A Different Look at the 80s

A Different Look at the 80s

Generally, the 80s were a giant mass of suck, culturally, politically, socially, economically, and any other "-ally" you can think of (though I still find myself wavering on which decade was worse - the 70s or the 80s - with my opinion usually but not always falling with the latter).

That said, Thom Jurek has an intersting look at the 80s in terms of music at the Allmusic Guide. Instead of evaluating the quality of the music of that decade, he offers a compelling look at how the 80s were the last time that rock and roll was fun and celebrated excess, and how the late-80s and 90s sent us into a music scene in which the artists wallow in pain, and there's little enjoyable or thrilling about life. (He also makes some important allusions to just how important MTV was, a fact we increasingly forget or let fade into the background given their retreat from showing music videos really in the two years following Kurt Cobain's suicide). Anyhow, he provides a well-written and compelling argument for the use for fun, rebellious rock and roll, all while never falling into a debate about whether many of those bands in the 80s were good or not that would transcend his point.