The Music Of The 80s - Favorites, Classics And Rarities

[snowbear]

spandaeu vallet, tama ba? hehehe

[hitman531ph]

That's SPANDAU BALLET.

 

Tony Hadley - Lead Vocals

Gary Kemp - Lead Guitar

Martin Kemp - Bass Guitar

Steve Norman - Saxophone, Keyboards, Percussion

John Keeble - Drums

[orlychio]

CUTTING CREW, DEPECHE MODE, BASTA ALL NEW WAVE BANDS

[orionpax]

in the UK, its called New Romanticism...tayo lang ang tumawag o nag coin ng "New Wave" na term sa UK invasion music

[bullseye2x]

bigla pumasok sa isip ko..yung WUDS ..or WOODS ba yung sumali sa battle of the bands nun pero nanalo ang ethnic faces... di si victor wood ha

[Karma Policeman]

The Cure, David Bowie, Pale Fountain, Joy Division, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Love and the Rockets, Eccho and the Bunnymen, Sisters of Mercy, New Order, Cindy Lauper, etc.

 

Astig ang 80's.

[hitman531ph]

BOY MEETS GIRL

 

The creative union of keyboardist George Merrill and singer Shannon Rubicam resulted in several major hits during the latter half of the '80s. Following their meeting at a wedding at which the two were hired to perform, the Seattle natives formed the venture Boy Meets Girl. Their eponymous, debut release in 1985 made some inroads when the single "Oh Girl" managed to scrape into the bottom reaches of the Top 40. A year later, Whitney Houston's version of their "How Will I Know?" (originally intended for Janet Jackson) became the third number one from Houston's debut, topping both the pop and R&B charts. The duo matched the success of that song when they wrote "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)" for Houston's 1987 sophomore effort. It again reached the chart summit and snagged a win at the following year's Grammy Awards. Now established as songwriters, they released another Boy Meets Girl set in 1988 with Reel Life. With the breezy "Waiting For a Star to Fall," they finally notched a Top Ten single for themselves, as the song climbed to number five. They eked out another hit from the record when the follow-up, "Bring Down the Moon," inched to number 49. New Dream failed to elicit any interest upon its release several years later and their marriage would end in divorce during the '90s. Although they didn't come close during this period to equaling their commercial successes, either as artists or songwriters, they would continue to work together. 2003 brought the release of a new album, The Wonderground; it was released on their own label, BoyMeetsGirl Music

[hitman531ph]

ANIMOTION

 

Riding the wave of MTV-friendly synth pop of the mid-'80s, Animotion took the coldly catchy "Obsession" to the Top Ten in the beginning of 1985. After that, success was elusive -- the follow-up, "Let Him Go," barely cracked the Top 40 just four months later. In 1988, over half of the band left the lineup, including the leaders Bill Wadhams and Astrid Plane; actress Cynthia Rhodes and former Device member Paul Engemann became the lead vocalists. (Fortunately, the personnel changes apparently didn't cause any animosity -- Plane married Charles Ottavio, Animotion's bassist and one of the founding members of the group.) The new lineup was lucky enough to score a Top Ten hit with "Room to Move," a lightweight song from a Dan Aykroyd movie that was even more lightweight (My Stepmother Is an Alien). After that brief flash of success, Animotion disappeared from the picture

[hitman531ph]

SLY FOX

 

Sly Fox only had one hit, but it was quite a single. In 1986, Sly Fox's “Let's Go All the Way" lit dynamite onto the pop charts, an infectious dance track with a thumping drum sound and funky bass. It may have seemed like a lone gem from a rather anonymous group of now-you-see-them-now-you-don't newcomers, but it was actually the work of Parliament veteran Gary ‘Muddbone' Cooper. “Let's Go All the Way", with its oddball mix of hip-hop, Latin pop, disco, and New Wave, crossed radio formats, from R&B to Top-40 to “Rock of the ‘80s" stations ruled by the Smiths and the Cure. Ultra slick, catchy, and making little sense, it could have only come from the ‘80s. Joined by vocalist Michael Camacho, Cooper was able to take his funk roots into the synthesized ‘80s, and “Let's Go All the Way" hinted at greatness. Unfortunately, their debut LP was critically panned and didn't sell well as it should. The album was drenched in filler, mainly lightweight funk and superficial pop/rock that left no lasting impression. Heavy exposure of “Let's Go All the Way" on MTV lengthened Sly Fox's shelf life, but without any other similarly strong tunes, they quickly joined the list of one-hit wonders, and Cooper moved on to other projects, including collaborating with blues guitarist Kelly Richey. “Let's Go All the Way" remains a favorite on ‘80s flashback programs and retro dance clubs.

