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

My take is that the 70s were merely a fallout from the 60s until the Sex Pistols appeared to give rock a back to basics skiffle type shakeup.

The introduction of multi-track recording (plus the increasing use of synths) had done a lot to drain the music of a sense of urgency which punk/new wave restored.

Like the Velvet Underground before them, countless bands said they had been inspired by watching the Pistols live.

You could argue that bands like the Velvets, MC5 and the New York Dolls were all years ahead of their contemporaries, but it didn’t do them much good if they were seeking chart success, their music didn’t translate to what was happening elsewhere.

[The 1973 OPEC oil crisis would soon fix all of that].

This ’new wave’ culminated with the music of the Smiths during the 1980s. Of all the 80s bands, none pushed the musical and lyrical envelope in the same way Morrissey, Marr, Rourke and Joyce did.

After that, it’s difficult to say whether anything new, outside rap, which arguably took getting back to basics even further than punk did, happened.

https://openculture.com/2015/06/the-sex-pistols-1976-manchester-gig-that-changed-the-world.html

The new bands of the late 70's and early 80's had much to rebel against, whether it was disco, bombastic prog rock (ELP, etc)  or what was being labeled as corporate rock (Boston, REO, etc). Many will argue that rebellion of some kind is essential for good rock music.

Here's some more late 70's and early 80's bands that I don't think have been mentioned yet:

Be-bop Deluxe, Billy Bragg, The Blue Nile, The Bongos, The Church, Concrete Blonde, The Connels, The DB's, The Divinyls, Don Dixon, Thomas Dolby, Echo and the Bunnymen, Everything But The Girl, Fetchin' Bones, Grapes of Wrath, Hoodoo Gurus, House of Love, Hunters & Collectors, Icehouse, Joe Jackson, Robin Lane & the Chartbusters, Midnight Oil, The Pretenders, The Railway Children, The Replacements, The Shoes, The Silencers, The Smithereens, The Spoons (Canadian band), The The (my vote for the greatest band name), Translator, The Waterboys and Was Not Was.

I'd agree with some of the posters mentioning stoner burnout. For boomers early 70's beginning of drug usage years, still lots of energy in youth culture, early 70's rock reflected this. By mid to late 70's, years of drug use was beginning to show it's toll, less energy and vitality in youth culture, again reflected in the music.

 This state of affairs led to many rebelling against the same old, same old, we turned to new genres like disco, punk to provide energy, vitality. This morphed into more genres like modern rock, hard core in the 80's.

Think about correlation between drugs and music, more depressant oriented drugs in 70's, stimulant oriented in 80's, very much reflected in music.

Seems like a lot of fancy talk here when it seems pretty simple to me.

The ‘80s we’re just kind of weird, trend-wise.  Garish, ostentatious, tacky, with arguably the most pungent visual and aural signifiers of any era.

Like any era, it’s not necessarily defined by its worst stuff.

Popular-wise, the late-90s early ‘00s were dreadful.  But there was some great stuff from that time also that holds up extremely well.

The hair got bigger..........