop has been disseminated" and helped to move pop music to ‘a record/radio/film star system’.

Madonna

Music Trends

of the 80's

Alternative Rock

By 1984, a majority of groups signed to independent record labels were mining from a variety of rock and particularly 1960s rock influences. This represented a sharp break from the futuristic, hyper rational post-punk years.

Throughout the 1980s, alternative rock was mainly an underground phenomena. While on occasion a song would become a commercial hit or albums would receive critical praise in mainstream publications like Rolling Stone, alternative rock in the 1980s was primarily relegated to independent record labels, fanzines and college radio stations. Alternative bands built underground followings by touring constantly and regularly releasing low-budget albums. In the case of the United States, new bands would form in the wake of previous bands, which created an extensive underground circuit in America, filled with different scenes in various parts of the country. Although American alternative artists of the 1980s never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on later alternative musicians and laid the groundwork for their success

The might be

giants

Pop

• Pop music (a term that originally derives from an abbreviation of "popular") is a genre of popular music which originated in its modern form in the 1950s, deriving from rock and roll.The terms popular music and pop music are often used interchangeably, even though the former is a description of music which is popular (and can include any style).

• Throughout its development, pop music has absorbed influences from most other genres of popular music. Early pop music drew on the sentimental ballad for its form, gained its use of vocal harmonies from gospel and soul music, instrumentation from jazz, country, and rock music, orchestration from classical music, tempo from dance music, backing from electronic music, rhythmic elements from hip-hop music, and has recently appropriated spoken passages from rap.

Contemporary R&B

in the mid-1980s, many of the recordings by artists Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson, Sade, Anita Baker, Teddy Pendergrass, Peabo Bryson and others became known as quiet storm. The term had originated with Smokey Robinson's 1975 album A Quiet Storm. Quiet storm has been described as "R&B's answer to soft rock and adult contemporary—while it was primarily intended for black audiences, quiet storm had the same understated dynamics, relaxed tempos and rhythms, and romantic sentiment."

Contemporary R&B

Contemporary R&B originated in the 1980s, when musicians started adding disco-like beats, high-tech production, and elements of hip hop, soul and funk to rhythm and blues, making it more danceable and modern. The top mainstream R&B artists of 1980s included Michael Jackson, Prince, Jermaine Jackson, The Whispers, The S.O.S. Band, Stevie Wonder, Kool & the Gang, Yarbrough and Peoples, Smokey Robinson, Rick James, Diana Ross, Lionel Richie, Earth, Wind & Fire, Dazz Band, Evelyn King, Marvin Gaye, Mtume, DeBarge, Midnight Star, and Freddie Jackson