[hitman531ph]

DONNY OSMOND

(Yes, he had a hit in 1989)

 

Donny Osmond has had many musical lives. As a very young child, he and his brothers started out as kid singers on The Andy Williams Show. In the late '60s and early '70s, fueled by the success of The Jackson Five, the Osmonds became close teenybopper competitors, with their own slew of hits. Donny was the centerpiece, and he competed with Michael Jackson for the hearts (and dollars) of pre-teens everywhere. Later, he forged a very successful solo career, and still later teamed with sister Marie for a hit TV show. Nonetheless, it took him until 1989 to release his first adult solo record, and tunes like "Soldier of Love" and "I'm in It for Love" with their George Michael-ish feel brought the former teen idol to the public eye once again. Work on the theatrical stage followed, and although Osmond's recording career again slowed after 1990's Eyes Don't Lie he remained active throughout the decade, most notably enjoying a five-year run as the lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. He next made a splash in 1998 with a new daytime talk show co-hosted by sister Marie; that same year, he also released a solo holiday album, Christmas at Home. In 2001 he capitalized on his theatrical career with his release, This is the Moment which featured a contemporary collection of songs from Broadway

Edited January 6, 2006 by hitman531ph

[uncertain_realm]

The Dawn

Pink Floyd

Queen

Air Supply

Styx

Eagles

John Lennon

Rod Stewart

Christopher Cross

Survivor

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

Chicago

Toto

Foreigners

The Cars

Earth Wind & Fire

The Police

Journey

Marvin Gaye

Van Halen

Duran Duran

Dire Straits

Tears for Fears

Bryan Adams

Chicago

Simply Red

Bon Jovi

U2

Rick Astley

Guns & Roses

Aerosmith

Bad English

Milli Vanilli

Roxette

Warrant

Poison

 

syempre di mawawala si Madonna at Michael Jackson sa 80's hehehe

[hitman531ph]

PINK FLOYD

 

Pink Floyd is the premier space rock band. Since the mid-'60s, their music relentlessly tinkered with electronics and all manner of special effects to push pop formats to their outer limits. At the same time they wrestled with lyrical themes and concepts of such massive scale that their music has taken on almost classical, operatic quality, in both sound and words. Despite their astral image, the group was brought down to earth in the 1980s by decidedly mundane power struggles over leadership and, ultimately, ownership of the band's very name. After that time, they were little more than a dinosaur act, capable of filling stadiums and topping the charts, but offering little more than a spectacular recreation of their most successful formulas. Their latter-day staleness cannot disguise the fact that, for the first decade or so of their existence, they were one of the most innovative groups around, in concert and (especially) in the studio.

 

While Pink Floyd are mostly known for their grandiose concept albums of the 1970s, they started as a very different sort of psychedelic band. Soon after they first began playing together in the mid-'60s, they fell firmly under the leadership of lead guitarist Syd Barrett, the gifted genius who would write and sing most of their early material. The Cambridge native shared the stage with Roger Waters (bass), Rick Wright (keyboards), and Nick Mason (drums). The name Pink Floyd, seemingly so far-out, was actually derived from the first names of two ancient bluesmen (Pink Anderson and Floyd Council). And at first, Pink Floyd were much more conventional than the act into which they would evolve, concentrating on the rock and R&B material that were so common to the repertoires of mid-'60s British bands.

