what music did you turn to in the late 80's?

[ghosty]

[quote][i]Originally posted by bigwavedave[/i]
<br>Oops, I should have probably slotted U2, and maybe REM into the "mainstream" paragraph. Either way, I think it actually was a really good period for post new-wave music. Oh, also throw in Husker Du, Billy Bragg and the Replacements!
[/quote]

I agree. Actually, that's some of my favorite stuff.

[KYYX4ever]

bpdp3, I also went a similar path.

I began college in '86, but unfortunately, my college radio station was NOT one of those cool ones; it was actually an AOR station.

I continued to listen to new wave.
I also discovered the massive 4AD catalog and tried my best to hunt down Dead Can Dance, Cocteaux, This Mortal Coil, etc.

Early acid house & techno: YES! I lived in Italy for a year in '89 and got exposed to this stuff in the clubs over there. Wee Papa Girls were HUGE. The synthethic fake dance stuff on the US charts was a real turn-off--Debbie Gibson, Expose, etc.

I also started getting "into" classic rock, which was all around me at the time. That's when I began digging the Doors, Stones, Beatles, Grateful Dead, etc.

World music was another big draw. This is when I first heard the Middle Eastern, Indian, African, Gypsy, etc., music that I still love today.

Oh yeah, and lots of REM. And stuff out of the Pacific Northwest on the K records label--as well as SubPop--such as Beat Happening, Fastbacks, early Nirvana, Mudhoney, etc.

So for me, the late 80s was kind of a Big Blah. I wasn't really listening to anything new, except for House and very early Techno. It was primarily discovering older material.

[bigwavedave]

Good point about rediscovering classic rock in the late 80's, KYYX4ever. I remember a lot of that stuff being reissued on cd for the first time, so there would be a big buzz when some major classic rock artist's back catalog was rolled out in the cd format (Bowie, Beatles, Hendrix and The Stones for example).

The record companies loved it, because lots of people were buying their favorite artist's stuff for a second time, and then a third time once the inevitable remastered versions came out later!

[Otters Walk Among Us]

1986 to 1989 were my high school years and I was listening to almost every bit of "college rock" I could. There are so many great bands I still love from this era:
Pixies, Throwing Muses, Big Dipper, Dumptruck, Mighty Lemon Drops, Woodentops, Housemartins, etc.
Artists like the Smiths, the Church, Husker Du, Replacements, REM, INXS, Squeeze, Echo & the Bunnymen, etc. continued to put out excellent albums.

I think if I had known about the whole Brititsh "C86" scene at the time, I would have exploded.

Albums I love from just 1988:
Billy Bragg - Worker's Playtime
CVB - Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
The Chesterfields - Crocodile Tears
The Church - Starfish
Cocteau Twins - Blue Bell Knoll
Dead Can Dace - Serpent's Egg
Dumptruck - For the Country
Erasure - The Innocents
The Fall - The Frenz Experiment
The Feelies - Only Life
The Fixx- Phantoms
For Against - December
The Go-Betweens - 16 Lovers Lane
James - Strip Mine
Jasmine Minks - Another Age
Jesus & Mary Chain - Barbed Wire Kisses

eh, I'm tired of typing, but you get the idea.

[bigwavedave]

Good call on the Smiths, Mighty Lemon Drops, Housemartins and Woodentops, Otter! Let's not forget Midnight Oil's "Diesel And Dust" too!

[Mechi]

I was a baby at that time but I'm pretty sure that if I was older I would have got into Madchester: Happy Mondays, The Stones Roses, EMF, Soup Dragons. I also would have got into Pixies.

http://sicksadworldwelivein.blogspot.com

[SuNomi]

Some diamonds in the rough:

1985

Prefab Sprout - Steve McQueen
Stan Ridgway - The Big Heat
Style Council - Internationalists
REM - Life's Rich Paegant
Jazz Butcher - Sex and Travel
Killing Joke - Night Time
Kate Bush - Hounds of Love

1986

The Fall - This Nations Saving Grace
Wire - The Ideal Copy
Billy Bragg - Talking With The Taxman About Poetry
Love and Rockets - Seventh Dream of Teenage Heaven
XTC - Skylarking
Public Image - Album

1987

This was a tough year. Nothing comes to mind...
Wait!
10,000 Maniacs - In My Tribe

1988

The Waterboys - Fisherman's Blues
Billy Bragg - Worker's Playtime
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
X - See How We Are
They Might Be Giants - debut

1989

Lou Reed - New York
Joe Jackson - Blaze of Glory
Indigo Girls - debut
REM - Green
Poi Dog Pondering - debut
Sugarcubes - Life's Too Good
Robyn Hitchcock - Queen Elvis

[Ollie Stench]

By 1986 I had given up on current electronic music. After bands like Duran Duran and The Thompson Twins spawned 4th rate immitators I had no interest. Parallel to New Wave I was also really into the punk rock thing which I got completely burned out on by 1989. Funny enough between 88-90 I was "singing" in a punk band but listening to anything but.

Also in 1988 I started dating a girl who was more into the pop side of things and she played alot of stuff like The Cocteau Twins, Cowboy Junkies, 10,000 Maniacs, etc. She was a huge Nick Cave fan as well.

Along with the girlfriend's tastes I delved deeper into earlier forms of music, Delta Blues, rock-a-abilly, (pre 1976) country, a bit of jazz, as well as alot of 70's glam like Gary Glitter, Suzy Quatro, Mud, The Sweet, Roxy Music, Slade, etc. I was also really into the Sisters Of Mercy, Jesus & Mary Chain, Alien Sex Fiend, Lords of the New Church, Specimen... but I never really was a "goth", and my best friend was really into the Wax Trax/Play It Again Sam scene so he played me bands like Front 242, Portion Control, A Split Second, Mussolini Headkick and the like.

