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

There was whole corporate thing going on.  Remember Sony-BMG?  The massive selling records of the 70s attracted investment dollars into the industry resulting in consolidation.  At first it worked out pretty good with Micheal Jackson's "Thriller", which is still the biggest selling record of all time, and other mega-hits by Madonna, Whitney Houston and Bruce Springsteen.  When accountants start making artistic decisions, well do I have to spell it out?

Fortunately,  R.E.M. broke alternative music open, the Gang Of Four played Marxism with a beat, Bryan Ferry crooned his best solo work, Janet Jackson showed what Madonna was trying to do and even Guns N' Roses became an arena filling band.  By the end of the decade hip-hop/rap became the dominate music.  There were tons of great music in the 80s.  Ignore it at your own peril.

@mikelavigne “basically”…nonsense.

You named three uber-popular bands of the ‘70s (as if they constituted the totality of consequential popular music of that decade), besmirched an entire decade’s worth of great music (‘80s), and then capped it all off with the most grossly oversimplified and clichéd summation of popular music imaginable: “Nevermind came along and ‘saved popular music.’”

The ‘80s: Metallica, Joy Division, Young Marble Giants, Delta 5, The Modettes, Au Pairs, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Kleenex/Liliput, The Bush Tetras, Afrika Bambaataa, The Raincoats, Patrice Rushen, The Fall, The B-52s, Diamanda Galas, Public Enemy, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Devo, Michael Jackson, Sonic Youth, Boogie Down Productions, Magazine, The Clash, Flipper, Gang of Four, Run-D.M.C., Talking Heads, Arthur Russell, Motörhead, Grace Jones, The Feelies, Cure, Suicide, Fad Gadget, Bauhaus, Ministry, Big Black, Daniel Johnston, Too Short, Kate Bush, A Certain Ratio, Prince, Wipers, Butthole Surfers, Cocteau Twins, N.W.A., Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, Beastie Boys, The Go-Gos, Jerry’s Kids, Human League, Eric B. & Rakim, Pixies, ESG, The Smiths, Tears For Fears, Laurie Anderson, The Birthday Party, Madonna, The Cramps, Meat Puppets, Talk Talk, Ultramagnetic MC’s, Pet Shop Boys, The Mekons, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Violent Femmes, Scritti Politti, Misfits, Tom Waits, XTC, Psychic TV, Duran Duran, Nurse With Wound, Geto Boys, Cyndi Lauper, Minutemen, and Slick Rick to name a few.

I did not care for a lot of 80s music when it happened but has grown on me since. Pop music really blossomed back then in so many ways. My teenage daughter is a big fan.

Mike may be speaking to his taste, and not as an absolute- obviously tastes vary. I’ve found that the point in time when someone engages in a genre or band -- their so-called "point of entry" is also instructive- for example, I was a fan of Tull very early on--the Stand Up era, a couple albums behind Aqualung, heard them live in that period and kind of lost the thread by the time of "Thick." But there is a huge fan base out there today that enjoys the later albums.

For material in the ’80s, I was probably less attached and same was true in the grunge/post grunge period. I have had to tap my younger friends to say-- which album of Pearl Jam’s is essential. Ditto-Metallica, I just didn’t follow them in their "era." (I always like heavy stuff, and to this day, seek out what I’d call "precursor" records- stuff that pre-dates Zep, and for the most part, remained obscure, except where the record has become a collector’s item). One of my favorite bands in the ’80s was Bad Brains- pretty odd stuff, but those guys were technically superb musicians playing Rasta-punk stuff that somehow appealed on a give the "middle finger" level to my juvenile brain.

Part of the fun to me is exploration. I got turned onto the Talking Heads when they were virtually unknown. A pretty astute woman I knew dragged me to a pizzeria for a Halloween party that featured the band, a couple slices and a soda for 10 bucks or whatever. It wasn’t exactly punk and they were good-- I understood them better after they became big, released a number of albums and got more perspective. I would not call myself a fan, but I get it.

I’ll go hear somebody live if I can, but in many cases, all we have is the records now. The bands are gone, the performers aged out or dead or retired. But, to come back to the point, there’s that point of engagement again, where you feel like its all a revelation, the music speaks to you and it becomes part of your genetic code.

The things that stick out for me in the increasingly corporatized music business from that era were the sounds of gated drums and the Yamaha DX7. That sound to me, is very emblematic of the ’80s and I don’t think a lot of that stuff has aged well. Of course, not everybody was doing slick, and overproduced stuff. But those were boom years for the labels-- handing out advances to bands you’d never hear about, just to seed the field. The more adventurous players created "alternative" during that era and did just as well if not better.

Obviously, it’s hard to summarize an entire decade. I think that’s almost too gross a categorization to be meaningful. At the same time, all the genre divisions got even more refined during this era and later ("Shoegaze" v. "Chillcore") and mean pretty little, if the band is cutting new ground rather than riding a trend. It’s all music and what appeals to one may or may not appeal to another. You can hope to be exposed to it and make up your own mind. My Teaching Assistant specializes in ethnic folk- he’ll do a deep dive on Bulgarian folks songs or something. Some of it interests me, some less so.

In closing (ahem, :)) I went to hear the TA's band a few years ago at a SXSW venue. We went to the wrong storefront, and heard Josefus, an early heavy band out of Texas. They were probably more my thing than Bulgarian folk, but no dis to the Bulgarians here.

Have fun.

Clubbing and dance music (12" singles) were HUGE in the 80s. Not just radio 'singles' but music stores had entire sections devoted to 12" vinyl. Billboard magazine had club and dance charts---then came remix albums and hard to get import 12" singles. Most of my vinyl collection consists of 12" vinyl---many are hard to find imports. Remixes and 12" vinyl are a rarity these days. Vinyl albums are back but try to find a classic like the original 12" mix of 'Blue Monday' by New Order.