 

Pink Floyd quickly began to experiment, however, stretching out songs with wild instrumental freak-out passages incorporating feedback; electronic screeches; and unusual, eerie sounds created by loud amplification, reverb, and such tricks as sliding ball bearings up and down guitar strings. In 1966, they began to pick up a following in the London underground; on-stage, they began to incorporate light shows to add to the psychedelic effect. Most importantly, Syd Barrett began to compose pop-psychedelic gems that combined unusual psychedelic arrangements (particularly in the haunting guitar and celestial organ licks) with catchy melodies and incisive lyrics that viewed the world with a sense of poetic, childlike wonder.

 

The group landed a recording contract with EMI in early 1967 and made the Top 20 with a brilliant debut single, "Arnold Layne," a sympathetic, comic vignette about a transvestite. The follow-up, the kaleidoscopic "See Emily Play," made the Top Ten. The debut album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn, also released in 1967, may have been the greatest British psychedelic album other than Sgt. Pepper's. Dominated almost wholly by Barrett's songs, the album was a charming fun house of driving, mysterious rockers ("Lucifer Sam"); odd character sketches ("The Gnome"); childhood flashbacks ("Bike," "Matilda Mother"); and freakier pieces with lengthy instrumental passages ("Astronomy Domine," "Interstellar Overdrive," "Pow R Toch") that mapped out their fascination with space travel. The record was not only like no other at the time; it was like no other that Pink Floyd would make, colored as it was by a vision that was far more humorous, pop-friendly, and lighthearted than those of their subsequent epics.

 

The reason Pink Floyd never made a similar album was that Piper was the only one to be recorded under Barrett's leadership. Around mid-1967, the prodigy began showing increasingly alarming signs of mental instability. Barrett would go catatonic on-stage, playing music that had little to do with the material, or not playing at all. An American tour had to be cut short when he was barely able to function at all, let alone play the pop star game. Dependent upon Barrett for most of their vision and material, the rest of the group was nevertheless finding him impossible to work with, live or in the studio.

 

Around the beginning of 1968, guitarist Dave Gilmour, a friend of the band who was also from Cambridge, was brought in as a fifth member. The idea was that Gilmour would enable the Floyd to continue as a live outfit; Barrett would still be able to write and contribute to the records. That couldn't work either, and within a few months Barrett was out of the group. Pink Floyd's management, looking at the wreckage of a band that was now without its lead guitarist, lead singer, and primary songwriter, decided to abandon the group and manage Barrett as a solo act.

 

Such calamities would have proven insurmountable for 99 out of 100 bands in similar predicaments. Incredibly, Pink Floyd would regroup and not only maintain their popularity, but eventually become even more successful. It was early in the game yet, after all; the first album had made the British Top Ten, but the group was still virtually unknown in America, where the loss of Syd Barrett meant nothing to the media. Gilmour was an excellent guitarist, and the band proved capable of writing enough original material to generate further ambitious albums, Waters eventually emerging as the dominant composer. The 1968 follow-up to Piper at the Gates of Dawn, A Saucerful of Secrets, made the British Top Ten, using Barrett's vision as an obvious blueprint, but taking a more formal, somber, and quasi-classical tone, especially in the long instrumental parts. Barrett, for his part, would go on to make a couple of interesting solo records before his mental problems instigated a retreat into oblivion.

 

Over the next four years, Pink Floyd would continue to polish their brand of experimental rock, which married psychedelia with ever-grander arrangements on a Wagnerian operatic scale. Hidden underneath the pulsing, reverberant organs and guitars and insistently restated themes were subtle blues and pop influences that kept the material accessible to a wide audience. Abandoning the singles market, they concentrated on album-length works, and built a huge following in the progressive rock underground with constant touring in both Europe and North America. While LPs like Ummagumma (divided into live recordings and experimental outings by each member of the band), Atom Heart Mother (a collaboration with composer Ron Geesin), and More... (a film soundtrack) were erratic, each contained some extremely effective music.