I guess I really regressed around then. Techno and house really did nothing for me at all, Madchester was like nails on a chalkboard to my ears, and when Grunge hit it just pissed me off.

It wasn't until about 1993 when punk rock started turning back to a more rock sound (as opposed to thrash or metal) that I got interested in what was current, and then just a few years ago I really got into the electroclash bands. Ladytron, Chicks On Speed, Adult, etc all reminded me of the stuff I really liked in 80-84.

[Quite Life]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Synthpopfan[/i]
<br>In 88' I was listening to Camouflage, Gangway,OMD,& the list goes on. I felt the late 80`s was my best music buying spree.[:p]

On my local New Wave Modern Rock Radio, The DJ (Steve Masters) would put on his Techno, Industrial,& New Wave mixes that were always great & covered just about everything. LOL, I use to spend hours recording them on a crappy tape.
[/quote]Steve Masters Sucked!!!!! He was the one on live 105 I did not like. BTW I only like the old QUAKE DJs. He as a 30 something back around 87-88 like to pick up on under age chicks like at 15 minutes dance club and him and this 16 year old at the Red Flag/Tone Loc show at the Warfield during Christmas 88.

In the late 80s I was a Vespa riding Skinhead Boot boy......


Speaking of late 80s disco who sang "This is Acid"???????

[ghosty]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Quite Life[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by Synthpopfan[/i]
<br>In 88' I was listening to Camouflage, Gangway,OMD,& the list goes on. I felt the late 80`s was my best music buying spree.[:p]

On my local New Wave Modern Rock Radio, The DJ (Steve Masters) would put on his Techno, Industrial,& New Wave mixes that were always great & covered just about everything. LOL, I use to spend hours recording them on a crappy tape.
[/quote]Steve Masters Sucked!!!!! He was the one on live 105 I did not like. BTW I only like the old QUAKE DJs. He as a 30 something back around 87-88 like to pick up on under age chicks like at 15 minutes dance club and him and this 16 year old at the Red Flag/Tone Loc show at the Warfield during Christmas 88.

In the late 80s I was a Vespa riding Skinhead Boot boy......


Speaking of late 80s disco who sang "This is Acid"???????
[/quote]

Maurice sang "This Is Acid".

[tatermaven]

I thought the late 80s were a great time for music! I was making all sorts of sonic discoveries back then.

I'm sort of relieved that a couple of you mentioned metal. I was never one for hair bands, personally, but even in the late 80s I hadn't yet completely abandoned the genre (which I really loved in my junior-high-school years in the mid-80s). Even in the late 80s, I was still listening to early Anthrax and Celtic Frost and King Diamond.

Crossover was still in its heyday, then, too, and I hadn't outgrown it...S.O.D., M.O.D., D.R.I., other bands with initials for names. I was partial to the Crumbsuckers and Ludichrist.

But I guess I started to expand my musical horizons around the same time. The Pixies' <I>Doolittle</I> was one of my favorites of the era. Of the higher-profile modern rock bands (or whatever buzz-adjectives were used before "alternative" became the norm), I also liked Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, The Call, Midnight Oil, Throwing Muses, The Church, the Sugarcubes, Concrete Blonde...

My tastes were all over the place. I really latched onto any new music that caught my fancy, regardless of genre. My tastes started becoming much more obscure when I started listening to wee-hours college radio shows and ordering cassettes from virtually unheard-of bands in the backs of fanzines.

I remember Sub Pop was just starting to make some buzz around '88 or '89 or so. Already a lot of people were talking about Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Green River, and even, yes, Nirvana. Funny how the whole Seattle movement later came to epitomize everything that was wrong with so-called alternative music not a decade later...

I think Steel Pole Bath Tub's <I>Butterfly Love</I> (from '89) was one of my biggest truly underground discoveries in terms of decidedly cementing my tastes for the early 90s...

[Ollie Stench]

I was also a H-U-G-E fan of Zodiac Mindwarp & the Love Reaction. Still am, even though their new stuff isn't all that great.

[Sean]

At the end of the 80's, I listened to a lot of Camouflage, Cetu Javu, Anything Box, Red Flag, Moskwa TV, the second line-up of Boytronic, etc. I guess this was the start of the synthpop movement of the 90's. I also loved Freestyle.

[harleytexas]

[quote]
PS. Anyone got Wee Papa Girls on CD? Was it even released on CD? I'm also looking for a digital version of this Hard Beat (on Komplete Kaos) compilation:
http://www.discogs.com/release/208742
[/quote]

I have it somewhere still I think. I found it on amazon for you.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00000 ... nce&n=5174

I got into the whole acid house/body music/industrial music scene at the end of the 80's.

[ghosty]

[quote][i]Originally posted by ElectricLash[/i]
<br>One of the last bands to pique my interest in the waning days of the 80's was the Stone Roses, mainly to all the hype they were garnering, but their debut (and only album, if I recall correctly) didn't disappoint. It's a great album.

Although I wasn't into the so-called "shoegazer" scene as a whole, I did listen to the more poppier stuff, such as Ride, Lush, etc.

I never got into the Manchester stuff (was that in the late 80's or early 90's?) but I liked a few songs here and there.

In the 90's there wasn't much for me I'm sorry to say, except for Oasis and a few obscure power pop bands. You'd think with Rap rearing its ugly head that it would have steered me to anything labelled "alternative" but to me, most alternative in the 90's sucked.
[/quote]

The Stone Roses had a follow-up in 1994 called "Second Coming". It sounds NOTHING like the first album to everyone's detriment.

Of course I completely disagree about most Alternative in the 90's sucking.
I'd say most popular music usually sucks. Certainly the 80's was one big suck job for the most part except for a small pocket of great music (which is why I'm here).