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How did 70s rock music transition into 80s music?

80s music appeared to be a re-visitation of the beginning of Rock — when "singles" ruled the AM radio. In those early days, in the event that a craftsman had a hit, he/she could get to record an "collection" (when those modern LP records appeared). A LP could have two hits and 10 tunes of forgettable filler melodies. Most craftsmen were characterized by their hit singles.

The 60s and 70s saw an ascent in FM radio and AOR (Album Oriented Rock) which gave numerous specialists the opportunity to make bigger works, or gatherings of melodies which frequently remained all in all work, and empowered a more extended tuning in/focus time. Beside funk and disco dance hits, the 70s inclined towards Album Oriented Rock.

The 80s saw a swing away from longer works and AOR, and back towards snappy singles. I'd say MTV had a great deal to do with the progress to 80s music. ("Video killed the radio star"):

MTV presented many gatherings who had fantastic singles, yet probably won't have accomplished acknowledgment without MTV video openness: Squeeze, The Vapors, Duran, Adam and the Ants, the B-52s, The Cars — to give some examples. (Note, I said "may" — yet that is my hypothesis.)
MTV constrained many long settled stars — David Bowie, Rod Stewart, even The Rolling Stones — to make video-commendable tunes. (That is — SINGLES.)
Peter Gabriel is a story regardless of anyone else's opinion. He was genuinely known from his Genesis Days — yet those astonishing recordings of "For sure" and "Demolition hammer" certainly kicked him into the super frightening.
MTV — after a ton of asking, cajoling, and dangers — at last changed their bigoted whites-just strategy, and began broadcasting recordings by people like Michael Jackson and Prince — presenting various dark craftsman to a lot bigger crowd.
In outline, I think MTV during the 80s — and later the Internet and YouTube — abbreviated individuals' capacity to focus, made a market weighty on short snappy singles, and made it progressively hard for craftsman to make "collections" which would allow them an opportunity to introduce their bigger vision.

davidjohan
larsman's avatar
larsman
1,933 posts
 

Music evolves, people's tastes evolve, change marches on!!   

tablejockey
3,894 posts
 

"Of course, for bad playing of the Tele you always have Keith Richards ;-) ."

bpd24-"Stray Cat Blues" Only Keef gets away with that elementary school bashing.

The death of R&R in the 70's was forgotten by late 70's early 80's with the British scene.

TheBeat(English Beat)Smiths, TheThe, Stone Roses,Cure...long list.

Anyone in their teens/early 20's in SoCal mid 70's-80's had the fortune of hearing Rodney Bingenheimer (106.7 KROQ)spin the hippest music coming out of England.

Very instrumental in bringing cool music from across the pond. 

 

russ69's avatar
russ69
3,505 posts
 

One 80’s group I for some reason like is The Cure.

I walked into a record store that had converted to all CDs. I found the guy with the wildest hair and a vest full of buttons (flair). He handed me "Seventeen Seconds" and I've been a fan ever since. Maybe I should go up to the city and hit up one of the CD shops and see what's new? 

sns
3,209 posts
 

For me the transition from blues based rock to AOR was when my transition to other genres began. From that point on felt like outlier to the masses, disco vs rock never a concern of mine, I attended both disco clubs and went to hard core concerts, loved the modern rock. Mainstream rock just sort of went away for me, even my fav bands from back in the day, The Who, Led Zep, Stones faded off into rather boring rehashed vestiges of their former selves.

bdp24's avatar
bdp24
9,788 posts
 

Okay @tablejockey, but "Stray Cat Blues" was recorded in the late-60’s, over 50 years ago for gawds sake! Anyone who thinks Keith Richards is a naturally gifted musician needs to watch the scene in Hail! Hail! Rock ’n’ Roll (the 1987 documentary Richards made on Chuck Berry) where the band that Richards assembled for the concert that ends the film is rehearsing. They are going over one song---I think it’s "Oh Carol"---and Chuck has to over-and-over again show Richards how he is playing it wrong. Chuck demonstrates that the offbeat accents played on guitar are done so with upstrokes (there’s no other way to do it), and try as he might, Richards just can’t play it right. Lame.

By the way, the bassist Richards chose for that band was Joey Spampinato, of the great American Rock ’n’ Roll band NRBQ. Richards offered Joey the job of replacing Bill Wyman when Bill quit The Stones, and Joey turned him down! Apparently Joey elected to stay in the world’s greatest Rock ’n’ Roll band rather than join The World’s Greatest Rock ’n’ Roll Band (self-proclaimed, of course). NRBQ themselves had a great Telecaster player as a member for a long time, the fantastic Big Al Anderson. Good songwriter, too.

I last saw The Stones in the early-2000’s, and it was a pitiful sight to behold. But not as pififull as Richards had acted at the tribute show for Keith’s pal Gram Parsons, held in 1999 at The Universal Amphitheater. He and Norah Jones closed the show, performing the Everly Brothers song lots of people attribute to Gram: "Love Hurts". Yeah, Gram recorded it with Emmylou Harris, but it’s not "his" song. Besides, their recording is not nearly as good as the Brothers’ version.

Anyway, during Richards and Jones performance of the song Keith is being such a leering, lascivious creep towards Norah (he also couldn’t keep his hands off her) that she is actually embarrassed, looking VERY uncomfortable. But that doesn’t stop him, no. He does that whole "Aren’t I so charming and amusing" shtick, constantly chortling at his own charming banter. It was truly disgraceful. What a disgusting pig.

But seeing James Burton on stage (he played on Gram’s albums, and was invited to participate in the concert. Unbelievably, Emmylou wasn't there.) made it all worthwhile. James Burton, now THERE’S a guitar player!

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