this is kind of a weird question. it came to me in a dream.

i miss the days (almost 3 years ago) when the only artists i listened to were Blondie, Deborah Harry and Madonna. i was really, really into them. i listend to all day and night. i was wowed and fascinated with them. now i hardly ever listen to any of them. i haven't even gotten Deborah's album that was released a couple months ago yet. and i'm into about 100 different artists now. this is probably really dramatic to say this, but i just feel like i was more "innocent" in those days. like i was content to listen to only 3 artists. then came the time when i wanted to listen to everything and everybody. i..........think i like too many artists now. it's really hard for my whole..........album collection to get a nice rotation of listens...

Being born in the late 1950's, I feel I missed on the comedy output of the BBC in that decade, which I have grown to appreciate in the course of my life. The main stay of the comedy then was The Goons (Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe) and Hancock's Half Hour (with Tony Hancock).

There were things I loved in high school, that were such a part of my identity and I don't really identify with any of them anymore.  I don't really regret that, though.  Finding new things, expanding your mind, those things make life more interesting.

this is kind of a weird question. it came to me in a dream.

i miss the days (almost 3 years ago) when the only artists i listened to were Blondie, Deborah Harry and Madonna. i was really, really into them. i listend to all day and night. i was wowed and fascinated with them. now i hardly ever listen to any of them. i haven't even gotten Deborah's album that was released a couple months ago yet. and i'm into about 100 different artists now. this is probably really dramatic to say this, but i just feel like i was more "innocent" in those days. like i was content to listen to only 3 artists. then came the time when i wanted to listen to everything and everybody. i..........think i like too many artists now. it's really hard for my whole..........album collection to get a nice rotation of listens...




   It's a good thing.  Uncomplicated might be a better term for it, rather than innocent.  It's the rare artist where I actually dig most of the songs from every one of their albums, AC/DC coming the closest...

   High school was strange in that, in some cases, my taste for a particular artist (or genre) was only a secondary consideration, politics being the main factor.  For example, your clique regards Motley Crue as the best thing since pockets.  So that's what you listen to.  The fact that I think they're overrated is missing the point.  The pressure to fit in, especially at that age, is tremendous...

   Only a teen in the 80s could understand what a sin it was to have anything to do with Def Leppard after 1983, well at least in California...

You know, that's a really good point. I've thought about that awhile too. When there wasn't as much music I listened to, what I did like seemed more special in a way. I've always stuck with anything I've enjoyed and have only added to it along the way. But, like in my first 8 or 9 years, I primarily only knew what was on the radio, or what my parents (and to a lesser extent, other people such as babysitters) listened to. There was maybe like 300 songs altogether that I was familar with...and just with that, I felt content and comfortable. Whereas today it's just one section of everything I like.

Actually this kept up to a small extent until the Internet started getting really popular when I was about 15 in 1996/'97. For most of the Nineties, the way I knew about music was often through MTV and VH1...so sometimes I'd wait for a certain video to come on. It felt much simpler and the world kinda seemed bigger.

This was cool too, because a higher percentage of stuff was still a "mystery" that I maybe didn't know about. For instance, just a little over ten years ago it was still very common for me to hear some song on the radio (which I may have totally forgotten about beforehand, yet had heard before) and go "Oh yeah I remember this one!" That doesn't really happen now so much, since I already own most of what I like, or at least know about it. So the simple fun of discovery is partially gone.

There was still alot of stuff which I liked and didn't yet have. So I looked forward to adding to my music collection much more up until my high school years.

Deborah Gibson during her 'electric youth'

Or when Looney Tunes, Disney, and other vintage animation were still shown on tv... or when MTV still aired music videos...

   High school was strange in that, in some cases, my taste for a particular artist (or genre) was only a secondary consideration, politics being the main factor.  For example, your clique regards Motley Crue as the best thing since pockets.  So that's what you listen to.  The fact that I think they're overrated is missing the point.  The pressure to fit in, especially at that age, is tremendous...

   Only a teen in the 80s could understand what a sin it was to have anything to do with Def Leppard after 1983, well at least in California...


I was a teen in the 80's, and I understand! I was a closet Def Leppard fan as a student in a Christian High School....

I was a teen in the 80's, and I understand! I was a closet Def Leppard fan as a student in a Christian High School....



   I made the mistake of putting a Def Leppard bumper sticker on my trapper and narrowly avoided being lynched..!