 

By the early '70s, Syd Barrett was a fading or nonexistent memory for most of Pink Floyd's fans, although the group, one could argue, never did match the brilliance of that somewhat anomalous 1967 debut. Meddle (1971) sharpened the band's sprawling epics into something more accessible, and polished the science fiction ambience that the group had been exploring ever since 1968. Nothing, however, prepared Pink Floyd or their audience for the massive mainstream success of their 1973 album, Dark Side of the Moon, which made their brand of cosmic rock even more approachable with state-of-the-art production; more focused songwriting; an army of well-time stereophonic sound effects; and touches of saxophone and soulful female backup vocals.

 

Dark Side of the Moon finally broke Pink Floyd as superstars in the United States, where it made number one. More astonishingly, it made them one of the biggest-selling acts of all time. Dark Side of the Moon spent an incomprehensible 741 weeks on the Billboard album chart. Additionally, the primarily instrumental textures of the songs helped make Dark Side of the Moon easily translatable on an international level, and the record became (and still is) one of the most popular rock albums worldwide.

 

It was also an extremely hard act to follow, although the follow-up, Wish You Were Here (1975), also made number one, highlighted by a tribute of sorts to the long-departed Barrett, "Shine On You Crazy Diamond." Dark Side of the Moon had been dominated by lyrical themes of insecurity, fear, and the cold sterility of modern life; Wish You Were Here and Animals (1977) developed these morose themes even more explicitly. By this time Waters was taking a firm hand over Pink Floyd's lyrical and musical vision, which was consolidated by The Wall (1979).

 

The bleak, overambitious double concept album concerned itself with the material and emotional walls modern humans build around themselves for survival. The Wall was a huge success (even by Pink Floyd's standards), in part because the music was losing some of its heavy-duty electronic textures in favor of more approachable pop elements. Although Pink Floyd had rarely even released singles since the late '60s, one of the tracks, "Another Brick in the Wall," became a transatlantic number one. The band had been launching increasingly elaborate stage shows throughout the '70s, but the touring production of The Wall, featuring a construction of an actual wall during the band's performance, was the most excessive yet.

 

In the 1980s, the group began to unravel. Each of the four had done some side and solo projects in the past; more troublingly, Waters was asserting control of the band's musical and lyrical identity. That wouldn't have been such a problem had The Final Cut (1983) been such an unimpressive effort, with little of the electronic innovation so typical of their previous work. Shortly afterward, the band split up -- for a while. In 1986, Waters was suing Gilmour and Mason to dissolve the group's partnership (Wright had lost full membership status entirely); Waters lost, leaving a Roger-less Pink Floyd to get a Top Five album with Momentary Lapse of Reason in 1987. In an irony that was nothing less than cosmic, about 20 years after Pink Floyd shed their original leader to resume their career with great commercial success, they would do the same again to his successor. Waters released ambitious solo albums to nothing more than moderate sales and attention, while he watched his former colleagues (with Wright back in tow) rescale the charts.

 

Pink Floyd still had a huge fan base, but there's little that's noteworthy about their post-Waters output. They knew their formula, could execute it on a grand scale, and could count on millions of customers -- many of them unborn when Dark Side of the Moon came out, and unaware that Syd Barrett was ever a member -- to buy their records and see their sporadic tours. The Division Bell, their first studio album in seven years, topped the charts in 1994 without making any impact on the current rock scene, except in a marketing sense. Ditto for the live Pulse album, recorded during a typically elaborately staged 1994 tour, which included a concert version of The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety. Waters' solo career sputtered along, highlighted by a solo recreation of The Wall, performed at the site of the former Berlin Wall in 1990, and released as an album. Syd Barrett continued to be completely removed from the public eye except as a sort of archetype for the fallen genius

[hitman531ph]

JOAN JETT & THE BLACKHEARTS

 

By playing pure and simple rock & roll without making an explicit issue of her gender, Joan Jett became a figurehead for several generations of female rockers. Jett's brand of rock & roll is loud and stripped-down, yet with overpowering hooks -- a combination of the Stones' tough, sinewy image and beat, AC/DC chords, and glam rock hooks. As the numerous covers she has recorded show, she adheres both to rock tradition and breaks with it -- she plays classic three-chord rock & roll, yet she also loves the trashy elements (in particular, Gary Glitter) of it as well, and she plays with a defiant sneer. From her first band, the Runaways, through her hit-making days in the '80s with the Blackhearts right until her unexpected revival in the '90s, she hasn't changed her music, yet she's kept her quality control high, making one classic single ("I Love Rock 'n Roll") along the way.

 

Jett was born in Philadelphia, PA; her family moved to Los Angeles when she was 12 years old. By the time she was 15, she had formed her first band and was performing around town. Kim Fowley, a Los Angeles record producer, discovered the band at one of their gigs and became their manager; soon, he renamed the all-female group the Runaways and secured them a contract with Mercury Records. The band released three albums that never had much commercial success in America, yet were very popular in Japan; the group was popular in both the Los Angeles hard rock and punk scenes, which led to Jett's production of the Germs' first record, (GI) The Runaways group broke up in 1980 and Jett moved to New York to begin a solo career.

 

Teaming up with producer/manager Kenny Laguna, Jett independently released her self-titled debut album in 1980 in America, since no labels were interested in signing her. The record was a more traditional rock & roll record than the punky Runaways, yet it retained her previous band's defiant attitude. The record sold very well for an independent release, leading to a contract with Boardwalk Records, who reissued the album under the title Bad Rep*tation; it soon climbed to number 51 on the American charts.

 

Jett formed the Blackhearts between Bad Rep*tation and her second album, 1981's I Love Rock-n-Roll; the group included guitarist Ricky Byrd, bassist Gary Ryan, and drummer Lee Crystal. Released at the end of 1981, I Love Rock-n-Roll became her greatest success, sending her into the Top Ten. Originally the B-side of an Arrows single, the title track was an enormous success, spending seven weeks at number one in the spring of 1982. The follow-up single, a version of Tommy James & the Shondells' "Crimson and Clover," went Top Ten as well; a single of Gary Glitter's "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)," taken from the Bad Rep*tation album, reached number 20 in the summer of 1982. Album, released in 1983, went gold yet had no hits that compared with either "I Love Rock 'n Roll" or "Crimson and Clover."

 

Jett starred in Paul Schrader's 1987 film Light of Day, which featured the Top 40 title song, yet she didn't have another Top Ten hit until 1988, when "I Hate Myself for Loving You," taken from the Up Your Alley album, hit number eight; the album became her second platinum record. After the album's success, her career had another slow period, with 1990's all-covers album The Hit List making it to number 36 and 1991's Notorious failing to chart. Between Notorious and 1994's Pure and Simple, a new generation of female rockers came of age and everyone from hard alternative rockers like L7 to the minimalist, riot grrrl punk rockers like Bikini k*ll claimed Jett and the Runaways as an influence. As a consequence, Pure and Simple received more press and positive reviews than any of her albums since the mid-'80s. In 1995, Jett recorded the live album Evilstig with the remaining members of the Gits, a Seattle punk rock band whose lead singer, Mia Zapata, was raped and murdered in 1993. Jett reunited with the Blackhearts for the 1999 album Fetish

[hitman531ph]

DIRE STRAITS

 

Dire Straits emerged during the post-punk era of the late '70s, and while their sound was minimalistic and stripped down, they owed little to punk. If anything, the band was a direct outgrowth of the roots revivalism of pub rock, but where pub rock celebrated good times, Dire Straits were melancholy. Led by guitarist/vocalist Mark Knopfler, the group built their sound upon the laid-back blues-rock of J.J. Cale, but they also had jazz and country inflections, occasionally dipping into the epic song structures of progressive rock. The band's music was offset by Knopfler's lyrics, which approximated the winding, stream-of-conscious narratives of Bob Dylan. As their career progressed, Dire Straits became more refined and their new maturity happened to coincide with the rise of MTV and the compact disc. These two musical revolutions from the mid-'80s helped make Dire Straits' sixth album, Brothers in Arms, an international blockbuster. The band -- along with Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, and Steve Winwood -- become one of the leaders of a group of self-consciously mature veteran rock & rollers in the late '80s that designed their music to appeal to aging baby boomers. Despite the band's international success, they couldn't sustain their stardom, waiting a full six years to deliver a follow-up to Brothers in Arms, by which time their audience had shrunk significantly.