   They were insanely popular for, like, a year (Pyromania).  After that there was this huge backlash, but of course, in the early 80s that was just pissing into the wind...

  Typo...

I think Pyromania was the first hair metal album in many ways, even if it didn't get really popular until Bon Jovi came out. Songs like "Photograph" had that combination of heavy music with catchy choruses that pop fans could equally like. "Foolin'" is like a power ballad too, even if it's a bit darker and isn't slow all the way through.

From 1983 to some time in '86 hair metal was sort of rougher and usually just came into the mainstream in spurts. The saturation period was 1987 to 1990 or early '91.

I think Pyromania was the first hair metal album in many ways, even if it didn't get really popular until Bon Jovi came out. Songs like "Photograph" had that combination of heavy music with catchy choruses that pop fans could equally like. "Foolin'" is like a power ballad too, even if it's a bit darker and isn't slow all the way through.

From 1983 to some time in '86 hair metal was sort of rougher and usually just came into the mainstream in spurts. The saturation period was 1987 to 1990 or early '91.
I just watching a documentary on Def Leppard on VH1 Classic. I actually have their Greatest Hits Album called "Vault 1980-1995". I haven't listened to it in like years though. They're a great band though I think. "Two Steps Behind" was a good ballad by them in the early 90's.

I

I just watching a documentary on Def Leppard on VH1 Classic. I actually have their Greatest Hits Album called "Vault 1980-1995". I haven't listened to it in like years though. They're a great band though I think. "Two Steps Behind" was a good ballad by them in the early 90's.

I


I have that album too..and yes, it is very good.

I think Pyromania was the first hair metal album in many ways, even if it didn't get really popular until Bon Jovi came out. Songs like "Photograph" had that combination of heavy music with catchy choruses that pop fans could equally like. "Foolin'" is like a power ballad too, even if it's a bit darker and isn't slow all the way through.

From 1983 to some time in '86 hair metal was sort of rougher and usually just came into the mainstream in spurts. The saturation period was 1987 to 1990 or early '91.


   True for hair metal.  I used Def Leppard to illustrate a point.  Hair metal went down with a whimper...

   I say the early 80s (above) because my impression, almost two decades later, is that the music of the decade was still, uh...searching for itself?  Yeah, that's it.  Searching.  It was all over the place.  It hadn't jelled, just yet.  It hadn't found it's stride...

   By the mid 80s, popular music had settled down on the porch swing, on a warm evening, in a camp shirt and linen trousers with a cool glass of iced tea...

   How else can you explain the mudane mediocrity of Huey Lewis & the News, one of the biggest acts of the decade..?  :)

this is kind of a weird question. it came to me in a dream.

i miss the days (almost 3 years ago) when the only artists i listened to were Blondie, Deborah Harry and Madonna. i was really, really into them. i listend to all day and night. i was wowed and fascinated with them. now i hardly ever listen to any of them. i haven't even gotten Deborah's album that was released a couple months ago yet. and i'm into about 100 different artists now. this is probably really dramatic to say this, but i just feel like i was more "innocent" in those days. like i was content to listen to only 3 artists. then came the time when i wanted to listen to everything and everybody. i..........think i like too many artists now. it's really hard for my whole..........album collection to get a nice rotation of listens...




I often feel this way about MP3's and downloading music. Before they came a long, my musical tastes were healthy. Then when Napster and Kazaa and Audiogalaxy came along, I would download anything I could because for so long I had wanted these songs and I was finally able to have them in my hands after listening to them for so many years on the radio and so on. Now it feels like the MP3 has sort of robbed me of that "innocence" of discovering something the old fashioned way. I guess this happens to every generation (new technology adds/takes away from something old and innocent of it's time).

Growing up in the '80s, my brother and I used to get into fights about which groups the other liked.

He was into stuff like ZZ Top, mainly because he was in the throes of puberty, and looked for stuff like the moaning sounds in "Gimme All Your Loving", and that kinda shtuff.

I, on the other hand, liked groups like:

Styx (the "Kilroy Was Here" LP had just hit)
The Tubes (Fee Waybill was hosting a show called "Saturday night Videos", or something)
Journey (mainly because my sister liked them)
Y&T (I think I am the only person left who likes this group)
Thomas Dolby ("Hyperactive!" had just hit the airwaves)
Men At Work (My first exposure into Aussie music)

Looking back on it, I rather miss those days.
If I could travel back to the '80s, I'd stick myself in a perpetual time warp.
(As I am now, natch!)