 

Knopfler (born August 12, 1949) was always the main force behind Dire Straits. The son of an architect, Knopfler studied English literature at Leeds University and worked briefly as a rock critic for the Yorkshire Evening Post while at college. He began teaching English after his graduation, leading a pub rock band called Brewer's Droop at night. By 1977, Mark was playing with his brother David (guitar) and his roommate John Illsley (bass). During the summer of 1977, the trio cut a demo with drummer Pick Withers. A London DJ named Charlie Gillett heard the demo and began playing "Sultans of Swing" on his BBC show Honky Tonkin'. Following a tour opening for Talking Heads, the band began recording their debut for Vertigo Records with producer Muff Winwood in early 1978. By the summer, they had signed with Warner in America, releasing their eponymous debut in the fall. Thanks to the Top Ten hit "Sultans of Swing," Dire Straits was a major success in both Britain and America, with the single and album climbing into the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic.

 

Dire Straits established Dire Straits as a major force on album-oriented radio in America, and their second album, Communique (1979), consolidated their audience, selling three million copies worldwide. As the group was recording its third album, Knopfler left the band to pursue a solo career; he was replaced by former Darling member Hal Lindes. Like its predecessor, Making Movies was a sizable hit in America and Britain, even though the band was criticized for musically treading water. Nevertheless, the record went gold on the strength of the radio and MTV hits "Romeo and Juliet" and "Skateaway." Dire Straits followed the album two years later with Love Over Gold, an album filled with long, experimental passages, plus the single "Private Investigations," which became a number two hit in the U.K. The album went gold in America and spent four weeks at number one in Britain. Shortly after the release of Love Over Gold, former Rockpile drummer Terry Williams replaced Withers.

 

During 1982, Knopfler began exploring musical avenues outside of Dire Straits, scoring the Bill Forsyth film Local Hero and playing on Van Morrison's Beautiful Vision. Apart from releasing the Twisting by the Pool EP early in 1983, Dire Straits were quiet for the majority of 1983 and 1984, as Knopfler produced Bob Dylan's Infidels, as well as Aztec Camera and Willy DeVille; he also wrote "Private Dancer for Tina Turner's comeback album. In the spring of 1984, the band released the double album Alchemy: Dire Straits Live and by the end of the year, they had begun recording their fifth studio album with their new keyboardist, Guy Fletcher. Released in the summer of 1985, Brothers in Arms was Dire Straits' breakthrough album, making the band international stars. Supported by the groundbreaking computer-animated video for "Money for Nothing," a song which mocked music videos, the album became a blockbuster, spending nine weeks at the top of the American charts and selling over nine million copies; in England, the album became the biggest-selling album of the '80s. "Walk of Life" and "So Far Away" kept Brothers in Arms in the charts through 1986, and Dire Straits played over 200 dates in support of the album. Once the tour was completed, Dire Straits went on hiatus for several years, as Knopfler produced records by Randy Newman and Joan Armatrading, scored films, toured with Eric Clapton, and recorded a duet album with Chet Atkins (Neck and Neck, 1990). In 1989, he formed the country-rock group Notting Hillbillies, whose sole album, Missing...Presumed Having a Good Time, became a British hit upon its spring 1990 release. During the extended time off, John Illsley recorded his second album; the first appeared in 1984.

 

In 1990, Knopfler reconvened Dire Straits, which now featured Illsley, Clark, Fletcher, and various session musicians. The band released On Every Street in the fall of 1991 to great anticipation. However, the album failed to meet expectations -- it only went platinum in America and it didn't crack the U.K. Top 40 -- and failed to generate a hit single. Similarly, the tour was a disappointment, with many tickets going unsold in both the U.S. and Europe. Once the tour was completed, the live album On the Night was released in the spring of 1993 and the band again went on hiatus. In 1996, Knopfler launched his solo career with Golden Heart

[innocentbaby23]

ako the best sakin yung buttercup, foot loose and marami pa basta yung mga happy songs noong 80s the best talaga...